The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile by Samuel White Baker (best ebook reader for chromebook .txt) 📖

captured herds.

 

This is the commencement of business: should there be ivory in any of

the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropriated; a general

plunder takes place. The trader’s party dig up the floors of the huts to

search for iron hoes, which are generally thus concealed, as the

greatest treasure of the negroes; the granaries are overturned and

wantonly destroyed, and the hands are cut off the bodies of the slain,

the more easily to detach the copper or iron bracelets that are usually

worn. With this booty the traders return to their negro ally: they have

thrashed and discomfited his enemy, which delights him; they present him

with thirty or forty head of cattle, which intoxicates him with joy, and

a present of a pretty little captive girl of about fourteen completes

his happiness.

 

But business only commenced. The negro covets cattle, and the trader has

now captured perhaps 2,000 head. They are to be had for ivory, and

shortly the tusks appear. Ivory is daily brought into camp in exchange

for cattle, a tusk for a cow, according to size—a profitable business,

as the cows have cost nothing. The trade proves brisk; but still there

remain some little customs to be observed—some slight formalities, well

understood by the White Nile trade. The slaves and two-thirds of the

captured cattle belong to the trader, but his men claim as their

perquisite one-third of the stolen animals. These having been divided,

the slaves are put up to public auction among the men, who purchase such

as they require; the amount being entered on the papers (serki) of the

purchasers, to be reckoned against their wages. To avoid the exposure,

should the document fall into the hands of the Government or European

consuls, the amount is not entered as for the purchase of a slave, but

is divided for fictitious supplies—thus, should a slave be purchased

for 1,000 piastres, that amount would appear on the document somewhat as

follows:

 

Soap … … … … . . 50 Piastres.

Tarboash(cap) … … … 100

Araki … … … … . 500

Shoes … … … … . 200

Cotton Cloth … … … 150

Total 1,000

 

The slaves sold to the men are constantly being changed and resold among

themselves; but should the relatives of the kidnapped women and children

wish to ransom them, the trader takes them from his men, cancels the

amount of purchase, and restores them to their relations for a certain

number of elephants’ tusks, as may be agreed upon. Should any slave

attempt to escape, she is punished either by brutal flogging, or shot or

hanged, as a warning to others.

 

An attack or razzia, such as described, generally leads to a quarrel

with the negro ally, who in his turn is murdered and plundered by the

trader—his women and children naturally becoming slaves.

 

A good season for a party of a hundred and fifty men should produce

about two hundred cantars (20,000 lbs.) of ivory, valued at Khartoum at

4,000 pounds. The men being paid in slaves, the wages should be nil, and

there should be a surplus of four or five hundred slaves for the

trader’s own profit—worth on an average five to six pounds each.

 

The boats are accordingly packed with a human cargo, and a portion of

the trader’s men accompany them to the Soudan, while the remainder of

the party form a camp or settlement in the country they have adopted,

and industriously plunder, massacre, and enslave, until their master’s

return with the boats from Khartoum in the following season, by which

time they are supposed to have a cargo of slaves and ivory ready for

shipment. The business thus thoroughly established, the slaves are

landed at various points within a few days’ journey of Khartoum, at

which places are agents, or purchasers; waiting to receive them with

dollars prepared for cash payments. The purchasers and dealers are, for

the most part, Arabs. The slaves are then marched across the country to

different places; many to Sennaar, where they are sold to other dealers,

who sell them to the Arabs and to the Turks. Others are taken immense

distances to ports on the Red Sea, Souakim, and Masowa, there to be

shipped for Arabia and Persia. Many are sent to Cairo, and in fact they

are disseminated throughout the slave-dealing East, the White Nile being

the great nursery for the supply.

 

The amiable trader returns from the White Nile to Khartoum; hands over

to his creditor sufficient ivory to liquidate the original loan of

1,000 pounds, and, already a man of capital, he commences as an

independent trader.

 

Such was the White Nile trade when I prepared to start from Khartoum on

my expedition to the Nile sources. Every one in Khartoum, with the

exception of a few Europeans, was in favor of the slave trade, and

looked with jealous eyes upon a stranger venturing within the precincts

of their holy land; a land sacred to slavery and to every abomination

and villany that man can commit.

 

The Turkish officials pretended to discountenance slavery: at the same

time every house in Khartoum was full of slaves, and the Egyptian

officers had been in the habit of receiving a portion of their pay in

slaves, precisely as the men employed on the White Nile were paid by

their employers. The Egyptian authorities looked upon the exploration of

the White Nile by a European traveller as an infringement of their slave

territory that resulted from espionage, and every obstacle was thrown in

my way.

 

Foreseeing many difficulties, I had been supplied, before leaving Egypt,

with a firman from H. E. Said Pasha the Viceroy, by the request of H. B.

M. agent, Sir R. Colquhoun; but this document was ignored by the

Governor-general of the Soudan, Moosa Pasha, under the miserable

prevarication that the firman was for the Pasha’s dominions and for the

Nile; whereas the White Nile was not accepted as the Nile, but was known

as the White River. I was thus refused boats, and in fact all

assistance.

 

To organize an enterprise so difficult that it had hitherto defeated the

whole world required a careful selection of attendants, and I looked

with despair at the prospect before me. The only men procurable for

escort were the miserable cutthroats of Khartoum, accustomed to murder

and pillage. in the White Nile trade, and excited not by the love of

adventure but by the desire for plunder: to start with such men appeared

mere insanity. There was a still greater difficulty in connection with

the White Nile. For years the infernal traffic in slaves and its

attendant horrors had existed like a pestilence in the negro countries,

and had so exasperated the tribes, that people who in former times were

friendly had become hostile to all comers. An exploration to the Nile

sources was thus a march through an enemy’s country, and required a

powerful force of well-armed men. For the traders there was no great

difficulty, as they took the initiative in hostilities, and had fixed

camps as “points d’appui;” but for an explorer there was no alternative

but a direct forward march without any communications with the rear. I

had but slight hope of success without assistance from the authorities

in the shape of men accustomed to discipline; I accordingly wrote to the

British consul at Alexandria, and requested him to apply for a few

soldiers and boats to aid me in so difficult an enterprise. After some

months’ delay, owing to the great distance from Khartoum, I received a

reply enclosing a letter from Ishmael Pasha (the present Viceroy), the

regent during the absence of Said Pasha, REFUSING the application.

 

I confess to the enjoyment of a real difficulty. From the first I had

observed that the Egyptian authorities did not wish to encourage English

explorations of the slave-producing districts, as such examinations

would be detrimental to the traffic, and would lead to reports to the

European governments that would ultimately prohibit the trade; it was

perfectly clear that the utmost would be done to prevent my expedition

from starting. This opposition gave a piquancy to the undertaking, and I

resolved that nothing should thwart my plans. Accordingly I set to work

in earnest. I had taken the precaution to obtain an order upon the

Treasury at Khartoum for what money I required, and as ready cash

performs wonders in that country of credit and delay, I was within a few

weeks ready to start. I engaged three vessels, including two large

noggurs or sailing barges, and a good decked vessel with comfortable

cabins, known by all Nile tourists as a diahbiah.

 

The preparations for such a voyage are no trifles. I required forty-five

armed men as escort, forty men as sailors, which, with servants, &c.,

raised my party to ninety-six. The voyage to Gondokoro, the navigable

limit of the Nile, was reported to be from forty-five to fifty days from

Khartoum, but provisions were necessary for four months, as the boatmen

would return to Khartoum with the vessels, after landing me and my

party. In the hope of meeting Speke and Grant’s party, I loaded the

boats with an extra quantity of corn, making a total of a hundred urdeps

(rather exceeding 400 bushels). I had arranged the boats to carry

twenty-one donkeys, four camels, and four horses; which I hoped would

render me independent of porters, the want of transport being the great

difficulty. The saddles, packs, and pads were all made under my own

superintendence; nor was the slightest trifle neglected in the necessary

arrangements for success. In all the detail, I was much assisted by a

most excellent man whom I had engaged to accompany me as my head man, a

German carpenter, Johann Schmidt. I had formerly met him hunting on the

banks of the Settite river, in the Base country, where he was

purchasing living animals from the Arabs, for a contractor to a

menagerie in Europe; he was an excellent sportsman, and an energetic and

courageous fellow; perfectly sober and honest. Alas! “the spirit was

willing, but the flesh was weak,” and a hollow cough, and emaciation,

attended with hurried respiration, suggested disease of the lungs. Day

after day he faded gradually, and I endeavoured to persuade him not to

venture upon such a perilous journey as that before me: nothing would

persuade him that he was in danger, and he had an idea that the climate

of Khartoum was more injurious than the White Nile, and that the voyage

would improve his health. Full of good feeling, and a wish to please, he

persisted in working and perfecting the various arrangements, when he

should have been saving his strength for a severer trial.

 

Meanwhile, my preparations progressed. I had clothed my men all in

uniform, and had armed them with double-barrelled guns and rifles. I

had explained to them thoroughly the object of my journey, and that

implicit obedience would be enforced, so long as they were in my

service; that no plunder would be permitted, and that their names were

to be registered at the public Divan before they started. They promised

fidelity and devotion, but a greater set of scoundrels in physiognomy I

never encountered. Each man received five months’ wages in advance, and

I gave them an entertainment, with abundance to eat and drink, to enable

them to start in good humor.

 

We were just ready to start; the supplies were all on board, the donkeys

and horses were shipped, when an officer arrived from the Divan, to

demand from me the poll tax that Moosa Pasha, the Governor-general, had

recently levied upon the inhabitants; and to inform me, that in the

event of my refusing to pay the said tax for each of my men, amounting

to one month’s