In the Heart of Africa

CHAPTER XIV.

Startling dis­clo­sures–The last hope seems gone–The Bari chief’s ad­vice–Hop­ing for the best–Ho for Cen­tral Africa!

We were to start up­on the fol­low­ing Mon­day. Ma­hommed had paid me a vis­it, as­sur­ing me of his de­vo­tion, and beg­ging me to have my bag­gage in march­ing or­der, as he would send me fifty porters on Mon­day, and we would move off in com­pa­ny. At the very mo­ment that he thus pro­fessed, he was cool­ly de­ceiv­ing me. He had ar­ranged to start with­out me on Sat­ur­day, while he was propos­ing to march to­geth­er on Mon­day. This I did not know at the time.

One morn­ing I had re­turned to the tent af­ter hav­ing, as usu­al, in­spect­ed the trans­port an­imals, when I ob­served Mrs. Bak­er look­ing ex­traor­di­nar­ily pale, and im­me­di­ate­ly up­on my ar­rival she gave or­ders for the pres­ence of the va­keel (head­man). There was some­thing in her man­ner so dif­fer­ent from her usu­al calm, that I was ut­ter­ly be­wil­dered when I heard her ques­tion the va­keel, whether the men were will­ing to march. “Per­fect­ly ready,” was the re­ply. “Then or­der them to strike the tent and load the an­imals; we start this mo­ment.”

The man ap­peared con­fused, but not more so than I. Some­thing was ev­ident­ly on foot, but what I could not con­jec­ture. The va­keel wa­vered, and to my as­ton­ish­ment I heard the ac­cu­sa­tion made against him that dur­ing the night the whole of the es­cort had muti­nous­ly con­spired to desert me, with my arms and am­mu­ni­tion that were in their hands, and to fire si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at me should I at­tempt to dis­arm them. At first this charge was in­dig­nant­ly de­nied, un­til the boy Saat man­ful­ly stepped for­ward and de­clared that the con­spir­acy was en­tered in­to by the whole of the es­cort, and that both he and Richarn, know­ing that mutiny was in­tend­ed, had lis­tened pur­pose­ly to the con­ver­sa­tion dur­ing the night; at day­break the boy re­port­ed the fact to his mis­tress. Mutiny, rob­bery, and mur­der were thus de­lib­er­ate­ly de­ter­mined.

I im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered an an­garep (trav­el­ling bed­stead) to be placed out­side the tent un­der a large tree. Up­on this I laid five dou­ble-​bar­relled guns load­ed with buck­shot, a re­volver, and a naked sabre as sharp as a ra­zor. A sixth ri­fle I kept in my hands while I sat up­on the an­garep, with Richarn and Saat both with dou­ble- bar­relled guns be­hind me. For­mer­ly I had sup­plied each of my men with a piece of mack­in­tosh wa­ter­proof to be tied over the locks of their guns dur­ing the march. I now or­dered the drum to be beat­en, and all the men to form in line in march­ing or­der, with their locks TIED UP IN THE WA­TER­PROOF. I re­quest­ed Mrs. Bak­er to stand be­hind me and point out any man who should at­tempt to un­cov­er his locks when I should give the or­der to lay down their arms. The act of un­cov­er­ing the locks would prove his in­ten­tion, in which event I in­tend­ed to shoot him im­me­di­ate­ly and take my chance with the rest of the con­spir­ators.

I had quite de­ter­mined that these scoundrels should not rob me of my own arms and am­mu­ni­tion, if I could pre­vent it.

The drum beat, and the va­keel him­self went in­to the men’s quar­ters and en­deav­ored to pre­vail up­on them to an­swer the call. At length fif­teen as­sem­bled in line; the oth­ers were nowhere to be found. The locks of the arms were se­cured by mack­in­tosh as or­dered. It was thus im­pos­si­ble for any man to fire at me un­til he should have re­leased his locks.

Up­on as­sem­bling in line I or­dered them im­me­di­ate­ly to lay down their arms. This, with in­so­lent looks of de­fi­ance, they re­fused to do. “Down with your guns thus mo­ment,” I shout­ed, “sons of dogs!” And at the sharp click of the locks, as I quick­ly cocked the ri­fle that I held in my hands, the cow­ard­ly mu­ti­neers widened their line and wa­vered. Some re­treat­ed a few paces to the rear; oth­ers sat down and laid their guns on the ground, while the re­main­der slow­ly dis­persed, and sat in twos or singly, un­der the var­ious trees about eighty paces dis­tant. Tak­ing ad­van­tage of their in­de­ci­sion, I im­me­di­ate­ly rose and or­dered my va­keel and Richarn to dis­arm them as they were thus scat­tered. Fore­see­ing that the time had ar­rived for ac­tu­al phys­ical force, the cow­ards ca­pit­ulat­ed, agree­ing to give up their arms and am­mu­ni­tion if I would give them their writ­ten dis­charge. I dis­armed them im­me­di­ate­ly, and the va­keel hav­ing writ­ten a dis­charge for the fif­teen men present, I wrote up­on each pa­per the word “mu­ti­neer” above my sig­na­ture. None of them be­ing able to read, and this be­ing writ­ten in En­glish, they un­con­scious­ly car­ried the ev­idence of their own guilt, which I re­solved to pun­ish should I ev­er find them on my re­turn to Khar­toum.

Thus dis­armed, they im­me­di­ate­ly joined oth­er of the traders’ par­ties. These fif­teen men were the “Ja­lyns” of my par­ty, the re­main­der be­ing Don­golowas–all Arabs of the Nile, north of Khar­toum. The Don­golowas had not ap­peared when sum­moned by the drum, and my va­keel be­ing of their na­tion, I im­pressed up­on him his re­spon­si­bil­ity for the mutiny, and that he would end his days in prison at Khar­toum should my ex­pe­di­tion fail.

The boy Saat and Richarn now as­sured me that the men had in­tend­ed to fire at me, but that they were fright­ened at see­ing us thus pre­pared, but that I must not ex­pect one man of the Don­golowas to be any more faith­ful than the Ja­lyns. I or­dered the va­keel to hunt up the men and to bring me their guns, threat­en­ing that if they re­fused I would shoot any man that I found with one of my guns in his hands.

There was no time for mild mea­sures. I had on­ly Saat (a mere child) and Richarn up­on whom I could de­pend; and I re­solved with them alone to ac­com­pa­ny Ma­hommed’s peo­ple to the in­te­ri­or, and to trust to good for­tune for a chance of pro­ceed­ing.

I was fever­ish and ill with wor­ry and anx­iety, and I was ly­ing down up­on my mat when I sud­den­ly heard guns fir­ing in all di­rec­tions, drums beat­ing, and the cus­tom­ary signs of ei­ther an ar­rival or de­par­ture of a trad­ing par­ty. Present­ly a mes­sen­ger ar­rived from Koor­shid Aga, the Cir­cas­sian, to an­nounce the de­par­ture of Ma­hommed’s par­ty with­out me, and my va­keel ap­peared with a mes­sage from the same peo­ple, that if I fol­lowed on their road (my pro­posed route) they would fire up­on me and my par­ty, as they would al­low no En­glish spies in their coun­try.

My last hope seemed gone. No ex­pe­di­tion had ev­er been more care­ful­ly planned; ev­ery­thing had been well ar­ranged to in­sure suc­cess. My trans­port an­imals were in good con­di­tion, their sad­dles and pads had been made un­der my own in­spec­tion, my arms, am­mu­ni­tion, and sup­plies were abun­dant, and I was ready to march at five min­utes’ no­tice to any part of Africa; but the ex­pe­di­tion, so cost­ly and so care­ful­ly or­ga­nized, was com­plete­ly ru­ined by the very peo­ple whom I had en­gaged to pro­tect it. They had not on­ly de­sert­ed, but they had con­spired to mur­der. There was no law in these wild re­gions but brute force; hu­man life was of no val­ue; mur­der was a pas­time, as the mur­der­er could es­cape all pun­ish­ment. Mr. Peth­er­ick’s va­keel had just been shot dead by one of his own men, and such events were too com­mon to cre­ate much at­ten­tion. We were ut­ter­ly help­less, the whole of the peo­ple against us, and open­ly threat­en­ing. For my­self per­son­al­ly I had no anx­iety; but the fact of Mrs. Bak­er’s be­ing with me was my great­est care. I dared not think of her po­si­tion in the event of my death among such sav­ages as those around her. These thoughts were shared by her; but she, know­ing that I had re­solved to suc­ceed, nev­er once hint­ed an ad­vice for re­treat.

Richarn was as faith­ful as Saat, and I ac­cord­ing­ly con­fid­ed in him my res­olu­tion to leave all my bag­gage in charge of a friend­ly chief of the Baris at Gon­do­ko­ro, and to take two fast dromedaries for him and Saat, and two hors­es for Mrs. Bak­er and my­self, and to make a push through the hos­tile tribe for three days, to ar­rive among friend­ly peo­ple at “Moir,” from which place I trust­ed to for­tune. I ar­ranged that the dromedaries should car­ry a few beads, am­mu­ni­tion, and the as­tro­nom­ical in­stru­ments.

Richarn said the idea was very mad; that the na­tives would do noth­ing for beads; that he had had great ex­pe­ri­ence on the White Nile when with a for­mer mas­ter, and that the na­tives would do noth­ing with­out re­ceiv­ing cows as pay­ment; that it was of no use to be good to them, as they had no re­spect for any virtue but “force;” that we should most like­ly be mur­dered; but that if I or­dered him to go, he was ready to obey.

I was de­light­ed with Richarn’s rough and frank fi­deli­ty. Or­der­ing the hors­es to be brought, I care­ful­ly pared their feet. Their hard flinty hoofs, that had nev­er felt a shoe, were in ex­cel­lent or­der for a gal­lop, if nec­es­sary. All be­ing ready, I sent for the chief of Gon­do­ko­ro. Mean­while a Bari boy ar­rived, sent by Koor­shid Aga, to act as my in­ter­preter.

The Bari chief was, as usu­al, smeared all over with red ochre and fat, and had the shell of a small land tor­toise sus­pend­ed to his el­bow as an or­na­ment. I pro­posed to him my plan of rid­ing quick­ly through the Bari tribe to Moir. He replied, “Im­pos­si­ble! If I were to beat the great nog­aras (drums), and call my peo­ple to­geth­er to ex­plain who you are, they would not hurt you; but there are many pet­ty chiefs who do not obey me, and their peo­ple would cer­tain­ly at­tack you when cross­ing some swollen tor­rent, and what could you do with on­ly a man and a boy?”

His re­ply to my ques­tion con­cern­ing the val­ue of beads cor­rob­orat­ed Richarn’s state­ment: noth­ing could be pur­chased for any­thing but cat­tle. The traders had com­menced the sys­tem of steal­ing herds of cat­tle from one tribe to barter with the next neigh­bor; thus the en­tire coun­try was in an­ar­chy and con­fu­sion, and beads were of no val­ue. My plan for a dash through the coun­try was im­prac­ti­ca­ble.

I there­fore called my va­keel, and threat­ened him with the gravest pun­ish­ment on my re­turn to Khar­toum. I wrote to Sir R. Colquhoun, H.M. Con­sul-​Gen­er­al for Egypt, which let­ter I sent by one of the re­turn boats, and I ex­plained to my va­keel that the com­plaint to the British au­thor­ities would end in his im­pris­on­ment, and that in case of my death through vi­olence he would as­sured­ly be hanged. Af­ter fright­en­ing him thor­ough­ly, I sug­gest­ed that he should in­duce some of the mu­ti­neers, who were Don­golowas (his own tribe), many of whom were his rel­atives, to ac­com­pa­ny me, in which case I would for­give them their past mis­con­duct.

In the course of the af­ter­noon he re­turned with the news that he had ar­ranged with sev­en­teen of the men, but that they re­fused to march to­ward the south, and would ac­com­pa­ny me to the east if I wished to ex­plore that part of the coun­try. Their plea for re­fus­ing a south­ern route was the hos­til­ity of the Bari tribe. They al­so pro­posed a con­di­tion, that I should “LEAVE ALL MY TRANS­PORT AN­IMALS AND BAG­GAGE BE­HIND ME.” To this in­sane re­quest, which com­plete­ly nul­li­fied their of­fer to start, I on­ly replied by vow­ing vengeance against the va­keel.

The time was passed by the men in vo­cif­er­ous­ly quar­relling among them­selves dur­ing the day and in close con­fer­ence with the va­keel dur­ing the night, the sub­stance of which was re­port­ed on the fol­low­ing morn­ing by the faith­ful Saat. The boy re­count­ed their plot. They agreed to march to the east, with the in­ten­tion of de­sert­ing me at the sta­tion of a trad­er named Chenoo­da, sev­en days’ march from Gon­do­ko­ro, in the La­tooka coun­try, whose men were, like them­selves, Don­golowas; they had con­spired to mutiny at that place and to desert to the slave-​hunt­ing par­ty with my arms and am­mu­ni­tion, and to shoot me should I at­tempt to dis­arm them. They al­so threat­ened to shoot my va­keel, who now, through fear of pun­ish­ment at Khar­toum, ex­ert­ed his in­flu­ence to in­duce them to start. Al­to­geth­er it was a pleas­ant state of things.

I was de­ter­mined at all haz­ards to start from Gon­do­ko­ro for the in­te­ri­or. From long ex­pe­ri­ence with na­tives of wild coun­tries I did not de­spair of ob­tain­ing an in­flu­ence over my men, how­ev­er bad, could I once quit Gon­do­ko­ro and lead them among the wild and gen­er­al­ly hos­tile tribes of the coun­try. They would then be sep­arat­ed from the con­ta­gion of the slave-​hunt­ing par­ties, and would feel them­selves de­pen­dent up­on me for guid­ance. Ac­cord­ing­ly I pro­fessed to be­lieve in their promis­es to ac­com­pa­ny me to the east, al­though I knew of their con­spir­acy; and I trust­ed that by tact and good man­age­ment I should even­tu­al­ly thwart all their plans, and, al­though forced out of my in­tend­ed course, should be able to al­ter my route and to work round from the east to my orig­inal plan of op­er­ations south. The in­ter­preter giv­en by Koor­shid Aga had ab­scond­ed; this was a great loss, as I had no means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the na­tives ex­cept by ca­su­al­ly en­gag­ing a Bari in the em­ploy­ment of the traders, to whom I was obliged to pay ex­or­bi­tant­ly in cop­per bracelets for a few min­utes’ con­ver­sa­tion.

A par­ty of Koor­shid’s peo­ple had just ar­rived with ivory from the La­tooka coun­try, bring­ing with them a num­ber of that tribe as porters. They were to re­turn short­ly, but they not on­ly re­fused to al­low me to ac­com­pa­ny them, but they de­clared their in­ten­tion of forcibly re­pelling me, should I at­tempt to ad­vance by their route. This was a good ex­cuse for my men, who once more re­fused to pro­ceed. By pres­sure up­on the va­keel they again yield­ed, but on con­di­tion that I would take one of the mu­ti­neers named “Bel­laal,” who wished to join them, but whose of­fer I had re­fused, as he had been a no­to­ri­ous ringlead­er in ev­ery mutiny. It was a sine qua non that he was to go; and know­ing the char­ac­ter of the man, I felt con­vinced that it had been ar­ranged that he should head the mutiny con­spired to be en­act­ed up­on our ar­rival at Chenoo­da’s camp in the La­tooka coun­try.

The plan that I had ar­ranged was to leave all the bag­gage not in­dis­pens­able with Koor­shid Aga at Gon­do­ko­ro, who would re­turn it to Khar­toum. I in­tend­ed to wait un­til Koor­shid’s par­ty should march, when I re­solved to fol­low them, as I did not be­lieve they would dare to op­pose me by force, their mas­ter him­self be­ing friend­ly. I con­sid­ered their threats as mere idle boast­ing to fright­en me from an at­tempt to fol­low them; but there was an­oth­er more se­ri­ous cause of dan­ger to be ap­pre­hend­ed.

On the route be­tween Gon­do­ko­ro and La­tooka there was a pow­er­ful tribe among the moun­tains of El­lyr­ia. The chief of that tribe (Legge) had for­mer­ly mas­sa­cred a hun­dred and twen­ty of a trad­er’s par­ty. He was an al­ly of Koor­shid’s peo­ple, who de­clared that they would raise the tribe against me, which would end in the de­feat or mas­sacre of my par­ty. There was a dif­fi­cult pass through the moun­tains of El­lyr­ia which it would be im­pos­si­ble to force; thus my small par­ty of sev­en­teen men would be help­less. It would be mere­ly nec­es­sary for the traders to re­quest the chief of El­lyr­ia to at­tack my par­ty to in­sure its de­struc­tion, as the plun­der of the bag­gage would be an am­ple re­ward.

There was no time for de­lib­er­ation. Both the present and the fu­ture looked as gloomy as could be imag­ined; but I had al­ways ex­pect­ed ex­traor­di­nary dif­fi­cul­ties, and they were, if pos­si­ble, to be sur­mount­ed. It was use­less to spec­ulate up­on chances. There was no hope of suc­cess in in­ac­tion, and the on­ly re­source was to drive through all ob­sta­cles with­out cal­cu­lat­ing the risk.

The day ar­rived for the de­par­ture of Koor­shid’s peo­ple. They com­menced fir­ing their usu­al sig­nals, the drums beat, the Turk­ish en­sign led the way, and they marched at 2 o’clock P.M., send­ing a po­lite mes­sage “DAR­ING” me to fol­low them.

I im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered the tent to be struck, the lug­gage to be ar­ranged, the an­imals to be col­lect­ed, and ev­ery­thing to be ready for the march. Richarn and Saat were in high spir­its; even my un­will­ing men were obliged to work, and by 7 P.M. we were all ready.

We had nei­ther guide nor in­ter­preter. Not one na­tive was procur­able, all be­ing un­der the in­flu­ence of the traders, who had de­ter­mined to ren­der our ad­vance ut­ter­ly im­pos­si­ble by pre­vent­ing the na­tives from as­sist­ing us. All had been threat­ened, and we, per­fect­ly help­less, com­menced the des­per­ate jour­ney in dark­ness about an hour af­ter sun­set.

“Where shall we go?” said the men, just as the or­der was giv­en to start. “Who can trav­el with­out a guide? No one knows the road.” The moon was up, and the moun­tain of Be­lig­nan was dis­tinct­ly vis­ible about nine miles dis­tant. Know­ing that the route lay on the east side of that moun­tain, I led the way, Mrs. Bak­er rid­ing by my side, and the British flag fol­low­ing close be­hind us as a guide for the car­avan of heav­ily laden camels and don­keys. And thus we start­ed on our march in­to Cen­tral Africa on the 26th of March, 1863.