In the Heart of Africa

CHAPTER XVII

Dis­ease in the camp–For­ward un­der dif­fi­cul­ties–Our cup of mis­ery over­flows–A rain-​mak­er in a dilem­ma–Fever again–Ibrahim’s quandary–Fir­ing the prairie.

Sick­ness now rapid­ly spread among my an­imals. Five don­keys died with­in a few days, and the rest looked poor. Two of my camels died sud­den­ly, hav­ing eat­en the poi­son-​bush. With­in a few days of this dis­as­ter my good old hunter and com­pan­ion of all my for­mer sports in the Base coun­try, Tetel, died. These ter­ri­ble blows to my ex­pe­di­tion were most sat­is­fac­to­ry to the La­tookas, who ate the don­keys and oth­er an­imals the mo­ment they died. It was a race be­tween the na­tives and the vul­tures as to who should be first to prof­it by my loss­es.

Not on­ly were the an­imals sick, but my wife was laid up with a vi­olent at­tack of gas­tric fever, and I was al­so suf­fer­ing from dai­ly at­tacks of ague. The small- pox broke out among the Turks. Sev­er­al peo­ple died, and, to make mat­ters worse, they in­sist­ed up­on in­oc­ulat­ing them­selves and all their slaves; thus the whole camp was reek­ing with this hor­ri­ble dis­ease.

For­tu­nate­ly my camp was sep­arate and to wind­ward. I strict­ly for­bade my men to in­oc­ulate them­selves, and no case of the dis­ease oc­curred among my peo­ple; but it spread through­out the coun­try. Small-​pox is a scourge among the tribes of Cen­tral Africa, and it oc­ca­sion­al­ly sweeps through the coun­try and dec­imates the pop­ula­tion.

I had a long ex­am­ina­tion of Wani, the guide and in­ter­preter, re­spect­ing the coun­try of Ma­gun­go. Log­go, the Bari in­ter­preter, al­ways de­scribed Ma­gun­go as be­ing on a large riv­er, and I con­clud­ed that it must be the Asua; but up­on cross-​ex­am­ina­tion I found he used the word “Bahr” (in Ara­bic sig­ni­fy­ing riv­er or sea) in­stead of “Birbe (lake). This im­por­tant er­ror be­ing dis­cov­ered gave a new fea­ture to the ge­og­ra­phy of this part. Ac­cord­ing to his de­scrip­tion, Ma­gun­go was sit­uat­ed on a lake so large that no one knew its lim­its. Its breadth was such that, if one jour­neyed two days east and the same dis­tance west, there was no land vis­ible on ei­ther quar­ter, while to the south its di­rec­tion was ut­ter­ly un­known. Large ves­sels ar­rived at Ma­gun­go from dis­tant arid un­known parts, bring­ing cowrie-​shells and beads in ex­change for ivory. Up­on these ves­sels white men had been seen. All the cowrie-​shells used in La­tooka and the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries were sup­plied by these ves­sels, but none had ar­rived for the last two years.

I con­clud­ed the lake was no oth­er than the N’yan­za, which, if the po­si­tion of Man­gun­go were cor­rect, ex­tend­ed much far­ther north than Speke had sup­posed. I de­ter­mined to take the first op­por­tu­ni­ty to push for Ma­gun­go. The white men spo­ken of by Wani prob­ably re­ferred to Arabs, who, be­ing sim­ply brown, were called white men by the blacks. I was called a VERY WHITE MAN as a dis­tinc­tion; but I have fre­quent­ly been obliged to take off my shirt to ex­hib­it the dif­fer­ence of col­or be­tween my­self and men, as my face had be­come brown.

The Turks had set June 23d as the time for their de­par­ture from La­tooka. On the day pre­ced­ing my wife was dan­ger­ous­ly ill with bil­ious fever, and was un­able to stand, and I en­deav­ored to per­suade the trad­er’s par­ty to post­pone their de­par­ture for a few days. They would not hear of such a pro­pos­al; they had so ir­ri­tat­ed the La­tookas that they feared an at­tack, and their cap­tain or va­keel, Ibrahim, had or­dered them im­me­di­ate­ly to va­cate the coun­try. This was a most awk­ward po­si­tion for me. The traders had in­curred the hos­til­ity of the coun­try, and I should bear the brunt of it should I re­main be­hind alone. With­out their pres­ence I should be un­able to pro­cure porters, as the na­tives would not ac­com­pa­ny my fee­ble par­ty, es­pe­cial­ly as I could of­fer them no oth­er pay­ment than beads or cop­per. The rain had com­menced with­in the last few days at La­tooka, and on the route to­ward Ob­bo we should en­counter con­tin­ual storms. We were to march by a long and cir­cuitous route to avoid the rocky pass­es that would be dan­ger­ous in the present spir­it of the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly as the traders pos­sessed large herds that must ac­com­pa­ny the par­ty. They al­lowed five days’ march for the dis­tance to Ob­bo by the in­tend­ed route. This was not an al­lur­ing pro­gramme for the week’s en­ter­tain­ment, with my wife al­most in a dy­ing state! How­ev­er, I set to work and fit­ted an an­garep with arched hoops from end to end, so as to form a frame like the cap of a wag­on. This I cov­ered with two wa­ter­proof Abyssini­an tanned hides se­cure­ly strapped, and lash­ing two long poles par­al­lel to the sides of the an­garep, I formed an ex­cel­lent palan­quin. In this she was as­sist­ed, and we start­ed on June 23d.

On our ar­rival at Ob­bo both my wife and I were ex­ces­sive­ly ill with bil­ious fever, and nei­ther could as­sist the oth­er. The old chief of Ob­bo, Katchi­ba, hear­ing that we were dy­ing, came to charm us with some mag­ic spell. He found us ly­ing help­less, and im­me­di­ate­ly pro­cured a small branch of a tree, and fill­ing his month with wa­ter he squirt­ed it over the leaves and about the floor of the hut. He then waved the branch around my wife’s head, al­so around mine, and com­plet­ed the cer­emo­ny by stick­ing it in the thatch above the door­way. He told us we should now get bet­ter, and, per­fect­ly sat­is­fied, took his leave.

The hut was swarm­ing with rats and white ants, the for­mer rac­ing over our bod­ies dur­ing the night and bur­row­ing through the floor, fill­ing our on­ly room with mounds like mole­hills. As fast as we stopped the holes, oth­ers were made with de­ter­mined per­se­ver­ance. Hav­ing a sup­ply of ar­senic, I gave them an en­ter­tain­ment, the ef­fect be­ing dis­agree­able to all par­ties, as the rats died in their holes and cre­at­ed a hor­ri­ble ef­flu­vi­um, while fresh hosts took the place of the de­part­ed. Now and then a snake would be seen glid­ing with­in the thatch, hav­ing tak­en shel­ter front the pour­ing rain.

The small-​pox was rag­ing through­out the coun­try, and the na­tives were dy­ing like flies in win­ter. The coun­try was ex­treme­ly un­healthy, ow­ing to the con­stant rain and the rank herbage, which pre­vent­ed a free cir­cu­la­tion of air, and the ex­treme damp in­duced fevers. The tem­per­ature was 65 de­grees Fahr. at night and 72 de­grees dur­ing the day; dense clouds ob­scured the sun for many days, and the air was reek­ing with mois­ture. In the evening it was al­ways nec­es­sary to keep a blaz­ing fire with­in the hut, as the floor and walls were wet and chilly.

The wet herbage dis­agreed with my bag­gage an­imals.

In­nu­mer­able flies ap­peared, in­clud­ing the tsetse, and in a few weeks the don­keys had no hair left, ei­ther on their ears or legs. They drooped and died one by one. It was in vain that I erect­ed sheds and light­ed fires; noth­ing would pro­tect them from the flies. The mo­ment the fires were lit the an­imals would rush wild­ly in­to the smoke, from which noth­ing would drive them; and in the clouds of imag­inary pro­tec­tion they would re­main all day, re­fus­ing food. On the 16th of Ju­ly my last horse, Mouse, died. He had a very long tail, for which I ob­tained A COW IN EX­CHANGE. Noth­ing was prized so high­ly as hors­es’ tails, the hairs be­ing used for string­ing beads and al­so for mak­ing tufts as or­na­ments, to be sus­pend­ed from the el­bows. It was high­ly fash­ion­able in Ob­bo for the men to wear such tufts formed of the bushy ends of cows’ tails. It was al­so “the thing” to wear six or eight pol­ished rings of iron, fas­tened so tight­ly round the throat as al­most to choke the wear­er, and some­what re­sem­bling dog-​col­lars.

For months we dragged on a mis­er­able ex­is­tence at Ob­bo, wrecked by fever. The qui­nine was ex­haust­ed; thus the dis­ease wor­ried me al­most to death, re­turn­ing at in­ter­vals of a few days. For­tu­nate­ly my wife did not suf­fer so much as I did. I had nev­er­the­less pre­pared for the jour­ney south, and as trav­el­ling on foot would have been im­pos­si­ble in our weak state, I had pur­chased and trained three ox­en in lieu of hors­es. They were named “Beef,” “Steaks,” and “Suet.” “Beef” was a mag­nif­icent an­imal, but hav­ing been bit­ten by the flies he so lost his con­di­tion that I changed his name to “Bones.” We were ready to start, and the na­tives re­port­ed that ear­ly in Jan­uary the Asua would be ford­able. I had ar­ranged with Ibrahim that he should sup­ply me with porters for pay­ment in cop­per bracelets, and that he should ac­com­pa­ny me with one hun­dred men to Kam­rasi’s coun­try (Un­yoro) on con­di­tion that he would re­strain his peo­ple from all mis­de­meanors, and that they should be en­tire­ly sub­servient to me.

It was the month of De­cem­ber, and dur­ing the nine, months that I had been in cor­re­spon­dence with his par­ty I had suc­ceed­ed in ac­quir­ing an ex­traor­di­nary in­flu­ence. Al­though my camp was near­ly three quar­ters of a mile from their za­ree­ba, I had been be­sieged dai­ly for many months for ev­ery­thing that was want­ed. My camp was a kind of gen­er­al store that ap­peared to be in­ex­haustible. I gave all that I had with a good grace, and there­by gained the good-​will of the rob­bers, es­pe­cial­ly as my large medicine chest con­tained a sup­ply of drugs that ren­dered me in their eyes a physi­cian of the first im­por­tance. I had been very suc­cess­ful with my pa­tients, and the medicines that I gen­er­al­ly used be­ing those which pro­duced a very de­cid­ed ef­fect, both the Turks and na­tives con­sid­ered them with per­fect faith. There was sel­dom any dif­fi­cul­ty in prog­nos­ti­cat­ing the ef­fect of tar­tar emet­ic, and this be­came the fa­vorite drug that was al­most dai­ly ap­plied for, a dose of three grains en­chant­ing the pa­tient, who al­ways ad­ver­tised my fame by say­ing “He told me I should be sick, and, by Al­lah! there was no mis­take about it.” Ac­cord­ing­ly there was a great run up­on the tar­tar emet­ic.

Many peo­ple in Debono’s camp had died, in­clud­ing sev­er­al of my de­sert­ers who had joined them. News was brought that in three sep­arate fights with the na­tives my de­sert­ers had been killed on ev­ery oc­ca­sion, and my men and those of Ibrahim un­hesi­tat­ing­ly de­clared it was the “hand of God.” None of Ibrahim’s men had died since we left La­tooka. One man, who had been bad­ly wound­ed by a lance thrust through his ab­domen, I had suc­cess­ful­ly treat­ed; and the trad­ing par­ty, who would at one time glad­ly have ex­ter­mi­nat­ed me, now ex­claimed, “What shall we do when the Sowar (trav­eller) leaves the coun­try?” Mrs. Bak­er had been ex­ceed­ing­ly kind to the wom­en and chil­dren of both the traders and na­tives, and to­geth­er we had cre­at­ed so fa­vor­able an im­pres­sion that we were al­ways re­ferred to as um­pires in ev­ery dis­pute. My own men, al­though in­do­lent, were so com­plete­ly dis­ci­plined that they would not have dared to dis­obey an or­der, and they looked back up­on their for­mer muti­nous con­duct with sur­prise at their own au­dac­ity, and de­clared that they feared to re­turn to Khar­toum, as they were sure that I would not for­give them.

One day, hear­ing a great noise of voic­es and blow­ing of horns in the di­rec­tion of Katchi­ba’s res­idence, I sent to in­quire the cause. The old chief him­self ap­peared very an­gry and ex­cit­ed. He said that his peo­ple were very bad, that they had been mak­ing a great noise and find­ing fault with him be­cause he had not sup­plied them with a few show­ers, as they want­ed to sow their crop of tul­la­boon. There had been no rain for about a fort­night.

Well,” I replied, “you are the rain-​mak­er; why don’t you give your peo­ple rain?” “Give my peo­ple rain!” said Katchi­ba. “I give them rain if they don’t give me goats? You don’t know my peo­ple. If I am fool enough to give them rain be­fore they give me the goats, they would let me starve! No, no! let them wait. If they don’t bring me sup­plies of corn, goats, fowls, yams, meris­sa, and all that I re­quire, not one drop of rain shall ev­er fall again in Ob­bo! Im­pu­dent brutes are my peo­ple! Do yon know, they have pos­itive­ly threat­ened to kill me un­less I bring the rain?

They shan’t have a drop. I will with­er the crops and bring a plague up­on their flocks. I’ll teach these ras­cals to in­sult me!”

With all this blus­ter, I saw that old Katchi­ba was in a great dilem­ma, and that he would give any­thing for a show­er, but that lie did not know how to get out of the scrape. It was a com­mon freak of the tribes to sac­ri­fice the rain-​mak­er should he be un­suc­cess­ful. He sud­den­ly al­tered his tone, and asked, “Have you any rain in your coun­try?” I replied that we had, ev­ery now and then. “How do you bring it? Are you a rain-​mak­er?” I told him that no one be­lieved in rain- mak­ers in our coun­try, but that we un­der­stood how to bot­tle light­ning (mean­ing elec­tric­ity). “I don’t keep mine in bot­tles, but I have a house­ful of thun­der and light­ning,” he most cool­ly replied; “but if you can bot­tle light­ning, you must un­der­stand rain-​mak­ing. What do you think of the weath­er to-​day?” I im­me­di­ate­ly saw the drift of the cun­ning old Katchi­ba; he want­ed pro­fes­sion­al ad­vice. I replied that he must know all about it, as he was a reg­ular rain- mak­er. “Of course I do,” he an­swered, “but I want to know what YOU think of it.” “Well,” I said, “I don’t think we shall have any steady rain, but I think we may have a heavy show­er in about four days.” I said this as I had ob­served fleecy clouds gath­er­ing dai­ly in the af­ter­noon. “Just my opin­ion!” said Katchi­ba, de­light­ed. “In four or per­haps in five days I in­tend to give then one show­er– just one show­er. Yes, I’ll just step down to them now and tell the ras­cals that if they will bring me some goats by this evening and some corn to-​mor­row morn­ing I will give them in four or five days just one show­er.” To give ef­fect to his dec­la­ra­tion he gave sev­er­al toots up­on his mag­ic whis­tle. “Do you use whis­tles in your coun­try?” in­quired Katchi­ba. I on­ly replied by giv­ing so shrill and deaf­en­ing a whis­tle on my fin­gers that Katchi­ba stopped his ears, and re­laps­ing in­to a smile of ad­mi­ra­tion he took a glance at the sky from the door­way to see if any sud­den ef­fect had been pro­duced. “Whis­tle again,” he said, and once more I per­formed like the whis­tle of a lo­co­mo­tive. “That will do; we shall have it,” said the cun­ning old rain-​mak­er, and proud of hav­ing so know­ing­ly ob­tained “coun­sel’s opin­ion” on his case, he tod­dled off to his im­pa­tient sub­jects.

In a few days a sud­den storm of rain and vi­olent thun­der added to Katchi­ba’s renown, and af­ter the show­er horns were blow­ing and nog­aras were beat­ing in hon­or of their chief. En­tre nous, my whis­tle was con­sid­ered in­fal­li­ble.

A bad at­tack of fever laid me up un­til the 31st of De­cem­ber. On the first day of Jan­uary, 1864, I was hard­ly able to stand, and was near­ly worn out at the very time that I re­quired my strength, as we were to start south in a few days. Al­though my qui­nine had been long since ex­haust­ed, I had re­served ten grains to en­able me to start in case the fever should at­tack me at the time of de­par­ture. I now swal­lowed my last dose.

It was dif­fi­cult to pro­cure porters; there­fore I left all my ef­fects at my camp in charge of two of my men, and I de­ter­mined to trav­el light, with­out the tent, and to take lit­tle be­yond am­mu­ni­tion and cook­ing uten­sils. Ibrahim left forty- five men in his za­ree­ba, and on the 5th of Jan­uary we start­ed.

In four days’ march we reached the Asua Riv­er, and on Jan­uary 13th ar­rived at Shooa, in lat­itude 3 de­grees 4′.

Two days af­ter our ar­rival at Shooa all of our Ob­bo porters ab­scond­ed. They had heard that we were bound for Kam­rasi’s coun­try, and hav­ing re­ceived ex­ag­ger­at­ed ac­counts of his pow­er from the Shooa peo­ple, they had de­ter­mined up­on re­treat; thus we were at once un­able to pro­ceed, un­less we could pro­cure porters from Shooa. This was ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, as Kam­rasi was well known here, and was not loved. His coun­try was known as “Quan­da,” and I at once rec­og­nized the cor­rup­tion of Speke’s “Ugan­da.” The slave wom­an “Bachee­ta,” who had for­mer­ly giv­en me in Ob­bo so much in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing Kam­rasi’s coun­try, was to be our in­ter­preter; but we al­so had the luck to dis­cov­er a lad who had for­mer­ly been em­ployed by Ma­hommed in Faloro, who al­so spoke the lan­guage of Quan­da, and had learned a lit­tle Ara­bic.

I now dis­cov­ered that the slave wom­an Bachee­ta had for­mer­ly been in the ser­vice of a chief named Sali, who had been killed by Kam­rasi. Sali was a friend of Ri­on­ga (Kam­rasi’s great­est en­emy), and I had been warned by Speke not to set foot up­on Ri­on­ga’s ter­ri­to­ry, or all trav­el­ling in Un­yoro would be cut off. I plain­ly saw that Bachee­ta was in fa­vor of Ri­on­ga, as a friend of the mur­dered Sali, by whom she had had two chil­dren, and that she would most like­ly tam­per with the guide, and that we should be led to Ri­on­ga in­stead of to Kam­rasi. There were “wheels with­in wheels.”

It was now re­port­ed that in the last year, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the de­par­ture of Speke and Grant from Gon­do­ko­ro, Debono’s peo­ple had marched di­rect­ly to Ri­on­ga, al­lied them­selves to him, crossed the Nile with his peo­ple, and had at­tacked Kam­rasi’s coun­try, killing about three hun­dred of his men, and cap­tur­ing many slaves. I now un­der­stood why they had de­ceived me at Gon­do­ko­ro: they had ob­tained in­for­ma­tion of the coun­try from Speke’s peo­ple, and had made use of it by im­me­di­ate­ly at­tack­ing Kam­rasi in con­junc­tion with Ri­on­ga.

This would be a pleas­ant in­tro­duc­tion for me on en­ter­ing Un­yoro, as al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the de­par­ture of Speke and Grant, Kam­rasi had been in­vad­ed by the very peo­ple in­to whose hands his mes­sen­gers had de­liv­ered them, when they were guid­ed from Un­yoro to the Turks’ sta­tion at Faloro. He would nat­ural­ly have con­sid­ered that the Turks had been sent by Speke to at­tack him; thus the road ap­peared closed to all ex­plo­ration, through the atroc­ities of Debono’s peo­ple.

Many of Ibrahim’s men, at hear­ing this in­tel­li­gence, re­fused to pro­ceed to Un­yoro. For­tu­nate­ly for me, Ibrahim had been ex­treme­ly un­lucky in procur­ing ivory. The year had al­most passed away, and he had a mere noth­ing with which to re­turn to Gon­do­ko­ro. I im­pressed up­on him how en­raged Koor­shid would be should he re­turn with such a tri­fle. Al­ready his own men de­clared that he was ne­glect­ing razz­ias be­cause he was to re­ceive a present from me if we reached Un­yoro. This they would re­port to his mas­ter (Koor­shid), and it would be be­lieved should he fail in se­cur­ing ivory. I guar­an­teed him 100 can­tars (10,000 pounds) if he would push on at all haz­ards with me to Kam­rasi and se­cure me porters from Shooa. Ibrahim be­haved re­mark­ably well. For some time past I had ac­quired a great in­flu­ence over him, and he de­pend­ed so thor­ough­ly up­on my opin­ion that he de­clared him­self ready to do all that I sug­gest­ed. Ac­cord­ing­ly I de­sired him to call his men to­geth­er, and to leave in Shooa all those who were dis­in­clined to fol­low us.

At once I ar­ranged for a start, lest some fresh idea should en­ter the ev­er- sus­pi­cious brains of our fol­low­ers and mar the ex­pe­di­tion. It was dif­fi­cult to pro­cure porters, and I aban­doned all that was not in­dis­pens­able–our last few pounds of rice and cof­fee, and even the great spong­ing-​bath, that em­blem of civ­iliza­tion that had been clung to even when the tent had been left be­hind.

On the 18th of Jan­uary, 1864, we left Shooa. The pure air of that coun­try had in­vig­orat­ed us, and I was so im­proved in strength that I en­joyed the ex­cite­ment of the launch in­to un­known lands. The Turks knew noth­ing of the route south, and I ac­cord­ing­ly took the lead of the en­tire par­ty. I had come to a dis­tinct un­der­stand­ing with Ibrahim that Kam­rasi’s coun­try should be­long to ME; not an act of felony would be per­mit­ted; all were to be un­der my gov­ern­ment, and I would in­sure him at least 100 can­tars of tusks.

Eight miles of agree­able march through the usu­al park-​like coun­try brought us to the vil­lage of Fatiko, sit­uat­ed up­on a splen­did plateau of rock up­on el­evat­ed ground with beau­ti­ful gran­ite cliffs, bor­der­ing a lev­el ta­ble-​land of fine grass that would have formed a race-​course. The high rocks were cov­ered with na­tives, perched up­on the out­line like a flock of ravens.

We halt­ed to rest un­der some fine trees grow­ing among large iso­lat­ed blocks of gran­ite and gneiss. In a short time the na­tives as­sem­bled around us. They were won­der­ful­ly friend­ly, and in­sist­ed up­on a per­son­al in­tro­duc­tion to both my­self and Mrs. Bak­er. We were thus com­pelled to hold a lev­ee–not the pas­sive and cold cer­emo­ny of Eu­rope, but a most ac­tive un­der­tak­ing, as each na­tive that was in­tro­duced per­formed the salaam of his coun­try by seiz­ing both my hands and rais­ing my arms three times to their full stretch above my head. Af­ter about one hun­dred Fatikos had been thus grat­ified by our sub­mis­sion to this in­flic­tion, and our arms had been sub­ject­ed to at least three hun­dred stretch­es each, I gave the or­der to sad­dle the ox­en im­me­di­ate­ly, and we es­caped a fur­ther proof of Fatiko af­fec­tion that was al­ready prepar­ing, as mass­es of na­tives were stream­ing down the rocks hur­ry­ing to be in­tro­duced. Notwith­stand­ing the fa­tigue of the cer­emo­ny, I took a great fan­cy to these poor peo­ple. They had pre­pared a quan­ti­ty of meris­sa and a sheep for our lunch, which they begged us to re­main and en­joy be­fore we start­ed; but the pump­ing ac­tion of half a vil­lage not yet grat­ified by a pre­sen­ta­tion was too much, and mount­ing our ox­en with aching shoul­ders we bade adieu to Fatiko.

On the fol­low­ing day our guide lost the road; a large herd of ele­phants had ob­scured it by tram­pling hun­dreds of paths in all di­rec­tions. The wind was strong from the north, and I pro­posed to clear the coun­try to the south by fir­ing the prairies. There were nu­mer­ous deep swamps in the bot­toms be­tween the un­du­la­tions, and up­on ar­rival at one of these green dells we fired the grass on the op­po­site side. In a few min­utes it roared be­fore us, and we en­joyed the grand sight of the bound­less prairies blaz­ing like in­fer­nal re­gions, and rapid­ly clear­ing a path south. Flocks of buz­zards and the beau­ti­ful va­ri­eties of fly- catch­ers thronged to the dense smoke to prey up­on the in­nu­mer­able in­sects that en­deav­ored to es­cape from the ap­proach­ing fire.