that Arnaud's windows were covered with curtains; that he did not venture out of doors, but contented himself with merely now and then looking at the box compass, although the vessel turned at every moment, and went first upon the right and then upon the left shore. The following is equally ominous: "Selim-Capitan laughed when he yesterday instructed Arnaud in handling the instruments. Thibaut remarked this as well as myself; and it perfectly corresponds with the expressions of Sabatier, who calls his colleague an ignoramus, because he abandons to him the calculations he does not know how to make himself." Take one half of this as true, and it is evident that nothing really satisfactory can be derived from the results obtained by the French engineers. We must consider ourselves happy, from these and from other sources of error we shall have occasion to point out, if the results obtained are within a few degrees of the truth. There is nothing even to satisfy the reader as to the great correction of minor errors that would lie with Selim-Capitan, since he could use instruments. A rudely educated mariner, he might be practically acquainted with the use of the sextant at sea, and yet not on land. Did he use an artificial horizon? and if so, did he use it on board his dahabiya? After the first few days' journey up the White Nile, the country was not safe enough to allow the expeditionists to land often; and under such circumstances it would have been not only satisfactory to know how the altitudes of sun or stars were obtained, but absolutely essential to the reception of the whole mass of geological results obtained. The channel of the river began to swarm with islands through the country of the Hassaniyah. Luckily their presence was indicated by trees. The stream, however, was still majestic, and bordered by green osiers; the islands were often grouped very picturesquely, and sometimes appeared to bar the river, and dam it into a lake. El Aes, a village which they came to on the 29th, belonged to a city of the same name lying in the interior, and which was one of the chief places of the Hassaniyahs. At this point the expedition had reached the boundaries of the Turkish dominions, or what Werne designates "the intricate and organized TurcoEgyptian system of plunder." White-grey long-tailed apes began to abound in the woods; crocodiles were numerous, and hippopotami not uncommon. The Hassaniyahs drive a brisk trade in kurbashes made of the VOL. XVIII. NO. IL hide of the latter. Guinea-fowls, also, provided the expedition with roast dainties. In these regions, also, doghen-a kind of corn commonly used in Kordofan-the well-known Oriental vegetable, bamiyah, (Hibiscus esculantus,) and malochiyah, a kind of spinach, grew wild in abundance. Birds and fish abounded, as did also river oysters, (Ampulla tubulosa,) and other shell-fish. Grass extended over the water, and high reed-grass filled the space between the trees; while the double white lotus glistened forth magnificently from a floating world of flowers. This was certainly a region favored by nature, whatever it might be to man. On the first of December, the summit of Mount Njemati seemed to promise, from the distance, something more magnificent than the hills that had hitherto appeared in the horizon; but the bed of the river continued to be as much obstructed by islands as ever. This was now the country of the Dinka negroes, who were to be seen occasionally at a distance, jumping in the air, whilst they raised one arm, and struck their shields with their spears, in token of defiance. Long swampy islands prevented their villages being seen. On this and the next day's journeys, sailing towards the south in an unmeasurable tract of water, the blue lotus disappeared. A sailor, who had plunged into the water, was seized by a crocodile. On the 3rd, the first tamarind trees appeared on going south; and the various shades of light and dark green of these beautiful trees, with their luxuriant foilage, are described as causing an agreeable sensation. The fruit is the first and last support of the Ethiopian. The immeasurable expanse of water, and innumerable islands, began either to weary or puzzle the expedition by this time; and we have the annexed observation: "It is sufficiently clear to me, that it is almost impossible to make an accurate map from a single voyage: this seems to have struck, also, the very learned Arnaud, for he is always consulting Selim-Capitan. Sabatier is ill, and the task, therefore, devolves on Arnaud, not only of observing the course of the river, but also the direction, beginning, and ending of the islands, &c.and all this with the windows hung with curtains!" The country the expedition was now entering upon, between N. lat. 10 and 11 deg., was, up to 9 deg. N. lat., tenanted by the Dinkas on the east and the Shilluks on the west. The islands had ceased to be wooded a little beyond the 12th degree; the first 14 SOURCES OF THE NILE. [Oct (and for which they have a very repulsive mus. But for the gnats, the want of salt substitute,) and the inroads of the Turks, the vast population of the Shilluks and Dinkas appear to have a happy life of it on the best part of the White Nile. no river in the world," says M. Werne, "There is certainly tance, so uninterruptedly covered with habi"the shores of which are, for so great a distations for human beings.' and little-known people have, it appears, These isolated neither camels nor horses, which are not fitted for their marshy soil. When they take a horse or camel from the Turks they do not kill it, but put out its eyes, as a punishment for having brought the enemy into their doum-palms appeared about 11 deg. N. lat. | the flesh of the crocodile or of the hippopotaNear about the same parallel, a few hillsGirabal-Esch on the one side, and Jibal Defafanugh, supposed to be of volcanic origin, on the other-stood alone, like the mountains Taka-islands, as it were, in an extensive desert marsh and water-basin. The natives did not show themselves, but Suliman Kashef having spied out some sheep, almost the whole expedition turned out to seize them, whilst shots were fired in the air to frighten the owners. This was a singular but common method of provisioning the expedition. Imagine the first navigators of the Euphrates or Indus making a descent upon the first herds of cattle that presented themselves! yet they had just as much right to do so as the Turks had to rob these inof-country. fensive negroes. But it will be seen that, throughout, the last expedition made to discover the sources of the Nile was a continued scene of robbery, devastation, and violence. The expedition sailed onwards as through a blooming park. High doum-palms, with small heads, rise over dark tamarinds, which shine like gold; whilst between are magnificent masses of creepers, and bowers of flowers on a green grass ground, the blooming lotus shining through them." The harmless inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise came forth occasionally to look at the Turks, as enemies nor as friends." The perfection "neither of this paradise is, however, in no slight degree militated against by persevering gnats, small and angry wasps, and large camel flies. In some parts of the river, and at certain seasons and periods, the gnats or musquitoes were so formidable as to render life a burden. Our traveller was neither able to eat, drink, nor sleep for them. His body was covered with sores; his head, hands, and face swollen; his whole system in a state of extreme irritation and fever, and his sufferings constant and almost without alloy. As they proceeded up the river with a favorable wind, the number of villages of Shilluks began to increase, till the author describes the population as immense. This must be owing to the great facilities for procuring food. Both Dinkas and Shilluks alike live upon wild dates and tamarinds, and the fruit of the geilid; wild corn; the seeds of various high grasses, called " children of grass;" wild rice; wild bamies, which grow in immense tr. cts; ommos, a sweet fruit with a pod; and the lotus, which covers equally immense expanses of water. But they have also cattle, sheep and goats, guinea fowl, and other birds and fish, and they do not despise In this country, the river, including marshwidth of three hours (nine miles at least). es under water, attained the extraordinary On the banks were continuous villages, interspersed with forests of tamarinds, inhabited by an incredible number of birds; and beyond, the treeless, immeasurable Nile meadows. In one hour they counted seventeen large and small villages. A little beyond the tenth degree of north latitude, the white lotus disappeared and leeches became abundant. On the 7th of December an atbando of the Shilluks, who is said to rule tempt was made to entice the sultan or over a population of 2,000,000 of souls, on board; but the negro-king was too wise to trust himself in the hands of Turks. As they proceeded onwards and neared the tropics, baobab-trees adorned the villages, and the aspiring slender dhelleb-palm protruded with the doum-palms over the mimosas, ostriches were seen on the 7th of December walking on the banks of the river; and the numerous crocodiles showed no alarm at the rustling of the vessel through the water. mouth of a river flowing from Habesh or The same evening the expedition came to the Abyssinia, five hundred paces broad, six fathoms deep, and two miles in rapidity, whilst the main stream had only half-a-mile Nahr el Makada, and it disembogues itself current. The river was called Sobat, or under 9 deg. 11 min. N. lat. At this point the Nuehrs succeed to the Dinkas to the east. The Shilluks are in a similar manner succeeded by the Jengahs, a short way further up Nile is joined by the Kibo or Njin-Njin, a on the west shore, near where the White little river flowing from the west. Six (about N. lat. 9 deg. 4 min.) to supersede wood; and with this change the gnats also came in such abundance as to drive the halfnaked sailors nearly mad. The tokuls of the Jengahs and Nuehrs are no longer so carefully built as those of their neighbors, the Dinkas and Shilluks. Giraffes are now abundant. Numerous marsh birds begin to show themselves; and for the first time the Papyrus antiquorum, supposed by some to have become extinct on the Nile, and to exist only at the fountain of Cyane, near Syracuse, rose out of the morass to a great height, with large corollas similar to a tuft of reeds, with here and there long bare stalks. On the 16th of December, the expedition sailed slowly into the great lake wherein the Gazelle river (Bahr el Gazal) disembogues itself. Grasses impeded its mouth, which was not explored. The expedition of the preceding year had also been unable to enter it, owing to the reeds. M. Werne says, however, that he could distinguish plainly from the elevated poop that it emptied itself by two arms into the lake. The lake itself was from eighteen to twenty sea miles square. The latitude, according to Selim-Capitan, was 9 deg. 16 min. north, and 28 deg. 55 sec. east longitude. It is remarkable that this great central tract of country, which lies south of, and, as it were, at the head of the four rivers which disembogue themselves so near to one another, is occupied by an isolated mountain district, called Morre, and said to be inhabited by a brave and warlike pagan negro race. An important geographical problem attaches itself to this so-called Gazelle River. Some have supposed that it flows from Lake Tchad; but this supposition, supported on the one hand by the evidence of natives who have professed to come by water from Lake Tchad to Egypt, is on the other hand contradicted by the comparative levels. The elevation of Lake Tchad, according to the barometric observations of Denham and Clapperton, does not appear to exceed 1000 feet M. Jomard says 920 French feet;* whereas the Nile is already at Khartum 1431 feet above the level of the sea, and may be supposed to be at the junction of the Gazelle River 2000 feet above the sea, and cannot, therefore, receive waters from Lake Tchad at an inferior level. M. Werne rather adds to than diminishes the interest of the question, when he tells us that the river is said to flow from the country of the Magrabis, or * De la Pente du Nil Blanc, &c. Bulletin de la Société de Géographie. Berbers. This is scarcely credible; but wherever it flows from, it is the most distant westerly source of the Nile; and its sources most probably arise from the same watershed which in an opposite direction supply tributaries to the Niger and the Cameroons rivers. This would, therfore, be the most feasible line at which to cross Central Africa. In this great inland lake, hippopotami especially abounded. These unwieldy animals were continually emerging from the water, and bellowing on all sides. Dead fish, real monsters in size, were seen floating about. Small snakes abounded, and would drive against the vessel, although thrust at with poles. In the marshes serpents were seen equal in bulk to a moderate tree. Among the reeds were many ant-hills, and these fierce insects obliged the expedition to anchor in the middle of this great inland watery expanse. Beyond this lake the river is described as partaking somewhat of the character of a canal hemmed in by a border of high reeds, which were soon superseded by luxuriant long grass, amid which flowered the ambak tree; and the gigantic rush (Papyrus) showed itself here and there like little pine-forests. Gnats and locusts abounded; millions of glow-worms fluttered around; and the exhalations from the marshes were oppressive. The 13th of December, twentyfive sheep were captured at a village which had been devastated, and the sheikh shot down by the first expedition. The river for the next few days continued to wind so much, that M. Werne observes-"We ought to have the log continually in our hands, with these eternal windings of the river, as the vessel, more or less, sails according to the ever-varying stream, and with the very same winds." We have here, it is manifest, a rich element for error in laying down the amount of ground gone over. Wearied by nights rendered sleepless by the gnats, even M. Werne, whom we would suppose, from his criticism upon others, rather than from any detailed evidence of the fact, to have been more on the alert to avoid causes of error, acknowledges himself to have fallen asleep at times, merely directing the men to wake him when the river took another direction! On one occasion we observe that two miles only were accomplished during one night's navigation. The 17th of December, they had still on the right shore the dhelleb palms of the 16th. On the 18th, the same palms which previously stood south of them retreated to the left shore, and at length in the evening were brought within gunshot. On the 19th, M. Werne relates, "We bend immediately to the west, and I see before me, to my astonishment, the sixteen palms again standing on the left towards the east!" How often may the same devious navigation have been pursued, with no tell-tale group of palms to warn of the fact! It is evident from M. Werne's astonishment, that his bearings had not intimated to him the fact of the extreme windings of the river. What greater confidence can we therefore place in his map than in that of the French engineers? On the same day, the 19th of December, not a family but a small army of elephants were seen moving slowly here and there under the trees, apparently for the purpose of tasting the dhelleb fruit. At this period of the navigation M. Werne remarks, "We have already passed the limits wherein the Mountains of the Moon have been placed. If we find the river having here a breadth of 500 paces, and a depth from three to four fathoms, we continue to ask this question, From whence does this enormous mass of water come?" In about N. lat. 6 deg. 30 min. according to Werne's map, but in 5 deg. 11 min. according to Selim-Capitan's observations, the country of the Keks was left for that of the Bandurials, a negro tribe, who, however, spoke the same language as the Keks. The river was still two or three hundred paces in width, and two-and-a-half fathoms deep, with precipitous shores. But a sailor on the mast had counted eight lakes from noon of the 5th to noon of the 6th of January. The Bandurials were giants in point of stature, varying from six to upwards of seven feet. "We ourselves," says M. Werne, were like pigmies among these giants." On the 7th of January two men were lost in the reeds, supposed to have been destroyed by wild animals. 66 wood had taken another form, and a woody region extended far and wide on its banks. Shallows and sand-banks also began to show themselves. M. Werne was taken very ill, and passed several days in total unconsciousness. Suliman Kashef having also fallen sick at the same time, Arnaud was actually accused of having tried to poison the kashef and the Prussian traveller! The hippopotami struck the vessels on different occasions, so as materially to injure them. The country they were now travelling through was that of the Tshierrs, who had different shaped tokuls and a different language from the Elliabs. The country also presented, to an unseen extent, a cheerful cultivation of corn, tobacco, white beans, castor-oil plant, purslane, gourds, water-melons, and other useful plants and vegetables. Large ivory tusks were purchased for a few beads. The Tshierrs were a very handsome race of men; tall, strongly built, and well fed. They had an open, friendly physiognomy, and great good nature and courtesy in their behavior. The population is described as enormous. “I can scarcely persuade myself," says M. Werne, "that I am in the middle of Africa." Notwithstanding this excellent character given of the natives, on the 20th of January, owing to a misunderstanding of the most trivial character, twelve or thirteen of them were shot in cold blood, and an unknown number wounded. These men belonged, however, strictly to the Bari tribe, as is noticed afterwards; and between the country of the Bari and that of the Tshierrs, as well as throughout the country inhabited by the latter, the river appears to divide itself into numerous branches. In the country of the Bari there were several mountains visibleNerkongi to the west, and a whole group, to which we shall subsequently come, to the south. On all sides now were plenty of stones and rocks, and a numerous, well-behaved, and friendly population; "the beauty of the country," M. Werne says, "could not be too highly praised." The Bari were among the most civilized negroes met with during the expedition, and they were also as distinguished by their physical development. They were ruled over by an intelligent king called Lakono, with whom the expedition interchanged hospitalities and visits of friendship. The capital of the country was called Belenja, and was situated on a mountain of It may be remarked here that gnats had in the same name. To the north by west was great part disappeared; crocodiles had left Mount Nerkongi; to the west, Mount Konthe lakes and taken more to the river, in nobih; behind it, in the far distance, the which were also many snakes. The copse-mountain chain of Kugelu, lost in misty The Bohrs, who succeeded to the Bandurials, were even still taller than their predecessors, being seldom under seven feet. These men looked like trees in the distance, and ant-hills served to them as watch-towers. The expedition began now to do a considerable turn of business in bartering beads for ivory and skins of wild beasts. Another negro tribe, called that of the Elliabs, who occupied the western shore, appear to have been in a state of hostility with the Bohrs. heights. This chain of mountains, seen at a distance of twenty hours, M. Werne thinks lies upon the left or west side of the river. King Lakono's palace consisted of several straw tokuls lying together, encompassed as usual with a seriba. He had forty wives. The king was surrounded by giant negroes, well armed; the very appearance of whom, M. Werne says, sent a thrill of horror through the veins of Frenchmen and Turks. It is evident that, from the moment that the expedition found itself travelling amidst a nation more powerful than themselves, and from whom, instead of being able to carry on predatory and tyrannical sway, they had every reason to expect successful resistance, the desire to return became the prominent feeling and the tacit intention of the greater number. King Lakono's dress was said to come from Berri, a negro country to the eastward; and M. Werne remarks, that, although Bari was a central point of negro cultivation, that is to say, surpassed any the expedition had met with, Berri and other succeeding countries may be superior to the kingdom of Bari. It appears, that previous to the interview with the king, the expedition had received a very intelligible warning that they were to remain on the right shore, at the original landing-place, because the king would not allow them to move any further. The king is described as having an imposing figure, with a regular countenance, marked features, and somewhat of a Roman nose. On the 25th of January the expedition sailed up the river, notwithstanding the king's injunctions to the contrary; but the vessels found numerous obstructions, the channel being 500 paces in width, and full of shallows. Nineteen mountains were counted from the mast-head, without reckoning small ones. The same evening rocks showed themselves for the first time in the bed of the river. "Three large and several small ones form an ominous cross-line for our voyage. At five we halt at an island near these rocks." This was the furthest southerly point reached by the expedition, and it was, according to the "calculations" of the French engineers, in 4 deg. 40 min. N. lat., and 41 deg. 42 min. E. long. from Paris; but, according to Selim-Capitan, in 4 deg. 35 min. N. lat., and 30 deg. E. long., (only eleven degrees, or upwards of 400 miles difference in longitude!) King Lakono and the great men of Bari again visited the expedition whilst they remained at this island, called by the natives Tshanker. They learned from them that it required a month, the signification of which was interpreted by thirty days, to get to the country of Anjan towards the south, where the Tubirih, as they called the White Nile, separates into four shallow arms, and the water only reaches up to the ankles. There were further said to be very high mountains in the same region, in comparison with which those now before them were as nothing at all. This at once puts the question of the discovery of the sources of the White Nile by this expedition out of the pale of controversy. They never, by their own acknowledgment, approached them within 'thirty days' journey. King Lakono did not, M. Werne says, understand rightly the question, whether snow was lying on these mountains. He answered, however, "No." "Now when I consider the thing more closely," he adds, "it is a great question to me whether he and his interpreter have a word for snow; for though the Arabic word telki is known perhaps in the whole land of Sudan, yet snow itself is unknown. It The territory of Mon-Moezi is somewhat arbitrarily placed in the maps between 15 and 20 degrees of southern latitude. Now from north latitude 4 deg. 40 min., or 4 deg. 50 min., at ten geographic miles a-day, the traveller would not get much beyond the tropics in thirty days; at twenty miles a-day, he would only reach 5 deg. 30 or 40 min. south latitude; and even at thirty miles a day, (which is altogether out of the question in a straight line,) he would only reach 10 deg. 30 or 40 min. south latitude. appears, therefore, that the sources of the White Nile remain to be discovered in the mountainous regions of Zanguebar, most probably in a continuation of the Lupara or Lupata of the middle ages, and of the Kilimandjara before noticed, and that in a position northward of Mono-Moezi, and of the great inland sea of Nyassi or Marave. It appears also that there are several head tributaries to the White Nile; which lends additional interest to this great unexplored tract of central Africa, situated immediately south of the equator, and tending towards the east. There are reasons thus to expect an extensive upland or mountainous country, a better climate than might otherwise be expected, and lands not improbably at once fertile, cultivated, and more or less densely populated. There is nothing but the outer range of the great mountain- barrier-" the spine of the world"-to be crossed, to reach these untried and interesting districts. The |
