Had I Been Alone, It Would Have Been No Hard Lot To Die Upon The
Untrodden Path Before Me; But There Was One Who, Although My Greatest
Comfort, Was Also My Greatest Care, One Whose Life Yet Dawned At So
Early An Age That Womanhood Was Still A Future.
I shuddered at the
prospect for her, should she be left alone in savage lands at my death;
and gladly would I have left her in the luxuries of home instead of
exposing her to the miseries of Africa.
It was in vain that I implored
her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils still
blacker than I supposed they really would be. She was resolved, with
woman's constancy and devotion, to share all dangers and to follow me
through each rough footstep of the wild life before me. "And Ruth said,
Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee;
for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge;
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will
I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also,
if aught but death part thee and me."
Thus accompanied by my wife, on the 15th of April, 1861, I sailed up the
Nile from Cairo. The wind blew fair and strong from the north, and we
flew toward the south against the stream, watching those mysterious
waters with a firm resolve to track them to their distant fountain.
I had a firman from the Viceroy, a cook, and a dragoman. Thus my
impedimenta were not numerous. The firman was an order to all Egyptian
officials for assistance; the cook was dirty and incapable; and the
interpreter was nearly ignorant of English, although a professed
polyglot. With this small beginning, Africa was before me, and thus I
commenced the search for the sources of the Nile.
On arrival at Korosko, twenty-six days from Cairo, we started across the
Nubian Desert. During the cool months, from November until February, the
desert journey is not disagreeable; but the vast area of glowing sand
exposed to the scorching sun of summer, in addition to the withering
breath of the simoom, renders the forced march of two hundred and thirty
miles in seven days, at two and a half miles per hour, one of the most
fatiguing journeys that can he endured.
We entered a dead level plain of orange-colored sand, surrounded by
pyramidical hills. The surface was strewn with objects resembling cannon
shot and grape of all sizes from a 32-pounder downward, and looked like
the old battle-field of some infernal region - rocks glowing with heat,
not a vestige of vegetation, barren, withering desolation. The slow
rocking step of the camels was most irksome, and, despite the heat, I
dismounted to examine the Satanic bombs and cannon shot. Many of them
were as perfectly round as though cast in a mould, others were
egg-shaped, and all were hollow.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 3 of 175
Words from 1020 to 1532
of 90207
