By profession a military engineer, he
combined the knowledge especially required for carrying on the
enterprise. He had extended the hand of friendship to the natives, but
when rejected with contempt and opposed by hostility, he was prompt in
chastisement. The wet seasons and attendant high flood of two years were
employed in dragging the 108-ton steel steamer up the various cataracts
which intervened between Gondokoro and Duflli (N. lat. 3 degrees 34
minutes). This portion of the river formed a series of steps caused by a
succession of cataracts at intervals of about 25 miles; between the
obstacles the stream was navigable. The natives of Moogi treacherously
attacked and killed the whole of a detachment, including the French
officer in command, during the absence of Colonel Gordon, who was
engaged in the operation of towing the steamer through the rapids only a
few miles distant. This open hostility necessitated the subjugation of
the tribe, and the establishment of a line of military posts along the
course of the river.
After much trouble, at the expiration of two years the steamer was
dragged to an utterly impassable series of cataracts south of Lobore.
This line of obstruction extended for the short distance of about twelve
miles, beyond which the river was navigable into the Albert N'yanza.
Several vessels had been towed up together with the steamer from
Gondokoro, and the 38-ton steel steamer and two life-boats which had
been thus conveyed, were now carried in sections to the spot above the
last cataracts at Duffli, where they could be permanently reconstructed.
Signor Gessi was entrusted with the command of the two life-boats upon
their completion, and had the honour of first entering the Albert
N'yanza from the north by the river Nile.
The 38-ton steamer was put together, and the 108-ton (Khedive), which
had been left a few miles distant from Duffli, below the cataracts, was
taken to pieces and reconstructed on the navigable portion of the Nile
in N. lat. 3 degrees 34 minutes.
The plan of connecting the equatorial Lake Albert with Khartoum by steam
communication which I had originated, was now completed by the untiring
energy and patience of my successor. The large steamer of 251 tons was
put together at Khartoum, to add to the river flotilla, thus increasing
the steam power from four vessels, when I had arrived in 1870, to
THIRTEEN, which in 1877 were plying between the capital of the Soudan
and the equator. The names of Messrs. Samuda Brothers and Messrs. Penn
and Co. upon the three steel steamers and engines which they had
constructed for the expedition are now evidences of the civilizing power
of the naval and mechanical engineers of Great Britain, which has linked
with the great world countries that were hitherto excluded from all
intercourse.
