Upon Existing
Conditions The Soudan Is Worthless, Having Neither Natural Capabilities
Nor Political Importance; But There Is, Nevertheless, A Reason That
First Prompted Its Occupation By The Egyptians, And That Is In Force To
The Present Day.
THE SOUDAN SUPPLIES SLAVES.
Without the White Nile
trade Khartoum would almost cease to exist; and that trade is kidnapping
and murder. The character of the Khartoumers needs no further comment.
The amount of ivory brought down from the White Nile is a mere bagatelle
as an export, the annual value being about 40,000 pounds.
The people for the most part engaged in the nefarious traffic of the
White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few
EUROPEANS. So closely connected with the difficulties of my expedition
is that accursed slave trade, that the so-called ivory trade of the
White Nile requires an explanation.
Throughout the Soudan money is exceedingly scarce and the rate of
interest exorbitant, varying, according to the securities, from
thirty-six to eighty percent; this fact proves general poverty and
dishonesty, and acts as a preventive to all improvement. So high and
fatal a rate deters all honest enterprise, and the country must lie in
ruin under such a system. The wild speculator borrows upon such terms,
to rise suddenly like a rocket, or to fall like its exhausted stick.
Thus, honest enterprise being impossible, dishonesty takes the lead, and
a successful expedition to the White Nile is supposed to overcome all
charges. There are two classes of White Nile traders, the one possessing
capital, the other being penniless adventurers; the same system of
operations is pursued by both, but that of the former will be evident
from the description of the latter.
A man without means forms an expedition, and borrows money for this
purpose at 100 percent after this fashion. He agrees to repay the lender
in ivory at one-half its market value. Having obtained the required sum,
he hires several vessels and engages from 100 to 300 men, composed of
Arabs and runaway villains from distant countries, who have found an
asylum from justice in the obscurity of Khartoum. He purchases guns and
large quantities of ammunition for his men, together with a few hundred
pounds of glass beads. The piratical expedition being complete, he pays
his men five months' wages in advance, at the rate of forty-five
piastres (nine shillings) per month, and he agrees to give them eighty
piastres per month for any period exceeding the five months advanced.
His men receive their advance partly in cash and partly in cotton stuffs
for clothes at an exorbitant price. Every man has a strip of paper, upon
which is written by the clerk of the expedition the amount he has
received both in goods and money, and this paper he must produce at the
final settlement.
The vessels sail about December, and on arrival at the desired locality,
the party disembark and proceed into the interior, until they arrive at
the village of some negro chief, with whom they establish an intimacy.
Charmed with his new friends, the power of whose weapons he
acknowledges, the negro chief does not neglect the opportunity of
seeking their alliance to attack a hostile neighbour. Marching
throughout the night, guided by their negro hosts, they bivouac within
an hour's march of the unsuspecting village doomed to an attack about
half an hour before break of day. The time arrives, and, quietly
surrounding the village while its occupants are still sleeping, they
fire the grass huts in all directions, and pour volleys of musketry
through the flaming thatch. Panic-stricken, the unfortunate victims rush
from their burning dwellings, and the men are shot down like pheasants
in a battue, while the women and children, bewildered in the danger and
confusion, are kidnapped and secured. The herds of cattle, still within
their kraal or "zareeba," are easily disposed of, and are driven off
with great rejoicing, as the prize of victory. The women and children
are then fastened together, the former secured in an instrument called a
sheba, made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into the
fork, secured by a cross piece lashed behind; while the wrists, brought
together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole. The children are
then fastened by their necks with a rope attached to the women, and thus
form a living chain, in which order they are marched to the headquarters
in company with the captured herds.
This is the commencement of business: should there be ivory in any of
the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropriated; a general
plunder takes place. The trader's party dig up the floors of the huts to
search for iron hoes, which are generally thus concealed, as the
greatest treasure of the negroes; the granaries are overturned and
wantonly destroyed, and the hands are cut off the bodies of the slain,
the more easily to detach the copper or iron bracelets that are usually
worn. With this booty the traders return to their negro ally: they have
thrashed and discomfited his enemy, which delights him; they present him
with thirty or forty head of cattle, which intoxicates him with joy, and
a present of a pretty little captive girl of about fourteen completes
his happiness.
But business only commenced. The negro covets cattle, and the trader has
now captured perhaps 2,000 head. They are to be had for ivory, and
shortly the tusks appear. Ivory is daily brought into camp in exchange
for cattle, a tusk for a cow, according to size - a profitable business,
as the cows have cost nothing. The trade proves brisk; but still there
remain some little customs to be observed - some slight formalities, well
understood by the White Nile trade. The slaves and two-thirds of the
captured cattle belong to the trader, but his men claim as their
perquisite one-third of the stolen animals. These having been divided,
the slaves are put up to public auction among the men, who purchase such
as they require; the amount being entered on the papers (serki) of the
purchasers, to be reckoned against their wages.
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