The Botanist Will Have Ample Opportunities Of Straying From Our Path To
Examine Plants With Which I Confess A Limited Acquaintance.
The
Ethnologist shall have precisely the same experience that I enjoyed, and
he may either be enlightened or confounded.
The Geologist will find
himself throughout the journey in Central Africa among primitive rocks.
The Naturalist will travel through a grass jungle that conceals much
that is difficult to obtain: both he and the Sportsman will, I trust,
accompany me on a future occasion through the "Nile tributaries from
Abyssinia," which country is prolific in all that is interesting. The
Philanthropist, - what shall I promise to induce him to accompany me? I
will exhibit a picture of savage man precisely as he is; as I saw him;
and as I judged him, free from prejudice: painting also, in true
colours, a picture of the abomination that has been the curse of the
African race, the SLAVE TRADE; trusting that not only the
philanthropist, but every civilized being, will join in the endeavour to
erase that stain from disfigured human nature, and thus open the path
now closed to civilization and missionary enterprise. To the
Missionary, - that noble, self-exiled labourer toiling too often in a
barren field, - I must add the word of caution, "Wait"! There can be no
hope of success until the slave trade shall have ceased to exist.
The journey is long, the countries savage; there are no ancient
histories to charm the present with memories of the past; all is wild
and brutal, hard and unfeeling, devoid of that holy instinct instilled
by nature into the heart of man - the belief in a Supreme Being. In that
remote wilderness in Central Equatorial Africa are the Sources of the
Nile.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
THE EXPEDITION.
Programme - Start from Cairo - Arrive at Berber - Plan of Exploration -
The River Atbara - Abyssinian Affluents - Character of Rivers - Causes
of Nile Inundations - Violence of the Rains - Arrival at Khartoum -
Description of Khartoum - Egyptian Authorities - Taxes - The Soudan -
Slave-Trade of the Soudan - Slave-Trade of the White Nile - System of
Operations - Inhuman Proceedings - Negro Allies - Revelations of
Slave-Trade - Distant Slave Markets - Prospects of the Expedition -
Difficulties at the Outset - Opposition of the Egyptian Authorities -
Preparations for Sailing - Johann Schmidt - Demand for Poll-Tax -
Collision before starting - Amiable Boy! - The Departure - The Boy Osman
- Banks of White Nile - Change in Disposition of Men - Character of the
River - Misery of Scene - River Vegetation - Ambatch Wood - Johann's
Sickness - Uses of Fish-skin - Johann Dying - Johann's Death - New Year
- Shillook Villages - The Sobat River - Its Character - Bahr Giraffe -
Bahr el Gazal - Observations - Corporal Richarn - Character of Bahr el
Gazal - Peculiarity of River Sobat - Tediousness of Voyage - Bull
Buffalo - Sali Achmet killed - His Burial - Ferocity of the Buffalo -
"The Clumsy" on the Styx - Current of White Nile - First View of Natives
- Joctian and his Wife - Charming Husband - Natron - Catch a
Hippopotamus - "Perhaps it was his Uncle" - Real Turtle is Mock
Hippopotamus - Richarn reduced to the Ranks - Arrival at the Zareeba -
Fish Spearing - The Kytch Tribe - White Ant Towers - Starvation in the
Kytch Country - Destitution of the Natives - The Bull of the Herd - Men
and Beasts in a bad Temper - Aboukooka - Austrian Mission Station - Sale
of the Mission-House - Melancholy Fate of Baron Harnier - The Aliab
Tribes - Tulmuli of Ashes - The Shir Tribe - The Lotus Harvest - Arrival
at Gondokoro - Discharge Cargo
CHAPTER II.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 2 of 343
Words from 565 to 1131
of 178435
