Two
Men With Powerful Hippopotamus Whips Stood, One On Either Side.
The
prisoner thus secured, the order was given.
The whips were most
scientifically applied, rind after the first five dozen, the
slave-hunting scoundrel howled most lustily for mercy. How often had he
flogged unfortunate slave women to excess, and what murders had that
wretch committed, who now howled for mercy! I begged Omer Bey to stop
the punishment at 150 lashes, and to explain to him publicly in the
divan, that he was thus punished for attempting to thwart the expedition
of an English traveller, by instigating my escort to mutiny.
This affair over - all my accounts paid - and my men dismissed with their
hands full of money, - I was ready to start for Egypt. The Nile rose
sufficiently to enable the passage of the cataracts, and on the 30th
June we took leave of all friends in Khartoum, and of my very kind
agent, Michael Latfalla, well known as Hallil el Shami, who had most
generously cashed all my bills on Cairo without charging a fraction of
exchange. On the morning of 1st July, we sailed from Khartoum to Berber.
On approaching the fine basalt hills through which the river passes
during its course from Khartoum, I was surprised to see the great Nile
contracted to a trifling width of from eighty to a hundred and twenty
yards. Walled by high cliffs of basalt upon either side, the vast volume
of the Nile flows grandly through this romantic pass, the water boiling
up in curling eddies, showing that rocky obstructions exist in its
profound depths below.
Our voyage was very nearly terminated at the passage of the cataracts.
Many skeletons of wrecked vessels lay upon the rocks in various places:
as we were flying along in full sail before a heavy gale of wind,
descending a cataract, we struck upon a sandbank - fortunately not upon a
rock, or we should have gone to pieces like a glass bottle. The
tremendous force of the stream, running at the rate of about ten or
twelve miles per hour, immediately drove the vessel broadside upon the
bank. About sixty yards below us was a ridge of rocks, upon which it
appeared certain that we must be driven should we quit the bank upon
which we were stranded. The reis and crew, as usual in such cases, lost
their heads. I emptied a large waterproof portmanteau, and tied it
together with ropes, so as to form a life-buoy for my wife and Richarn,
neither of whom could swim; the maps, journals, and observations, I
packed in an iron box, which I fastened with a tow-line to the
portmanteau. It appeared that we were to wind up the expedition with
shipwreck, and thus lose my entire collection of hunting spoils. Having
completed the preparations for escape, I took command of the vessel, and
silenced the chattering crew.
My first order was to lay out an anchor up stream.
This was done:
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