For some days two or three
of our men had been complaining of severe headache, giddiness, and
violent pains in the spine and between the shoulders.
I had been anxious
when at Gondokoro concerning the vessel, as many persons had died on
board of the plague during the voyage from Khartoum. The men assured me
that the most fatal symptom was violent bleeding from the nose; in such
cases no one had been known to recover. One of the boatmen, who had been
ailing for some days, suddenly went to the side of the vessel and hung
his head over the river; his nose was bleeding!
Another of my men, Yaseen, was ill; his uncle, my vakeel, came to me
with a report that "his nose was bleeding violently!" Several other men
fell ill: they lay helplessly about the deck in low muttering delirium,
their eyes as yellow as orange-peel. In two or three days the vessel was
so horribly offensive as to be unbearable; THE PLAGUE HAD BROKEN OUT! We
floated past the river Sobat junction; the wind was fair from the south,
thus fortunately we in the stern were to windward of the crew. Yaseen
died; he was one who had bled at the nose. We stopped to bury him. The
funeral hastily arranged, we again set sail. Mahommed died; he had bled
at the nose. Another burial. Once more we set sail and hurried down the
Nile. Several men were ill, but the dreaded symptom had not appeared.
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