Attack you when
crossing some swollen torrent, and what could you do with only a man and
a boy?"
His reply to my question concerning the value of beads corroborated
Richarn's statement; nothing could be purchased for anything but cattle;
the traders had commenced the system of stealing herds of cattle from
one tribe to barter with the next neighbour; thus the entire country was
in anarchy and confusion, and beads were of no value. My plan for a dash
through the country was impracticable.
I therefore called my vakeel, and threatened him with the gravest
punishment on my return to Khartoum. I wrote to Sir R. Colquhoun, H.M.
Consul-General for Egypt, which letter I sent by one of the return
boats; and I explained to my vakeel that the complaint to the British
authorities would end in his imprisonment, and that in case of my death
through violence he would assuredly be hanged. After frightening him
thoroughly, I suggested that he should induce some of the mutineers, who
were Dongolowas (his own tribe), many of whom were his relatives, to
accompany me, in which case I would forgive them their past misconduct.
In the course of the afternoon he returned with the news, that he had
arranged with seventeen of the men, but that they refused to march
towards the south, and would accompany me to the east if I wished to
explore that part of the country. Their plea for refusing a southern
route was the hostility of the Bari tribe. They also proposed a
condition, that I should "leave all my transport animals and baggage
behind me."
To this insane request, which completely nullified their offer to start,
I only replied by vowing vengeance against the vakeel.
Their time was passed in vociferously quarrelling among themselves
during the day, and in close conference with the vakeel during the
night, the substance of which was reported on the following morning by
the faithful Saat. The boy recounted their plot. They agreed to march to
the east, with the intention of deserting me at the station of a trader
named Chenooda, seven days' march from Gondokoro, in the Latooka
country, whose men were, like them selves, Dongolowas; they had
conspired to mutiny at that place, and to desert to the slave-hunting
party with my arms and ammunition, and to shoot me should I attempt to
disarm them. They also threatened to shoot my vakeel, who now, through
fear of punishment at Khartoum, exerted his influence to induce them to
start. Altogether, it was a pleasant state of things.
That night I was asleep in my tent, when I was suddenly awoke by loud
screams, and upon listening attentively I distinctly heard the heavy
breathing of something in the tent, and I could distinguish a dark
object crouching close to the head of my bed.
