Yes, the honour of the Egyptian flag has been maintained, after the shedding of “rivers of blood,” after the exhibition of noble stout-heartedness, unabated courage, and a prudent Fabian generalship, which dispirited the enemy and animated his troops; he has been able to align his troops in stations well fenced and fortified, so that the struggle may be prolonged until he can hear the wishes of his Highness the Khedive, and sound his plaint in the ears of Europe viâ Zanzibar. It is the story of this brave struggle that enlisted the sympathy of myself and companions, and caused us to press on by the back door of Africa to lend a helping hand, to rescue him if necessary, or to supply him with the means of defence if needed.

In April 1885 he learns “from the poor slave of God, Mohammed El Mahdi, the son of Abdallah,” in a letter to his friend and Governor Karamalla, the son of Sheik Mohammed, to whom may God grant etc., of the death of “that enemy to God—Gordon,” and of the assault and capture of Khartoum, and that all the Soudan from Lado down to Abu Hamad Cataract, is in the hands of the Mahdists, and that from the north no hope of relief may be expected. He examines his prospects and position to the south, east and west. To the east is Kabba Rega, the King of Unyoro, and his tributary chiefs. To him he sends Captain Casati as his representative or ambassador. It is the policy of Kabba Rega to be kind to the Governor. He knew him in past years as an officer of that active vice-king at Khartoum, and was hospitable and friendly to him. He knows not as yet of the wonderful changes that have come over that region of Africa, and is ignorant of the ruin that had overtaken that proud Government which had dictated laws to him. His African mind is too dense to grasp the meaning of this new movement abreast of his territory, and therefore, fearing to displease the Governor, he receives Captain Casati generously and with a grand display of hospitality. By-and-by deserters approach him, cunning Egyptians and treacherous Soudanese, with their arms and ammunition, and bit by bit he discovers the meaning of that fierce struggle, and begins to understand that the Government which he dreaded was a wreck.

On the 2nd of January, 1886, Dr. Junker is taken across the Albert Lake to Kibiro, a port of Unyoro. He is on his way home after years of travel in Monbuttu and the Welle basin. He succeeds in reaching Uganda, and because of his poverty is permitted to embark in a mission boat and proceeds to Usambiro, at the south end of Lake Victoria, and thence to Zanzibar, taking with him the despatches of Emin. It is through this traveller we first learn the real straits that the Pasha is in, and the distresses in prospect for him.

Kabba Rega meanwhile is patient, like an heir-expectant. He knows that eventually he must win. Day by day, week by week, he sits waiting. He affects generosity to the Governor, permits letters to pass and repass between Zanzibar and Equatoria, treats the Ambassador with due consideration, and ostensibly he is a firm friend; so much so, that Emin has “nothing but hearty praises of Kabba Rega.” But about the 13th February, 1888, Kabba Rega wakes up. He hears of an Expedition close to the Nyanza, and native exaggeration has magnified its means and numbers. On or about the same date that the Relief Expedition is looking up and down the waters of the Nyanza for evidences of a white man’s presence in the region, Captain Casati is seized, his house robbed, and himself expelled with every mark of ignominy and almost naked, and from this time forth Kabba Rega is a declared enemy, having first sealed his enmity in the blood of Mohammed Biri, who had been a trusted messenger between Emin and the C.M.S. Mission in Uganda.

To the west there is a great broad white blank, extending from his Province to the Congo, of which absolutely nothing is known. To the south there is a region marked on the map by the same white emptiness, and turn which way he will, with a people unequal to the task of cutting their way out and dreading the unknown, he has no other option than waiting to see the effect of the disclosures of Junker and his own despatches.

But in the meantime he is not idle. By the defeat of the rebels and Mahdists in Makkaraka he has compelled a truce, and is left undisturbed by Karamalla. Beyond Wadelai he has established Tunguru and Mswa stations, and though the First Battalion has long ago cast off his authority, the Second Battalion and the Native Irregulars acknowledge, after their way, his authority. He superintends agriculture, the planting, raising, and manufacture of cotton, travels between station and station, establishes friendship with the surrounding tribes, and by his tact maintains the semblance of good government.

There are some things, however, he cannot do: he cannot undo the evil already done; he cannot eradicate the evil dispositions of his men, nor can he, by only the exercise of temperate justice, appease the evil passions roused by the revolution in the Soudan. He can only postpone the hour of revolt. For against his sole influence are arrayed the influences of the officers of the First Battalion, of the hundreds of Egyptian employés scattered over the whole length of the Province, who, by their insidious counsels, reverse the effect of every measure taken by the Pasha, and palsy every effort made by him. He cannot inaugurate, by the expression of his wish, a new system of dealing with the natives. The system has been established throughout the Soudan of exacting from the natives every species of contribution—herds, flocks, grain, and servants; or, whenever there is scarcity, of proceeding by force of arms and taking what they need from the aborigines. And this need, unfortunately, is insatiable; it has no limit. The officers cannot be limited to a certain number; each has three or four wives, besides concubines, and these require domestic servants for their households. Fadl el Mulla Bey’s household requires a hundred slaves—men, women, boys, and girls. The soldiers require wives, and these also must have servants; and with the growth of the boys into manhood there grows new needs, which the natives must satisfy with their women and children of both sexes.

There are 650 men and officers in the First Battalion, and as many in the Second Battalion. There are about 3,000 Irregulars; there is a little army of clerks, storekeepers, artisans, engineers, captains, and sailors. These must be wived, concubined, and fed by the natives, and in return there is nothing given to them. We hear of 8,000 head of cattle being collected on a raid; the Pasha admitted that 1,600 beeves and cows was the greatest number during his government. But these raids are frequent; each station must have herds of its own, and there are fourteen stations. Shukri Agha, Commandant of Mswa, was indefatigable in making these raids. Of course the Pasha found this state of things in his Province. It was an old-established custom, a custom that weighs with all the weight of fearful oppression on the natives; and, embarrassed as he was by the advance of Karamalla and the disease of rebellion that raged like an epidemic in the hearts of his own subjects, he was powerless to restrain them. But we can understand why the natives, who had been for so many years under Egyptian government, hailed the appearance of the Mahdists, and joined them to exterminate the panic-stricken fugitives from the captured forts of the Province. When the Congo State forgets its duties to its subjects, and sanctions rapine and raiding, we may rest assured that its fall will be as sudden and as certain as that of the Egyptian Government in the Soudan.

I am not concerned in writing the history of this unhappy region, which has been given up for years to be the prey of the vilest passions that human nature is capable of feeling, but by these allusions to what I personally know I am able to interest the reader in the true position of Emin Pasha. This solitary man was engaged in as impossible a task as was that of Gordon when he undertook and set out for Khartoum, in 1884, to rescue the garrisons of the Soudan. He did brave things, but the bravest portion of his story is when this earnest-minded man lives among these lost people, and has to endure seeing his subjects robbed and despoiled whenever any officer apprehends scarcity and resolves upon a raiding expedition. He knows exactly what will happen; he knows there will be indiscriminate shooting and looting, he knows there will be destruction of villages and decimation of the owners; that with the captive herds there will be long files of captive women and children, and a distribution of the spoil; and yet he dares do nothing to thwart these cruel and hard proceedings. How can he? He has no cloth or money to buy food for all his people. What answer can he make when they demand of him what they must do to live? Though the soil is gracious and repays labour, it is useless for him to point to it. They will grow cotton to clothe themselves, and cultivate gardens for kitchen vegetables, because no native understands these things; but grain for bread, and cattle for beef, the natives must yield to people nobler than themselves. He is the only man who can think of this work as a wrong, and as he has no force to compel men to think otherwise, he must needs endure this evil as he endures many others. Good government was therefore impossible. It was founded on blood and spoliation from the very beginning, and, like all other Governments which preceded it, that were created with similar views, it was decreed that it should perish utterly.

As a fitting conclusion to this chapter, I append the following documents received from Sir Francis Grenfell, the Sirdar of Egypt. Those who love to trace effects to causes may find in these documents criminating proofs of that intercourse with the enemy which was maintained by the rebel officers. They explain what I have asserted. They prove conclusively that their object in proceeding to the Pasha at Tunguru, and imploring his forgiveness, promising to reinstate him in power, and begging him to introduce them to me, was for the purpose consummating the vile plot of betraying us into the hands of the Mahdists. Thanks to Jephson, who was “a chiel takin’ notes,” and to the clumsiness of their acts, Omar Saleh did not have the satisfaction of conveying that “other traveller who had come to Emin,” and whom he was so anxious to catch, for exhibition at Khartoum—which he may possibly regret more than I.

“The ammunition sent was Snider ammunition, marked 1869, and is in very good condition. Two letters were enclosed. The first of these is recognised by his Excellency the Sirdar as being the one given to Mr. Stanley by his Highness the Khedive on his departure from Cairo.”

“The second is a copy of a letter of Omar Saleh to the Khalifa, dated 15th October, 1888, and is as follows:—

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TO THE ALBERT EDWARD NYANZA.

The road to the south, which we now pursued on moving from Bundegunda on the 9th May, skirted the western base of that great bulk of mountain land inhabited by the Balegga, and the Bandussuma of Mazamboni. It crosses cultivated tracts devoted to beans and luxuriant sweet potatoes, yams, colocassia, and sugar-cane; it is hedged thickly with glorious plantains; it is flanked by humble villages, with cone roofs; it is buried under miniature wildernesses of reedy cane; it dips down to clear, limpid rillets, just escaped from the bosom of the tall mountains soaring above; it winds in snaky curves over rich flats of pasture; it runs close to the foot of steep slopes, and then starts off along smoothly-descending spurs. About five miles off to the westward, or on our right hand, the forest, black as night, keeps company with us. We are seldom out of sight of the advancing capes and receding bays of the dark, eternal mass. On our left, in intimate neighbourhood, rise the mighty slopes, steeply receding upward into the greyish blue of an uncertain sky, and far away, in solemn lines, like a colossal battalion of mountains, is ranged the series between each of which are deep ravines, narrow and far-reaching recessions, formed by ceaselessly-murmuring streams.

On the morning of this day, Ruwenzori came out from its mantle of clouds and vapours, and showed its groups of peaks and spiny ridges resplendent with shining white snow; the blue beyond was as that of ocean—a purified and spotless translucence. Far to the west, like huge double epaulettes, rose the twin peaks which I had seen in December, 1887, and from the sunk ridge below the easternmost rose sharply the dominating and unsurpassed heights of Ruwenzori proper, a congregation of hoary heads, brilliant in white raiment; and away to the east extended a roughened ridge, like a great vertebra—peak and saddle, isolated mount and hollow, until it passed out of sight behind the distant extremities of the range we were then skirting. And while in constant view of it, as I sat up in the hide hammock suspended between two men, my plan of our future route was sketched. For to the west of the twin peaks, Ruwenzori range either dropped suddenly into a plain or sheered away S.S.W. What I saw was either an angle of a mass or the western extremity. We would aim for the base of the twin peaks, and pursue our course southerly to lands unknown, along the base-line. The guides—for we had many now—pointed with their spears vaguely, and cried out “Ukonju” and (giving a little dab into the air with their spear-points) “Usongora,” meaning that Ukonju was what we saw, and beyond it lay Usongora, invisible.

After halting at Ujungwa we rose next day to march to Utinda, seven miles off. The valley between the Balegga Mountains and the forest seemed to narrow, and the path threatened to take us into troublous depths of spear-grass brakes and fens nourishing reed-cane, when, after crossing the Chai and Aturo streams, and several gushing rivulets, it ran up a lengthy spur of the Balegga Mountains, and took us to a height of 500 feet above the valley.

From this altitude we observed that we had narrowly escaped being buried in the forest again, for it had advanced behind the spur right across the valley, and occupied every inch of lowland. Within its sombre depths the Chai and Aturo rivers and other streams united their currents to form a respectable tributary of the Ituri river.

A little to our left, as we looked south, was a deep basin parted into numerous small arable plots, appertaining to the district of Utinda. Every ravine and hollow seemed choked by long, straggling plantations of plantain and banana. The beans and Indian corn were late, for they were not more than five inches high, while at Bundegunda the crops were quite four feet high and in flower.

The Egyptians reached camp four hours after the advance guard, and the officer in charge of the rear complained bitterly of the abuse that he had received from the Pasha’s officers, some of them jeering at him, making mouths, and daring him to drive them along, which compelled me to issue the following order:—

RUWENZORI, FROM KAVALLI’S.
RUWENZORI, FROM KAVALLI’S.

From the basin of Utinda we ascended past a few cones dominating a ridge which enclosed it on the south and south-east, and, after surmounting two other ridges separated by well-watered valleys, we arrived on the airy upland of grassy Uhobo, 4,900 feet above sea-level. A little later Kaibuga entered into our camp. This chief was of the Wahuma settled among the Balegga, whose grounds overlooked the plain of Kavalli and the south end of the Nyanza, and whose territory extended to the debouchure of the Semliki. He urged active hostilities, as Uhobo belonged to Kabba Rega. Naturally we smiled at this, as we had not seen the semblance of a single enemy, though it is true that the Uhobo natives had disappeared from view at our approach. At this instant a picquet signalled the advance of a column of Kabba Rega’s people armed with guns, and two companies of Zanzibaris were mustered by Lieutenant Stairs and Captain Nelson, the latter of whom had so improved by the diet of Kavalli and Mazamboni that he was fit for any work.

After proceeding about two miles they met the small party of the Pasha’s people carrying the dead body of Captain Casati’s faithful servant Okili, for whom Casati entertained deep affection. He had been shot through the forehead by a rifle-ball. It appears that while the Soudanese had been bathing in a stream south of Uhobo, the column of the Wara Sura happened to be observed marching in a pretty disciplined manner with two flags towards them, and a few minutes later would have surprised them, but the whole party hastily dressed, and, snatching their rifles, opened fire on them. Three of the enemy fell dead, and Okili was shot by the fire that was returned. On the approach of the Zanzibaris the Wara Sura fled, and were pursued for three miles, but no further casualties occurred.

A severe rainstorm, lasting seven hours, fell during the night, and in the morning when marching to Mboga we were involved in cloud and mist. As the day advanced, however, Ruwenzori thrust its immense body into view far above the vapours rising from the low Semliki Valley, and every now and then the topmost cones gathered the cloudy fleeces and veiled their white heads from view. As we advanced nearer each day to the range we were surprised that we were not able to discover so much snow as we had seen at Kavalli, but on reflection it became evident that the line of snow became obscured from view by an advanced ridge, which the nearer we approached impeded the view the more. We observed also that the lofty mountain range assumed the form of a crescent; Ajif Mountain forming the northern end and the Twin Peak shoulder to the west the other end; and further, that beyond Ajif, which I estimated at about 6,000 feet above the sea, there was a steady and perceptible rise to the snow line, and then a sudden uplift to the proud height of from 2,000 to 5,000 feet higher, most of which was under snow.

This place of Mboga, were it in any other country than under the Equator in Mid Africa, would afford a splendid view of this unique range. From the Twin Peak angle and up to thirty miles N.N.E. of Ajif the whole of it ought to be in sight in any other clime, but the mist escapes in continuous series or strata from the valley beneath, and floats in fleeting evanescent masses, quite obscuring every other minute the entire outlines. Between this point and the Ruwenzori range lies the deep sunken valley of the Semliki, from twelve to twenty-five miles wide. From a point abreast of Mboga to the edge of the Lake the first glance of it suggests a lake. Indeed, the officers supposed it to be the Albert Lake, and the Soudanese women were immoderately joyous at the sight, and relieved their feelings by shrill lu-lu-lus; but a binocular revealed pale brown grass in its sere, with tiny bushes dotting the plain. To our right, as we looked down the depth of 2,500 feet, there was a dark tongue of acacia bushes deepening into blackness as the forest, which we had left near the Chai River, usurped the entire breadth of the valley.

Mr. Jephson was still an invalid, with a fever which varied from 102° to 105° temperature, ever since the 23rd of April, and at this time he was in rather an anxious state of mind. Like myself, he was much shrunk, and we both looked ill. We halted on the 13th to give rest to invalids and the little children.

To Kiryama, on the 14th, a village situated near the mouth of a deep and narrow valley, and which in old times, when Lake Albert covered the grassy plain and must have been a somewhat picturesque inlet, we made a continuous descent by declining spurs. The soil of the valley was extremely rich, and a copious stream coursed through it to the Semliki. We obtained, at brief intervals, glimpses of Ruwenzori; but had the mist not been so tantalising it would not have been deemed an unwelcome view that we should have had of the magnificent and imposing altitude of 15,500 feet above us.

In the camp of the immense caravan a little boy about eleven years old, named Tukabi, was found. He was what is termed “a stowaway.” While we were at Mazamboni, his father, a subject of Kavalli, had come to appeal for help to recover him. He had attached himself to some Zanzibaris. The boy was delivered up, and his father was charged to observe the young truant carefully. He had disguised himself with some cloth to cover his face, but as he passed my tent I recognised him. He was asked why he deserted his father to join strangers who might be unkind to him. “Because,” he answered, “I prefer my friend to my father.” “Does your father beat you?” “No, but I wish to see the place where these guns come from, and where the thunder medicine (gunpowder) is made.” It was the first time in my experience that an African boy of such a tender age was known to voluntarily abandon his parents. He was a singularly bright little fellow, with very intelligent eyes, and belonged to the Wahuma race.

Captain Nelson was despatched to proceed to the Semliki River with 80 rifles, to examine what opportunities there might be for crossing the river. He returned after a brilliant march, and reported that the Semliki at the ferry was about eighty or ninety yards wide, swift and deep, with steep banks of from ten to twenty feet high, much subject to undermining by the river; that the canoes had all been removed by Ravidongo, the General of Kabba Rega, who was said to have gathered a large force to oppose our crossing, and also that all the natives of Uhobo, Mboga, and Kiryama districts, were collected across the Semliki River with him, and that it was clear a stout resistance would be made, as the opposite banks were carefully watched; that while they were examining the river a volley had been fired at them, which was fortunately harmless.

After a two days’ rest at Kiryama we marched south across the grassy plain to another ferry led by Kaibuga. That which some of us had assumed to be a lake was very firm alluvium and lacustrine deposit, growing a thin crop of innutritious grass, about 18 inches high. As we advanced up the river it sensibly improved; and at the third hour from Kiryama an acacia tree was seen; a little later there were five, then a dozen, wide apart and stunted. At the fourth hour it was quite a thin forest on the left side of the Semliki, while to the right it was a thick impervious and umbrageous tropic forest, and suddenly we were on the bank of the Semliki. At the point we touched the river it was sixty yards wide, with between a four and five-knot current. A little below it widened into 100 yards, a fine, deep, and promising river. Up and down, and opposite, there were broad signs of recent land falls. Its banks consisted of sediment and gravelly débris which could offer no resistance to the strong current when it surged against the base. It washed away great masses from underneath. There was a continual falling of dissolving lumps, as though it was so much snow; then a sudden fall of a two-ton fragment of the superincumbent bank. It was a loopy, and twisting, crooked stream, forming a wide-stretching S in every mile of its course, and its water was of a whitey-brown colour, and weighted with sediment. Out of a tumblerful of the liquid, a fourth of an inch of fine earth would be deposited.

By a good aneroid the altitude of the bank, which was about twenty feet above the river, was 2,388 feet above the sea. Lake Albert by the same aneroid was 2,350 feet. There was a difference indicated of 38 feet. I estimated that we were about thirty English miles from the lake.

As we arrived at the river a canoe was observed floating down rapidly. The alarm had been given, probably, by some natives who had heard our voices, and in their hurry to escape had either purposely cast off their canoe, or had feared to be detained through the necessity of securing it. The village of the Awamba, whence it had floated adrift, was in sight. Men were sent up and down the banks to discover a canoe, and Uledi—always Uledi—sent up soon the good news that he had found one. The caravan proceeded in his direction, and camped in a large but abandoned banana plantation. The canoe was across the river in a small creek, opposite the camping place. By some method it was necessary to obtain it, as one canoe at this time was priceless. The men with the bill-hooks were ordered up to clear twenty yards of bush, and to leave a thin screen between the sharpshooters and the river. Then three or four volleys scoured the position around the canoe, and in the meantime the bold Uledi and Saat Tato, the hunter, swam across, and when near the vessel the firing ceased. In a few seconds they had cut the canoe loose, and were in it, paddling across to our side with all energy. They had gained the centre of the river when the archers rose up and shot the hunter, and at the same time the rifles blazed across. But the canoe was obtained, and Saat Tato, streaming with blood, was attended by Dr. Parke. Fortunately, the broad-bladed arrow had struck the shoulder blade, which saved the vitals. Both the brave fellows were rewarded with $20 worth of cloth on the spot.

At 5 P.M. Mr. Bonny performed signal service. He accepted the mission of leading five Soudanese across the Semliki as the vanguard of the Expedition. By sunset there were fifty rifles across the river.

ATTACK BY THE WANYORO AT SEMLIKI FERRY.
ATTACK BY THE WANYORO AT SEMLIKI FERRY.

On the 18th the ferriage was resumed at dawn. By noon two more canoes had been discovered by scouts. Staits and Jephson were both very ill of fever, and I was a prematurely old man of ninety in strength and appearance and just able to walk at this time about one hundred yards. Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke therefore superintended the work of transporting the Expedition across the Semliki. At two o’clock in the afternoon, while the ferrying was briskly proceeding, a body of fifty of the Wara Sura stole up to within 250 yards of the ferry, and fired a volley at the canoes while in mid-river. Iron slugs and lead bullets screamed over the heads of the passengers, and flew along the face of the water, but fortunately there was no harm done. Notwithstanding our admiration at their impudent audacity, a second volley might be more effective, but Captain Nelson sprang from the river-side, and a hundred rifles gathered around him and a chase began. We heard a good deal of volleying, but the chase and retreat were so hot that not a bullet found its purposed billet. However, the Wara Sura discovered that, whatever our intentions might be, we were in strong force, and we understood that they were capable of contriving mischief. In their hurried flight they dropped several as well-made cartridges as could be prepared at Woolwich; and here was a proof also what a nest of traitors there was in the Equatorial Province, for all these articles were of course furnished by the scores of deserters.

By night of the 18th, 669 people had been ferried across. At 3 o’clock of the 19th, 1,168 men, women and children, 610 loads of baggage, 3 canoe loads of sheep and goats, and 235 head of cattle had been taken across. The only loss sustained was a calf, which was drowned. It may he imagined how pleased I was at the brilliant services, activity and care shown by Captain Nelson and Dr. Parke.

A few hours later one of the Pasha’s followers was taken to the surgeon with a fatal arrow-wound. It reminded me of the anxious times I suffered, during the first eighteen months’ experiences with the equally thoughtless Zanzibaris.

On the 20th the Expedition moved through the thick forest, along an extremely sloughy path to a little village removed one and a half hours from the river. We arrived just as the intolerable pests of gnats were at their liveliest. They swarmed into the eyes, nostrils, and ears, in myriads. We thought the uninhabited forest was preferable, but at 9 o’clock the minute tribes retired to rest, and ceased to vex us. There was an odour of stale banana wine and ripe banana refuse, and these probably had attracted the gnats. Two large troughs—equal in size to small canoes—were stationed in the village, in which the natives pressed the ripe fruit and manufactured their wine.

For the first time we discovered that the Awamba, whose territory we were now in, understood the art of drying bananas over wooden gratings, for the purpose of making flour. We had often wondered, during our life in the forest region, that natives did not appear to have discovered what invaluable, nourishing, and easily digestible food they possessed in the plantain and banana. All banana lands—Cuba, Brazil, West Indies—seem to me to have been specially remiss on this point. If only the virtues of the flour were publicly known, it is not to be doubted but it would be largely consumed in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspeptics, and those suffering from temporary derangements of the stomach, the flour, properly prepared, would be of universal demand. During my two attacks of gastritis, a light gruel of this, mixed with milk, was the only matter that could be digested.

On the 22nd we were obliged to march for six hours through quagmire and reeking mud before we were enabled to find a resting-place. The dense forest, while as purely tropical in its luxuriance as any we had travelled, was more discomforting owing to its greater heat and over-abundant moisture. The excessive humidity revealed itself in a thin, opaque, damp haze just above us. In the tree-tops it had already gathered into a mist; above them it was a cloud; so that between us and sunshine we had clouds several miles in thickness, the thick, dark, matted foliage of the forest, then thickening layers of mist, and finally a haze of warm vapour. We therefore picked our way through shallow pool and gluey black mud, under a perpetual dropping of condensed vapour, and by a leaden light that would encourage thoughts of suicide, while bodily distress was evinced by trickling rillets of perspiration.

Emerging into a ruined village, the result of some late raid of the Wara Sura, we threw looks towards Ruwenzori, but the old mountain had disappeared under blue-black clouds that reminded one of brooding tempests. The heights of Mboga were dimly visible, though they were further from us than the stupendous mass behind which the thunder muttered, and whence rain seemed imminent. We began to realize that we were in the centre of a great fermenting vat, and that the exhalations growing out of it concentrated themselves into clouds, and that the latter hung in ever-thickening folds until they floated against the face of Ruwenzori; that they languidly ascended the slants and clung to the summits, until a draught of wind over the snow-crests blew them away and cleared the view.

We passed through an extremely populous district the next day, and travelled only two and a quarter hours to reach Baki Kundi. Flanking the path were familiar features, such as several camps of pigmies, who were here called Watwa.

The distance from the Semliki to these villages wherein we were now encamped is 15½ English miles, which we had taken three days to travel, and two days’ halt in consequence. But slow as this was, and supplied as was the caravan with running streams of good water and unlimited quantities of meat and grain, potatoes, plantains, and ripe fruit, the misery of African travel had been realised to its depths. Mothers had left their little children on the road, and one Egyptian soldier, named Hamdan, had laid down by the wayside and stubbornly refused to move, unwilling to pursue the journey of life further. He had no load to carry, he was not sick, but he—what can be said? He belonged to the donkey breed of humanity; he could not travel, but he could die, and the rear-guard were obliged to leave him. This started a rumour through the camp that the commander of the rear-guard had quietly despatched him.

The 24th of May was a halt, and we availed ourselves of it to despatch two companies to trace the paths, that I might obtain a general idea which would best suit our purposes. One company took a road leading slightly east of south, and suddenly came across a few Baundwe, whom we knew for real forest aborigines. This was in itself a discovery, for we had supposed we were still in Utuku, as the east side of the Semliki is called, and which is under Kabba Rega’s rule. The language of the Baundwe was new, but they understood a little Kinyoro, and by this means we learned that Ruwenzori was known to them as Bugombowa, and that the Watwa pigmies and the Wara Sura were their worst enemies, and that the former were scattered through the woods to the W.S.W.

The other company travelled in a S. by W. direction, reached the thin line of open country that divided the immediate base-line of Ruwenzori from the forest. They spoke in raptures of the abundance of food, but stated that the people were hostile and warlike. The arms of the men were similar to those of other forest people, but the women were distinguished for iron collars, to which were suspended small phial-shaped pendants of hollow iron, besides those ending in fine spiral coils at the extremities.

HOUSES ON THE EDGE OF THE FOREST.
HOUSES ON THE EDGE OF THE FOREST.

Another short march of two and a quarter hours brought us to a village of thirty-nine round, conical huts, which possessed elaborate doorways, here and there ornamented with triangles painted red and black. The Elais gunieensis palm was very numerous near the village.

On the next day we emerged out of the forest, and camped in the strip of grass-land in the village of Ugarama, in N. lat. 0° 45′ 49″ and E. long. 30° 14′ 45″. The path had led along the crests of a narrow, wooded spur, with ravines 200 feet deep on either hand, buried by giant trees. The grass-land here did not produce that short nutritive quality which made Kavalli so pleasant, but was of gigantic spear-grasses, from 6 to 15 feet high.

The Egyptian Hamdan made his reappearance at this camp. Left to himself he had probably discovered it hard to die alone in the lonely woods, and had repented of his folly. By this time we had become fully sensible of the difficulty we should meet each day while these people were under our charge. Low as was my estimation of them before, it had descended far below zero now. Words availed nothing, reason could not penetrate their dense heads. Their custom was to rush at early dawn along the path, and after an hour’s spurt sit down, dawdle, light a fire, and cook, and smoke, and gossip; then, when the rear-guard came up to urge them along, assume sour and discontented looks, and mutter to themselves of the cruelty of the infidels. Almost every day complaints reached me from them respecting Captain Nelson and Lieutenant Stairs. Either one or the other was reported for being exacting and too peremptory. It was tedious work to get them to comprehend that they were obeying orders; that their sole anxiety was to save them from being killed by the natives, or from losing their way; that the earlier they reached camp the better for everybody; that marches of two or three hours would not kill a child even; that while it was our duty to be careful of their lives, it was also our duty to have some regard for the Zanzibaris, who, instead of being two or three hours on the road were obliged to be ten hours, with boxes on their heads; that it was my duty also to see that the white officers were not worn out by being exposed to the rain, and mud, and shivering damp, waiting on people who would not see the benefit of walking four or five miles quickly to camp to enjoy twenty to twenty-one hours’ rest out of the twenty-four. These whining people, who were unable to walk empty-handed two and a half or three hours per day, were yellow Egyptians; a man with a little black pigment in his skin seldom complained, the extreme black and the extreme white never.

The Egyptians and their followers had such a number of infants and young children that when the camp space was at all limited, as on a narrow spur, sleep was scarcely possible. These wee creatures must have possessed irascible natures, for such obstinate and persistent caterwauling never tormented me before. The tiny blacks and sallow yellows rivalled one another with force of lung until long past midnight, then about 3 or 4 A.M. started afresh, woke everyone from slumber, while grunts of discontent at the meeawing chorus would be heard from every quarter.

EGYPTIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
EGYPTIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

Our Zanzibaris concluded that though the people of Equatoria might be excellent breeders, they were very poor soldiers. The Egyptians had been so long accustomed to overawe the natives of the Province by their numbers and superior arms, that now their number was somewhat reduced and overmatched by natives, they appeared to be doubtful of reaching peaceful countries; but they were so undisciplined, and yet so imperious, they would speedily convert the most peaceful natives to rancorous foes.

With the Pasha I had a conversation on this date, and I became fully aware that, though polite, he yet smarted under resentment for the explosion of April 5th. But the truth is that the explosion was necessary and unavoidable. Our natures were diametrically opposed. So long as there was no imperative action in prospect we should have been both capable of fully enjoying one another’s society. He was learned and industrious and a gentleman, and I could admire and appreciate his merits. But the conditions of our existence prohibited a too prolonged indulgence in these pleasures. We had not been commissioned to pass our days in Equatoria in scientific talk, nor to hold a protracted conversazione on Lake Albert. The time had come, as appointed, to begin a forward movement. It was not effected without that episode in the square at Kavalli. Now that we were on the journey I discovered to my regret that there were other causes for friction. The Pasha was devoured with a desire to augment his bird collections, and thought that, having come so far to help him, we might “take it easy.” “But we are taking it easy for manifold reasons. The little children, the large number of women burdened with infants, the incapable Egyptians, the hope that Selim Bey will overtake us, the feeble condition of Jephson and myself, and Stairs is far from strong.” “Well, then, take it more easy.” “We have done so; a mile and a half per day is surely easy going.” “Then be easier still.” “Heavens, Pasha, do you wish us to stay here altogether? Then let us make our wills, and resign ourselves to die with our work undone.” The thunder was muttering again, as behind the dark clouds on Ruwenzori, and another explosion was imminent.