The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile - Samuel White Baker (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

apparently most innutritious food. When

other animals are starving, the camel manages to pick up a subsistence,

eating the ends of barren, leafless twigs, the dried sticks of certain

shrubs, and the tough dry paper-like substance of the dome palm, about

as succulent a breakfast as would be a green umbrella and a Times

newspaper. With intense greediness the camel, although a hermit in

simplicity of fare in hard times, feeds voraciously when in abundant

pasture, always seeking the greenest shrubs. The poison-bush becomes a

fatal bait.

 

The camel is by no means well understood in Europe. Far from being the

docile and patient animal generally described, it is quite the reverse,

and the males are frequently dangerous. They are exceedingly perverse;

and are, as before described, excessively stupid. For the great deserts

they are wonderfully adapted, and without them it would be impossible to

cross certain tracts of country for want of water.

 

Exaggerated accounts have been written respecting the length of time

that a camel can travel without drinking. The period that the animal can

subsist without suffering from thirst depends entirely upon the season

and the quality of food. Precisely as in Europe sheep require but little

water when fed upon turnips, so does the camel exist almost without

drinking during the rainy season when pastured upon succulent and dewy

herbage. During the hottest season, when green herbage ceases to exist

in the countries inhabited by camels, they are led to water every

alternate day, thus they are supposed to drink once in forty-eight

hours; but when upon the march across deserts, where no water exists,

they are expected to carry a load of from five to six hundred pounds,

and to march twenty-five miles per day, for three days, without

drinking, but to be watered on the fourth day. Thus a camel should drink

the evening before the start, and he will carry his load one hundred

miles without the necessity of drinking; not, however, without suffering

from thirst. On the third day’s march, during the hot simoom, the camel

should drink if possible; but he can endure the fourth day.

 

This peculiarity of constitution enables the camel to overcome obstacles

of nature that would otherwise be insurmountable. Not only can he travel

over the scorching sand of the withering deserts, but he never seeks the

shade. When released from his burden he kneels by his load in the

burning sand, and luxuriates in the glare of a sun that drives all other

beasts to shelter. The peculiar spongy formation of the foot renders the

camel exceedingly sure, although it is usual to believe that it is only

adapted for flat, sandy plains. I have travelled over mountains so

precipitous that no domestic animal but the camel could have

accomplished the task with a load. This capability is not shared

generally by the race, but by a breed belonging to the Hadendowa Arabs,

between the Red Sea and Taka. There is quite as great a variety in the

breeds of camels as of horses. Those most esteemed in the Soudan are the

Bishareen; they are not so large as others, but are exceedingly strong

and enduring.

 

The average value of a baggage camel among the Soudan Arabs is fifteen

dollars, but a good “hygeen,” or riding dromedary, is worth from fifty

to a hundred and fifty dollars, according to his capabilities. A

thoroughly good hygeen is supposed to travel fifty miles a day, and to

continue this pace for five days, carrying only his rider and a small

waterskin or girba. His action should be so easy that his long ambling

trot should produce that peculiar movement adopted by a nurse when

hushing a child to sleep upon her knee. This movement is delightful, and

the quick elastic step of a first-class animal imparts an invigorating

spirit to the rider; and were it not for the intensity of the sun, he

would willingly ride for ever. The difference of action and of comfort

to the rider between a common camel and a high class hygeen is equal to

that between a thoroughbred and a heavy dray-horse.

 

However, with all the good qualities of a “Bishareen,” my best camel was

dead. This was a sad loss. So long as my animals were well I felt

independent, and the death of this camel was equal to minus five cwt. of

luggage. My men were so idle that they paid no attention to the animals,

and the watcher who had been appointed to look after the four camels had

amused himself by going to the Latooka dance. Thus was the loss of my

best animal occasioned.

 

So well had all my saddles and pads been arranged at Khartoum, that

although we had marched seven days with exceedingly heavy loads, not one

of the animals had a sore back. The donkeys were exceedingly fresh, but

they had acquired a most disgusting habit. The Latookas are remarkably

clean in their towns, and nothing unclean is permitted within the

stockade or fence. Thus the outside, especially the neighbourhood of the

various entrances, was excessively filthy, and my donkeys actually

fattened as scavengers, like pigs. I remembered that my unfortunate

German Johann Schmidt had formerly told me that he was at one time

shooting in the Base country, where the grass had been burnt, and not a

blade of vegetation was procurable. He had abundance of sport, and he

fed his donkey upon the flesh of antelopes, which he ate with avidity,

and throve exceedingly. It is a curious fact that donkeys should under

certain circumstances become omnivorous, while horses remain clean

feeders.

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

LATOOKA.

 

The country in the immediate neighbourhood of Latooka was parched, as

there had been no rain for some time. The latitude was 4 degrees 35’,

longitude 32 degrees 55’ E.; the rains had commenced in February on the

mountains on the south side of the valley, about eighteen miles distant.

Every day there was an appearance of a storm; the dark clouds gathered

ominously around the peak of the Gebel Lafeet above the town, but they

were invariably attracted by the higher range on the opposite and south

side of the valley, where they daily expended themselves at about 3 P.M.

On that side of the valley the mountains rose to about 6,000 feet, and

formed a beautiful object seen from my camp. It was most interesting to

observe the embryo storms travel from Tarrangolle in a circle, and

ultimately crown the higher range before us, while the thunder roared

and echoed from rock to rock across the plain.

 

The Latookas assured me that at the foot of those mountains there were

elephants and giraffes in abundance; accordingly, I determined to make a

reconnaissance of the country.

 

On the following morning I started on horseback, with two of my people

mounted, and a native guide, and rode through the beautiful valley of

Latooka to the foot of the range. The first five or six miles were

entirely de-pastured by the enormous herds of the Latookas who were

driven to that distance from the towns daily, all the country in the

immediate vicinity being dried up. The valley was extremely fertile, but

totally unoccupied and in a state of nature, being a wilderness of open

plains, jungles, patches of forest and gullies, that although dry

evidently formed swamps during the wet season. When about eight miles

from the town we came upon tracks of the smaller antelopes, which,

although the weakest, are the most daring in approaching the habitations

of man. A few miles farther on, we saw buffaloes and hartebeest, and

shortly came upon tracks of giraffes. Just at this moment the inky

clouds that as usual had gathered over Tarrangolle came circling around

us, and presently formed so dense a canopy that the darkness was like a

partial eclipse. The thunder warned us with tremendous explosions just

above us, while the lightning flashed almost at our feet with blinding

vividness. A cold wind suddenly rushed through the hitherto calm air;

this is the certain precursor of rain in hot climates, the heavier cold

air of the rain-cloud falling into the stratum of warmer and lighter

atmosphere below.

 

It DID rain—in such torrents as only the inhabitants of tropical

countries can understand. “Cover up the gunlocks!”—and the pieces of

mackintosh for that purpose were immediately secured in their places.

Well, let it rain!—it is rather pleasant to be wet through in a country

where the thermometer is seldom below 92 degrees Fahr., especially when

there is no doubt of getting wet through—not like the wretched

drizzling rain of England, that chills you with the fear that perhaps

your great-coat is not waterproof, but a regular douche bath that would

beat in the crown of a cheap hat. How delightful to be really cool in

the centre of Africa! I was charmingly wet—the water was running out of

the heels of my shoes, which were overflowing; the wind howled over the

flood that was pouring through the hitherto dry gullies, and in the

course of ten minutes the whole scene had changed. It was no longer the

tropics; the climate was that of old England restored to me: the chilled

air refreshed me, and I felt at home again. “How delightful!” I

exclaimed, as I turned round to see how my followers were enjoying it.

 

Dear me! I hardly knew my own people. Of all the miserable individuals I

ever saw, they were superlative—they were not enjoying the change of

climate in the least—with heads tucked down and streams of water

running from their nasal extremities, they endeavoured to avoid the

storm. Perfectly thoughtless of all but self in the extremity of their

misery, they had neglected the precaution of lowering the muzzles of

their guns, and my beautiful No. 10 rifles were full of water. “Charming

day!” I exclaimed to my soaked and shivering followers, who looked like

kittens in a pond. They muttered something that might be interpreted

“What’s fun to you is death to us.” I comforted them with the assurance

that this was an English climate on a midsummer day. If my clothed Arabs

suffered from cold, where was my naked guide? He was the most pitiable

object I ever saw; with teeth chattering and knees knocking together

with cold, he crouched under the imaginary shelter of a large tamarind

tree; he was no longer the clean black that had started as my guide, but

the cold and wet had turned him grey, and being thin, he looked like an

exaggerated slate-pencil. Not wishing to discourage my men, I

unselfishly turned back just as I was beginning to enjoy myself, and my

people regarded me as we do the Polar bear at the Zoological Gardens,

who begins to feel happy on the worst day in our English winter.

 

We returned home by a different route, not being able to find the path

in the trackless state of the country during the storm. There were in

some places unmistakeable evidences of the presence of elephants, and I

resolved to visit the spot again. I returned to the tent at 4 P.M.

satisfied that sport was to be had.

 

On my arrival at camp I found the natives very excited at the appearance

of rain, which they firmly believed had been called specially by their

chief. All were busy preparing their molotes (iron hoes), fitting new

handles, and getting everything ready for the periodical sowing of their

crop.

 

The handles of the molotes are extremely long, from seven to ten feet,

and the instrument being shaped like a miner’s spade (heart-shaped), is

used like a Dutch hoe, and is an effective tool in ground that has been

cleared, but is very unfitted for preparing fresh soil. Iron ore of good

quality exists on the surface throughout this country.

 

The