In the Heart of Africa - Sir Samuel White Baker (howl and other poems .TXT) 📗

was no land visible on either quarter, while to the south its direction was utterly unknown. Large vessels arrived at Magungo from distant arid unknown parts, bringing cowrie-shells and beads in exchange for ivory. Upon these vessels white men had been seen. All the cowrie-shells used in Latooka and the neighboring countries were supplied by these vessels, but none had arrived for the last two years.

I concluded the lake was no other than the N'yanza, which, if the position of Mangungo were correct, extended much farther north than Speke had supposed. I determined to take the first opportunity to push for Magungo. The white men spoken of by Wani probably referred to Arabs, who, being simply brown, were called white men by the blacks. I was called a VERY WHITE MAN as a distinction; but I have frequently been obliged to take off my shirt to exhibit the difference of color between myself and men, as my face had become brown.

The Turks had set June 23d as the time for their departure from Latooka. On the day preceding my wife was dangerously ill with bilious fever, and was unable to stand, and I endeavored to persuade the trader's party to postpone their departure for a few days. They would not hear of such a proposal; they had so irritated the Latookas that they feared an attack, and their captain or vakeel, Ibrahim, had ordered them immediately to vacate the country. This was a most awkward position for me. The traders had incurred the hostility of the country, and I should bear the brunt of it should I remain behind alone. Without their presence I should be unable to procure porters, as the natives would not accompany my feeble party, especially as I could offer them no other payment than beads or copper. The rain had commenced within the last few days at Latooka, and on the route toward Obbo we should encounter continual storms. We were to march by a long and circuitous route to avoid the rocky passes that would be dangerous in the present spirit of the country, especially as the traders possessed large herds that must accompany the party. They allowed five days' march for the distance to Obbo by the intended route. This was not an alluring programme for the week's entertainment, with my wife almost in a dying state! However, I set to work and fitted an angarep with arched hoops from end to end, so as to form a frame like the cap of a wagon. This I covered with two waterproof Abyssinian tanned hides securely strapped, and lashing two long poles parallel to the sides of the angarep, I formed an excellent palanquin. In this she was assisted, and we started on June 23d.

On our arrival at Obbo both my wife and I were excessively ill with bilious fever, and neither could assist the other. The old chief of Obbo, Katchiba, hearing that we were dying, came to charm us with some magic spell. He found us lying helpless, and immediately procured a small branch of a tree, and filling his month with water he squirted it over the leaves and about the floor of the hut. He then waved the branch around my wife's head, also around mine, and completed the ceremony by sticking it in the thatch above the doorway. He told us we should now get better, and, perfectly satisfied, took his leave.

The hut was swarming with rats and white ants, the former racing over our bodies during the night and burrowing through the floor, filling our only room with mounds like molehills. As fast as we stopped the holes, others were made with determined perseverance. Having a supply of arsenic, I gave them an entertainment, the effect being disagreeable to all parties, as the rats died in their holes and created a horrible effluvium, while fresh hosts took the place of the departed. Now and then a snake would be seen gliding within the thatch, having taken shelter front the pouring rain.

The small-pox was raging throughout the country, and the natives were dying like flies in winter. The country was extremely unhealthy, owing to the constant rain and the rank herbage, which prevented a free circulation of air, and the extreme damp induced fevers. The temperature was 65 degrees Fahr. at night and 72 degrees during the day; dense clouds obscured the sun for many days, and the air was reeking with moisture. In the evening it was always necessary to keep a blazing fire within the hut, as the floor and walls were wet and chilly.

The wet herbage disagreed with my baggage animals.

Innumerable flies appeared, including the tsetse, and in a few weeks the donkeys had no hair left, either on their ears or legs. They drooped and died one by one. It was in vain that I erected sheds and lighted fires; nothing would protect them from the flies. The moment the fires were lit the animals would rush wildly into the smoke, from which nothing would drive them; and in the clouds of imaginary protection they would remain all day, refusing food. On the 16th of July my last horse, Mouse, died. He had a very long tail, for which I obtained A COW IN EXCHANGE. Nothing was prized so highly as horses' tails, the hairs being used for stringing beads and also for making tufts as ornaments, to be suspended from the elbows. It was highly fashionable in Obbo for the men to wear such tufts formed of the bushy ends of cows' tails. It was also "the thing" to wear six or eight polished rings of iron, fastened so tightly round the throat as almost to choke the wearer, and somewhat resembling dog-collars.

For months we dragged on a miserable existence at Obbo, wrecked by fever. The quinine was exhausted; thus the disease worried me almost to death, returning at intervals of a few days. Fortunately my wife did not suffer so much as I did. I had nevertheless prepared for the journey south, and as travelling on foot would have been impossible in our weak state, I had purchased and trained three oxen in lieu of horses. They were named "Beef," "Steaks," and "Suet." "Beef" was a magnificent animal, but having been bitten by the flies he so lost his condition that I changed his name to "Bones." We were ready to start, and the natives reported that early in January the Asua would be fordable. I had arranged with Ibrahim that he should supply me with porters for payment in copper bracelets, and that he should accompany me with one hundred men to Kamrasi's country (Unyoro) on condition that he would restrain his people from all misdemeanors, and that they should be entirely subservient to me.

It was the month of December, and during the nine, months that I had been in correspondence with his party I had succeeded in acquiring an extraordinary influence. Although my camp was nearly three quarters of a mile from their zareeba, I had been besieged daily for many months for everything that was wanted. My camp was a kind of general store that appeared to be inexhaustible. I gave all that I had with a good grace, and thereby gained the good-will of the robbers, especially as my large medicine chest contained a supply of drugs that rendered me in their eyes a physician of the first importance. I had been very successful with my patients, and the medicines that I generally used being those which produced a very decided effect, both the Turks and natives considered them with perfect faith. There was seldom any difficulty in prognosticating the effect of tartar emetic, and this became the favorite drug that was almost daily applied for, a dose of three grains enchanting the patient, who always advertised my fame by saying "He told me I should be sick, and, by Allah! there was no mistake about it." Accordingly there was a great run upon the tartar emetic.

Many people in Debono's camp had died, including several of my deserters who had joined them. News was brought that in three separate fights with the natives my deserters had been killed on every occasion, and my men and those of Ibrahim unhesitatingly declared it was the "hand of God." None of Ibrahim's men had died since we left Latooka. One man, who had been badly wounded by a lance thrust through his abdomen, I had successfully treated; and the trading party, who would at one time gladly have exterminated me, now exclaimed, "What shall we do when the Sowar (traveller) leaves the country?" Mrs. Baker had been exceedingly kind to the women and children of both the traders and natives, and together we had created so favorable an impression that we were always referred to as umpires in every dispute. My own men, although indolent, were so completely disciplined that they would not have dared to disobey an order, and they looked back upon their former mutinous conduct with surprise at their own audacity, and declared that they feared to return to Khartoum, as they were sure that I would not forgive them.

One day, hearing a great noise of voices and blowing of horns in the direction of Katchiba's residence, I sent to inquire the cause. The old chief himself appeared very angry and excited. He said that his people were very bad, that they had been making a great noise and finding fault with him because he had not supplied them with a few showers, as they wanted to sow their crop of tullaboon. There had been no rain for about a fortnight.

"Well," I replied, "you are the rain-maker; why don't you give your people rain?" "Give my people rain!" said Katchiba. "I give them rain if they don't give me goats? You don't know my people. If I am fool enough to give them rain before they give me the goats, they would let me starve! No, no! let them wait. If they don't bring me supplies of corn, goats, fowls, yams, merissa, and all that I require, not one drop of rain shall ever fall again in Obbo! Impudent brutes are my people! Do you know, they have positively threatened to kill me unless I bring the rain?

"They shan't have a drop. I will wither the crops and bring a plague upon their flocks. I'll teach these rascals to insult me!"

With all this bluster, I saw that old Katchiba was in a great dilemma, and that he would give anything for a shower, but that lie did not know how to get out of the scrape. It was a common freak of the tribes to sacrifice the rain-maker should he be unsuccessful. He suddenly altered his tone, and asked, "Have you any rain in your country?" I replied that we had, every now and then. "How do you bring it? Are you a rain-maker?" I told him that no one believed in rain-makers in our country, but that we understood how to bottle lightning (meaning electricity). "I don't keep mine in bottles, but I have a houseful of thunder and lightning," he most coolly replied; "but if you can bottle lightning, you must understand rain-making. What do you think of the weather to-day?" I immediately saw the drift of the cunning old Katchiba; he wanted professional advice. I replied that he must know all about it, as he was a regular rain-maker. "Of course I do," he answered, "but I want to know what YOU think of it." "Well," I said, "I don't think we shall have any steady rain, but I think we may have a heavy shower in about four days." I said this as I had observed fleecy clouds gathering daily in the afternoon. "Just my opinion!" said