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

a man in haste to recall an angarep upon which to carry her, and

also for a bag with a change of clothes, as we had dragged her through

the river. It was in vain that I rubbed her heart, and the black women

rubbed her feet, to endeavour to restore animation. At length the litter

came, and after changing her clothes, she was carried mournfully forward

as a corpse. Constantly we had to halt and support her head, as a

painful rattling in the throat betokened suffocation.

 

At length we reached a village, and halted for the night. I laid her

carefully in a miserable hut, and watched beside her. I opened her

clenched teeth with a small wooden wedge, and inserted a wet rag, upon

which I dropped water to moisten her tongue, which was dry as fur. The

unfeeling brutes that composed the native escort were yelling and

dancing as though all were well; and I ordered their chief at once to

return with them to Kamrasi, as I would travel with them no longer. At

first they refused to return; until at length I vowed that I would fire

into them should they accompany us on the following morning. Day broke

and it was a relief to have got rid of the brutal escort. They had

departed, and I had now my own men, and the guides supplied by Kamrasi.

 

There was nothing to eat in this spot. My wife had never stirred since

she fell by the coup de soleil, and merely respired about five times in

a minute. It was impossible to remain; the people would have starved.

She was laid gently upon her litter, and we started forward on our

funeral course. I was ill and broken-hearted, and I followed by her side

through the long day’s march over wild parklands and streams, with thick

forest and deep marshy bottoms; over undulating hills, and through

valleys of tall papyrus rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our

melancholy way, waved over the litter like the black plumes of a hearse.

We halted at a village, and again the night was passed in watching. I

was wet, and coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered with

ague; but the cold within was greater than all. No change had taken

place; she had never moved. I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls

of about half a pound, each of which would burn for three hours. A piece

of a broken water-jar formed a lamp, several pieces of rag serving for

wicks. So in solitude the still calm night passed away as I sat by her

side and watched. In the drawn and distorted features that lay before me

I could hardly trace the same face that for years had been my comfort

through all the difficulties and dangers of my path. Was she to die? Was

so terrible a sacrifice to be the result of my selfish exile?

 

Again the night passed away. Once more the march. Though weak and ill,

and for two nights without a moment’s sleep, I felt no fatigue, but

mechanically followed by the side of the litter as though in a dream.

The same wild country diversified with marsh and forest. Again we

halted. The night came, and I sat by her side in a miserable hut, with

the feeble lamp flickering while she lay as in death. She had never

moved a muscle since she fell. My people slept. I was alone, and no

sound broke the stillness of the night. The ears ached at the utter

silence, till the sudden wild cry of a hyena made me shudder as the

horrible thought rushed through my brain, that, should she be buried in

this lonely spot, the hyena would … disturb her rest.

 

The morning was not far distant; it was past four o’clock. I had passed

the night in replacing wet cloths upon her head and moistening her lips,

as she lay apparently lifeless on her litter. I could do nothing more;

in solitude and abject misery in that dark hour, in a country of savage

heathens, thousand of miles away from a Christian land, I beseeched an

aid above all human, trusting alone to Him.

 

The morning broke; my lamp had just burnt out, and, cramped with the

night’s watching, I rose from my low seat, and seeing that she lay in

the same unaltered state, I went to the door of the hut to breathe one

gasp of the fresh morning air. I was watching the first red streak that

heralded the rising sun, when I was startled by the words, “Thank God,”

faintly uttered behind me. Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and

with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside. Her eyes were full of

madness! She spoke; but the brain was gone!

 

I will not inflict a description of the terrible trial of seven days of

brain fever, with its attendant horrors. The rain poured in torrents,

and day after day we were forced to travel, for want of provisions, not

being able to remain in one position. Every now and then we shot a few

guinea-fowl, but rarely; there was no game, although the country was

most favourable. In the forests we procured wild honey, but the deserted

villages contained no supplies, as we were on the frontier of Uganda,

and M’tese’s people had plundered the district. For seven nights I had

not slept, and although as weak as a reed, I had marched by the side of

her litter. Nature could resist no longer. We reached a village one

evening; she had been in violent convulsions successively—it was all

but over. I laid her down on her litter within a hut; covered her with a

Scotch plaid; and I fell upon my mat insensible, worn out with sorrow

and fatigue. My men put a new handle to the pickaxe that evening, and

sought for a dry spot to dig her grave!