Ismailia Part 37

This was a tedious operation, as the Lobore carriers were almost as particular in their selection of cattle as ladies are supposed to be in the choice of their dresses.

February 27.--The Lobore were exceedingly quiet and orderly in their conduct, and 500 cows having been received by as many natives, they returned to their homes to make arrangements for the journey to Fatiko.

I find the following extract in my journal of this date :--

"The Lobore will be useful allies as they are enemies of the Bari, and their country is well situated, lying between Bari and Madi, on the route to Fatiko; thus they will be ready as carriers for both ends of the line.

"If I can obtain eighty camels from Khartoum, I can get the steamer along without any serious difficulty, as the Lobore natives can be engaged to make the road; but nothing can prosper until a regular camel transport service shall be established.

"I am sadly in want of troops and European officers. There should be 200 men in four parties stationed at intervals along the line to direct the natives in opening the road.

"A soldier deserted and ran away with his arms and ammunition to some distant village. I immediately called Wani and the old sheik Abbio, to whom I explained that I should hold them responsible if the deserter were not captured. They sent out natives in all directions in search.

"February 28.--The natives returned, saying they had found the deserter about half a march distant, but they could not seize him alive, as he threatened to shoot them; at the same time they were afraid to kill him, as he was my soldier.

"I immediately sent a sergeant and three men of 'The Forty' to take him prisoner.

"In the evening the soldiers returned, having captured the deserter. I left him in irons to be kept at hard labour by the sheik Abbio at Lobore, until I should return to the country. This is a good lesson to the troops.

"The natives had a grand dance to-day; the men and women as usual naked, leaping, and yelling wild songs to an extraordinary accompaniment of music, produced by beating a long stick of extremely hard wood with a short stick of the same substance. Some of the girls were pretty, but being smeared with red ochre and fat, they were not attractive. The natives were very civil, and although at least a thousand were present, they immediately made room for me upon my arrival; that I might have a good place to witness their performance."

I was much struck with a simple arrangement made use of by the old people to support the back in lieu of an arm-chair. Each person had a cord knotted by the ends so as to form an endless loop or hoop. The size depended upon the measurement required, so that if the hoop were thrown over the body when in a sitting posture upon the ground, with the knees raised, the rope would form a band around the forepart of the knees and the small of the back, which would thus be supported.

The Lobore are great workers in iron, which is used generally in the manufacture of ornaments. Large rings of this metal are worn round the neck, and upon the arms and ankles. Many of these ankle-rings are of extreme thickness, and would suffice for the punishment of prisoners. I was interested with the mechanical contrivance of the Lobore for detaching the heavy metal anklets, which, when hammered firmly together, appeared to be hopeless fixtures in the absence of a file.

I required several irons to construct the manacles for the deserter, thus I had purchased the ma.s.sive ornaments which had to be detached from the ankles of the owner.

The man sat upon the ground. A stick of hard, unyielding wood was thrust through the ring beneath the ankle, so that each end of the stick rested on the earth. A man secured one end by standing upon it, while another placed a stone upon the stick thus secured, which he used as a fulcrum.

The lever employed was a piece of abdnoos, which worked upon the stone, and pressed down the base of the ring at the same time that it opened the joint sufficiently to allow it to be pa.s.sed over the thin portion of the leg.

I never saw this ingenious application of the lever among other tribes than the Lobore. The usual method among the Madi is far more simple, but requires a certain number of men, and places the patient in an uncomfortable position. A rope is fastened to each side of the ring, upon which a number of men haul in opposite directions until they have opened the joint sufficiently to detach it from the leg.

On 29th February we were ready for the start. The loads were all prepared and arranged in separate divisions of twenty each, under the charge of selected officers and men.

The big nogara had sounded, the natives collected, and each man stood by his load; thus twenty-five gangs of twenty each should have stood in line.

I now discovered that the vaunted honesty of the Lobore was of the same order as that of other negroes. Five hundred cows had been given to as many natives, for all of which the sheik Abbio had declared himself responsible. The big nogara sounded in vain. After waiting for some hours, and sending numerous messengers to as many villages, only 433 carriers could be mustered; thus sixty-seven had eloped with as many cows!

No one can imagine the trouble of such a journey with so long a retinue of carriers, most of whom are dishonest, and only seek an opportunity to abscond upon the road.

The Lobore are immensely powerful men, and they carried the boxes of Hale's rockets as single loads, although weighing upwards of seventy-two pounds. At the same time they quarrelled among themselves as to the choice of parcels, and I could with difficulty prevail upon them to carry the zinc boat, although it did not exceed 130 lbs. Four men actually refused to touch it, as it sat uneasily upon their heads.

This handy little vessel was made of zinc upon an iron framework, and would contain four people upon a pinch, but would easily convey three across a river. I had arranged it upon two stout bamboos so adjusted that four men should have carried it with ease. The natives demanded eight, but I at length compromised for six.

The delay caused by the non-appearance of the sixty-seven carriers was extremely dangerous, as it increased the chance of desertions. Already many had volunteered to search for their missing friends, which would have resulted in a search for them also, until my body of carriers would have melted away.

Fortunately I had made a considerable allowance for desertions on the road, and I could manage to start with the a.s.sistance of the soldiers and their wives, among whom I divided many baskets of flour.

At 3.25 P.M. we started.

There was no danger now that we had pa.s.sed the Bari tribe, therefore we could push on with an advance guard of five picked men of "The Forty,"

who always accompanied us, and leave the charge of the march and baggage to Colonel Abd-el-Kader and the various officers.

We accordingly marched, at four miles an hour, through a rocky and hilly country, generally wooded, which would have been an awkward position if held by an enemy.

At 6 P.M. we halted at a rocky ravine where water had been expected by our guide. To our dismay we found it nearly dry, and it was necessary to dig temporary wells in the sand to procure a supply for ourselves, while the horses were forced to content themselves with the impure pool.

It quickly became dark, and the troops and baggage were far behind. We therefore gathered wood and made a blazing fire to show our position; at the same time a bugler and drummer who had accompanied us, made as much noise as possible from the summit of a small hill.

At 7.30 P.M. the cattle arrived by torchlight, together with the troops and baggage. Some of the Lobore carriers had already deserted on the road, which had caused much delay.

We had marched nine miles, but it was absolutely necessary to send four men back to Lobore, to insist upon fresh carriers being immediately sent to replace the runaways.

On March 1 we started at half-past six A.M., after a terrific scramble for loads by 400 Lobore carriers, who rushed in and tugged and wrestled for their packages like wolves over a carcase. Boxes were turned upside down, and carried in that manner with an utter disregard for the contents.

The inverted canteen was discovered upon the head of a brutal Lobore, whose body was being basted with Cognac and gin that showered from the loosened stoppers of the decanters.

I never saw such a wild pack of savages; they were only fit to carry the elephants' tusks of the traders; but any civilized baggage ran a risk of instant destruction.

The old sheik, Abbio, had given me his son to keep order among the people. This young man was about twenty-seven years of age, but, although respectable in appearance, he did not appear to have the slightest control over his people, and he regarded their desertions with seeming indifference.

I had a strong suspicion that he might quietly abscond at night, in which case every man might instantly follow his example. I therefore ordered a light thong of leather to be attached to the iron collar worn as an ornament upon his neck, and I trusted him to the surveillance of a couple of soldiers told off as his guard of honour.

We marched south for sixteen miles through a fine country of hills and low forest, where the villages of the Madi had been mostly destroyed by the slave-hunting parties of Abou Saood.

We pa.s.sed large tracts of land that had formerly been in a high state of cultivation, and the charred remains of numerous villages bespoke the desolation caused by these brigands of the White Nile. The road was well watered by many small streams in deep gorges, until we descended to the Asua river. This was just twenty-five miles from our camp at Lobore, in lat.i.tude N., by observation, 3 degrees 43 minutes.

We happened to arrive at the spot where the river Atabbi joined the Asua. At this junction the Atabbi was perfectly clear, while the Asua was muddy, which proved that heavy rain had fallen in the Madi and Shooli countries, while the weather was dry in the mountains of Obbo.

The Asua flowed through a fine forest, but although the water was muddy from recent rains, the volume at this season was confined to a portion of the bed, in the deepest parts of which it did not exceed two feet six inches. The bed from bank to bank was about 120 yards in width, and the maximum rise of the river was about twelve feet. During the wet season this is a frightful torrent that acts as a barrier to any advance or retreat of troops enc.u.mbered with baggage.

Having waded through the river, we halted under the shady trees on the south side; here there was excellent herbage for the cattle, as the young gra.s.s after the annual fires was now about eight inches high, upon the rich soil near the river's bank.

Whenever we halted during daylight, I took a stroll with the rifle, accompanied by Lieutenant Baker.

We walked for some time along the banks of the river up stream without seeing any game, and I was struck with the absence of tracks of the larger animals, which coincided with my remarks on the Asua river many years previous, when I crossed it about thirty miles higher up, on my route from Latooka to Shooa.

I expected to return without seeing game, when we suddenly spied a few waterbuck in the sandy bed of the river, about 300 paces distant.

We made a good stalk, but I only wounded the animal at which I fired at about 150 yards, and they galloped off through the open forest. I heard the bullet from the left hand barrel strike a tree stem, which saved the antelope, but having quickly reloaded, I had a clear and steady shot at a long range as the large buck suddenly stopped and looked back. I put up the last sight for 250 yards and took a full bead. To my great satisfaction the waterbuck with a fine set of horns dropped dead. I could not measure the distance accurately as we had to descend a rocky bank, and then, crossing the bed of the Asua, to ascend the steep north bank before we arrived at tolerably level ground.

Upon reaching the animal, I found the bullet in the neck, where it had divided the spine. I guessed the distance at about 240 yards. Some of our Lobore natives, who had kept at a distance behind us, now came up, and in a short time the n.o.ble waterbuck was cut up and the flesh carried into camp. This species of antelope, when in good condition, weighs about thirty stone (cleaned).

On March 2 we started at 6 A.M., and marched at a rapid rate along a hard and excellent path, which inclined upwards from the river for about eight miles.

The bush was very open, and in many portions the country was a succession of deep dells, which in the wet season were covered with high gra.s.s, but at this time the young gra.s.s was hardly three inches high, having sprouted after the recent fires.

From an alt.i.tude of about 1,000 feet above the Asua river, we had a splendid view of the entire landscape.