Volume 3 — From The Dublin University Magazine. THE SOLUTION OF THE NILE PROBLEM. [Footnote 195]

For some time the complaint of those who have been everywhere, and seen everything men of travel and of fashion ought to see, has been that the world is "used-up" for the tourist. Where can he now go for a fresh sensation? Asia and America remain no more untrodden fields than Europe; and as for the isles of the farthest sea, rich and idle "fugitives and vagabonds" have braved as many dangers among savage tribes as the early missionaries, from impulse no nobler than restlessness. Whither next shall they direct their strides? Iceland stood in favor for a year or two; but the cooks are bad there, and the inhabitants speak Latin. Japan has novelties, but bland Daimios are not trustworthy. The sightseeker has no relish for being among a people who, on very slight provocation, may perform upon him a process akin to their own "happy despatch." In the exhaustion of interest in mere horizontal locomotion, the Cain-like race we form part of try the effect of ascension to the highest and hugest cloud-capped peaks; but Matterhorn accidents have rather brought these mountains-of-the-(full)-moon performances into disfavour. Pending the discovery of some new wonder or feat, to occupy many vacant minds and stir a few energetic ones, and during the crisis of a Continental war, the migratory section amongst us must bear their misery as best they can. It may console them to hope that the flying-machine will yet be perfected, and air-sailing supersede Alpine climbing. Probably it would be quite as exciting, and it would not tire the limbs. If there be one geographical problem still left unsolved, it must be to find the site of that cave of Adullam which has sorely puzzled numbers of erudite Parliamentarians, one of whom was heard to make answer to a query regarding its locality that he "never was a geographer." For the purpose of stimulating the curiosity of the gentleman, and of guiding him in his search among the lore of school-boy days, we may take from a book well known a real, and not figurative, description of the Cave in which shelter was lately found by some forty wayfarers uncertain as to their route in a difficult country. "Leaving our horses," says an Adullamite, who long preceded them, "in charge of wild------, and taking one for a guide, we started for the cave, having a fearful gorge below, gigantic cliffs above, and the path winding along a shelf of the rock, narrow enough to make the nervous among us shudder. At length, from a great rock hanging on the edge of this shelf, we sprang by a long leap into a low window which opened into the perpendicular face of the cliff. We were then within the hold of, ------ and creeping half-doubled through a narrow crevice for a few rods, we stood beneath the dark vault of the first grand chamber of this mysterious and oppressive cavern. Our whole collection of lights did little more than make the damp darkness visible. After groping about as long as we had time to spare, we returned to the light of day, fully convinced that with ------ and his lion-hearted followers inside, all the strength of ------ under ------ could not have forced an entrance." Next to a search for the celebrated cave, we can {829} imagine no geographical extravagance equal to one for those Nile Sources that have been the dream of ancients and moderns. The undertaking possessed an the attraction of freshness. Your North-west passage is a mere track through a waste, without the possibility of novelty. What its dangers and privations, its few monotonous sights and events, were to half-a-dozen navigators they would be to half-a-dozen more. But in passing upward to the huge plateau in Central Africa where the Nile Basin lies, itself again overtopped by the lofty range of the Blue Mountains, down which giant cascades ceaselessly roll in unwitnessed splendor, the traveller encounters perils enough, but relieved with a human interest. The tribes he meets are many and unique in their habits, strangely unlike each other, within short distances, and having about them an extraordinary mixture of an incipient civilization with some of the most depraved of the customs of savage life. In the journey, too, there is endless variety. The expedition up the river, with its hunting episodes, its difficulties with mutinous servants and seamen, its devices to appease native cupidity and circumvent native cunning, and its encounters with those vilest of the pursuers of commerce, the slave-traders, forms one part of the interest; and next come inland rides through tangled forest shades, rude villages of cone-shaped huts, suspicious hordes of naked barbarians, to whom every new face is that of a plunderer of slaves or cattle, and "situations" in which it is impossible for the honest traveller to escape sharp contests with a party of Turkish marauders, for whose sins against the commandment he would otherwise be held responsible by the relentless javelin-men of the desert. All this offers adventure of a genuine description to him who has the love of it in his disposition; and such a man is Mr. Samuel White Baker. His impulses are irrepressible: nature made him a traveller. He is the modern counterpart of those primitive personages, the Columbuses of the times just succeeding the flood, whose purposeless wanderings into far space from the spot where the Mesopotamian cradle of mankind was rocked, peopled lands lying even beyond great seas; men whose feats were such that the philosophers of five thousand years after can hardly believe they performed them. If Mr. Baker had been a dweller in Charran, he would have begged the patriarch Abraham to give him camels, water-bags, and bushels of corn, and would have set off for the eastern margin of the globe, and the shores of the loud-sounding sea. Arrived there, he would have burned a tree hollow, and launched boldly forth upon the deep, to go whithersoever fortune listed.

All his life a traveller in the true sense, Mr. Baker last conceived the idea of securing for "England" the glory of discovering the sources of the Nile. This bit of patriotic sentiment undoubtedly added to the zest of the undertaking, to which, as has been said, he was impelled by instinct. He is a man of resolute will, and to think and to do are with him simultaneous acts. His preparations were instantly in progress, and from that moment his motto, come what might, was--Forward. Part of this perseverance no doubt was due to the encouragement of Mrs. Baker's presence. That lady is the model explorer's wife, and we could wish for such a race of women if there were any problems geographical left to be solved. She set out with Mr. Baker from Cairo, determined to go through all dangers with him, and well knowing their nature; and she successfully accomplished the task, and has returned to share his renown. To a full share of it she is really entitled; for Mrs. Baker was much more than a companion to her husband on his wanderings. She assisted him materially, not only tending him when sick, not only conciliating the natives by her kindness, but contributing to remove difficulties by wise {830} counsel, bearing all hardships uncomplainingly, and--rare virtue!--submitting to her lord's authority when he was warranted in deciding what was best to be done, or left undone. Mrs. Baker could also somewhat play the Amazon when occasion required. If she did not actually take the shield and falchion, and go to the front of the fight, she spread out the arms, loaded and prepared the weapons, and rendered brave and effective aid on an occasion when the Discoverer of the Great Basin of the Nile was likely to have become, if he did not succeed in intimidating his foes by the parade of his armory, a sweet morsel for the palate of the Latookas. Mr. Baker speaks with manly tenderness of his wife, and the picture drawn of her in his incidental references, will gain for her hosts of friends among his readers.

The narrative is quiet until he reaches Gondokoro. There, in March, 1863, he met Speke and Grant, who were descending the Nile, having completed the East African expedition. When there the report reached him on a certain morning that there were two white men approaching who had come from the sea. These were the travellers from the Victoria N'Yanza, the other, and smaller, source of the Nile. They had undoubtedly solved the mystery. Still they had left something for Baker to do, and candidly declared to him that they had not completed the actual exploration of the Nile sources. In N. lat. 2° 17' they had crossed the river which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but it had there (at Karuma Falls) taken an extraordinary bend westward, and when they met it again it was flowing from the W.S.W. There was clearly another source, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had informed them that from the Victoria N'Yanza the Nile flowed westward for several days' journey, and fell into another lake called the Luta N'Zige, from which it almost immediately emerged again, and continued its course as a navigable river to the north. Speke and Grant would have tracked out this second source had not the tribes in the districts been at the time at fend, and on such occasions they will not abide the face of a stranger. Mr. Baker, guided by their hints, set out to complete what they had begun.

Gondokoro is a great slave-market--Mr. Baker says "a perfect hell," "a colony of cut-throats." The Egyptian authorities wink at what goes on, in consideration of liberal largesses. There were about six hundred traders there when Mr. Baker visited it, drinking, quarrelling, and beating their slaves. These ruffians made razzias on the cattle of the natives, who are a cleanly and rather industrious race of the picturesque type of savage. Their bodies are tattooed all over, and an immense cock's feather, rising out of the single tuft of hair left upon their shaven crowns, gives them rather an imposing appearance. Their weapons of defence are poisoned arrows, with which the traders at times make deadly acquaintance. Of course Mr. Baker had unforeseen difficulties on setting out. What traveller ever started on an expedition without meeting with his most irritating obstacles at the threshold? Mr. Baker, however, was an old hand, and it took a good deal to daunt him. His escort were as troublesome a set of vagabonds as could have been collected together probably in Africa itself. He had a mutiny to quell ere many days; and it is at this point we come to see what sort of man is our explorer. He is a muscular Christian of the stoutest type. Heavy fell his hand on skulls of sinning niggers--it was the readiest implement, and down went the offender under the blow so signally that his fellows saw and trembled. Mr. Baker was a great "packer." His asses and camels carried a vast amount of stuff, but so arranged and fitted that no breakdown occurred in the most trying situations for man and beast.

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The Latookas were the first race of savages Mr. Baker encountered. They are about six feet high, and muscular and well-proportioned. They have a pleasing cast of countenance, and are in manner very civil. They are extremely clever blacksmiths, and shape their lances and bucklers most skilfully. One of the most interesting passages of the whole book is the author's account of this tribe:

"Far from being the morose set of savages that I had hitherto seen, they are excessively merry, and always ready for either a laugh or a fight. The town of Tarrangotté contained about three thousand houses, and was not only surrounded by iron-wood palisades, but every house was individually fortified by a little stockaded courtyard. The cattle were kept in large kraals in various parts of the town, and were most carefully attended to, fires being lit every night to protect them from flies, and high platforms in three tiers were erected in many places, upon which sentinels watched both day and night, to give the alarm in case of danger. The cattle are the wealth of the country, and so rich are the Latookas in oxen, that ten or twelve thousand head are housed in every large town. . . . The houses of the Latookas are bell-shaped. The doorway is only two feet and two inches high, and thus an entrance must be effected on all-fours. The interior is remarkably clean, but dark, as the architects have no idea of windows."

Mr. Baker notices the fact that the circular form of hut is the only style of architecture adopted among all the tribes of Central Africa, and also among the Arabs of Upper Egypt; and that although there are variations in the form of the roof, no tribe has ever yet dreamt of constructing a window. The Latookas are obliged constantly to watch for their enemy, a neighboring race of mule-riders, whose cavalry attacks they can hardly withstand, although of war-like habits, and accordingly--

"The town of Tarrangotté is arranged with several entrances in the shape of low archways through the palisades: these are closed at night by large branches of the hooked thorn of the bitter bush, (a species of mimosa.) The main street is broad, but all others are studiously arranged to admit only of one cow, single file, between high stockades. Thus, in the event of an attack, these narrow passages can be easily defended, and it would be impossible to drive off their vast herds of cattle unless by the main street. The large cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in various quarters in connection with the great road, and the entrance of each kraal is a small archway in the strong iron-wood fence, sufficiently wide to admit one ox at a time. Suspended from the arch is a bell, formed of the shell of the Dolape palm-nut, against which every animal must strike either its horns or back on entrance. Every tinkle of the bell announces the passage of an ox into the kraal, and they are thus counted every evening when brought home from pasture."

The toilet of the natives is of the simplest, except in one particular. The Latooka savage is content that his whole body should be naked, but expends the most elaborate care on his headdress. Every tribe in this district has a distinct fashion of arranging it, but the Latookas reduce it to a science. Mr. Baker describes the process and the result:

"European ladies would be startled at the fact, that to perfect the coiffure of a man requires a period of from eight to ten years! However tedious the operation the result is extraordinary. The Latookas wear most exquisite helmets, all of which are formed of their own hair, and are, of course, fixtures. At first sight it appears incredible; but a minute examination shows the wonderful perseverance of years in producing what must be highly inconvenient. The thick crisp wool is woven with fine twine, formed from the bark of a tree, until it presents a thick network of felt. As the hair grows through this matted substance it is subjected to the same process, until, in the course of years, a compact substance is formed, like a strong felt, about an inch and a half thick, that has been trained into the shape of a helmet. A strong rim of about two inches deep is formed by drawing it together with thread, and the front part of the helmet is protected by a piece of polished copper, while a piece of the same metal, shaped like the half of a bishop's mitre, and about a foot in length, forms the crest. The framework of the helmet being at length completed, it must be perfected by an arrangement of beads, should the owner of the head be sufficiently rich to indulge in the coveted distinction. The beads most in fashion are the red and the blue porcelain, about the size of small peas. These are sewn on the surface of the felt, and so beautifully arranged in sections of blue and red, that the entire helmet appears to be formed of beads, and the handsome crest of polished copper, surmounted by ostrich plumes, gives a most dignified and martial appearance to this elaborate head-dress."

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With Commoro, chief of the Latookas, Mr. Baker had a religious conversation. The savage was clever, even subtile. He does not appear, however to have shaken the faith of the traveller. Probably had Mr. Baker been a Bishop (Colenso) trained in the theology of the schools, he might have been driven crazy by this mid-African counterpart of the famous Zulu. The natives exhume the bones of their dead, and celebrate a sort of dance round them; and Mr. Baker asked his Latookan friend--

Extremes meet; there are sages of modern days whose much learning has brought them up to the intellectual pitch of the savage's materialism. They might, ingenious as they are, even take a lesson in sophistry from the Latookan. When driven into a corner by the use of St. Paul's metaphor, the astute Commoro answered:

"Exactly so; that I understand. But the original grain does not rise again; it rots, like the dead man, and is ended. The fruit produced is not the same grain that was buried, but the production of that grain. So it is with man. I die, and decay, and am ended; but my children grow up, like the fruit of the grain. Some men have no children, and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended."

Nevertheless, the Latookans continue to dig out the bones of their kindred, and to perform a rite around them which is manifestly a tradition from the time when a belief in the immortality of the soul existed among them.

It was impossible for Mr. Baker to reach the Lake toward which he pressed without appeasing Kamrasi, King of the Unyoros. But to do this was not easy when his stock of presents was getting low, and his men were so few and weak as to inspire no barbarian prince with the slightest fear. Yet, though debilitated with fever, his quinine exhausted, and Mrs. Baker stricken down in the disease, he pressed on with an unquenchable zeal--one would almost write worthy of a better cause. Finally, he was abundantly rewarded. Hurrying on in advance of his escort he reached at last, ere the sun had risen on what proved afterward a brilliant day, the summit of the hills that hem the great valley occupied by the vast Nile Source. There it lay "a sea of quicksilver" far beneath, stretching boundlessly off to the vast Blue Mountains which, on the opposite side towered upward from its bosom, and over whose breasts cascades could be discerned by the telescope tumbling down in numerous torrents. Standing 1500 feet above the level of the Lake, Mr. Baker shouted for joy that "England had won the Sources of the Nile!" and called the gigantic reservoir the Albert N'Yanza. The Victoria and Albert Lakes, then, are the {833} Nile Sources. Clambering down the steep--his wife, just recovered from fever, and intensely weak, leaning upon him--Mr. Baker reached the shore at length of the great expanse of water, and rushing into it, drank eagerly, with an enthusiasm almost reaching the ancient Egyptian point of Nile-worship.

Mr. Baker describes the Albert Lake as the grand reservoir, and the Victoria as the Eastern source.

"The Nile, cleared of its mystery, resolves itself into comparative simplicity. The actual basin of the Nile is included between about the 22° and 39° east longitude, and from 3° south to 18° north latitude. The drainage of that vast area is monopolized by the Egyptian river. . . The Albert N'Yanza is the great basin of the Nile: the distinction between it and the Victoria N'Yanza is, that the Victoria is a reservoir receiving the eastern affluents, and it becomes the starting-point or the most elevated source at the point where the river issues from it at the Ripon Falls; the Albert is a reservoir not only receiving the western and southern affluents direct from the Blue Mountains, but it also receives the supply from the Victoria and from the entire equatorial Nile basin. The Nile, as it issues from the Albert N'Yanza is the entire Nile; prior to its birth from the Albert Lake it is not the entire Nile." ". . . Ptolemy had described the Nile sources as emanating from two great lakes that received the snows of the mountains in Ethiopia. There are many ancient maps existing upon which these lakes are marked as positive. There can be little doubt that trade had been carried on between the Arabs from the Red Sea and the coast opposite Zanzitan in ancient times, and that the people engaged in such enterprises had penetrated so far as to have gained a knowledge of the existence of the two reservoirs."

The interest of Mr. Baker's volumes of course culminates with his account of the Great Lake. He embarked in a canoe of the country, and with his party in another, navigated it for a long distance, encountering storms and weathering them with a skill and courage which show him as cool and experienced a traveller on sea as on land. On his return overland he was again in perils oft. But the same undying spirit which supported him through a dozen fevers carried him through every danger triumphantly. The English nation has reason to be proud of such men, and of such women as Mrs. Baker still more. Devotion like hers honors the sex. There is an end, however, of Nile voyaging with the old object. If the Victoria and Albert Lakes are revisited it will be in pursuit of other ends than mere geographical inquiry or curiosity. Mr. Baker seems to think that missionaries may be the first to follow in the track he has made, and it is a fact that next to professional explorers (if even second to them) those influenced by religious zeal have made the most daring expeditions into unknown regions. Livingstone has done even more in another part of Africa than Baker did on the great level, which, as he thinks, from its altitude, escaped being submerged at any previous part of the world's history, and may contain at this moment the descendants of a pre-Adamite race. On the ethnology of the central Africans he can throw no light, and his mere speculations are worthless, but he is doubtless right in considering that commerce must precede religious propagandism among those races, if anything is really to be done for their benefit. For commerce there are large opportunities, if only the abominable slave-trade, which makes fiends of the natives, were effectually suppressed. Mr. Baker writes warmly on this point, and none knows better the character and extent of the evil. A more interesting book of travel was never written than his Albert N'Yanza: in every page there is fresh and vivid interest. The author, who is admirable in many things, is a model narrator, and there is no romance at all equal in attraction to the simple and unvarnished, but full and picturesque, account of his protracted and exciting travels.

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