CHAPTER I.
CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN.
Project of Mehemet Ali--Khartoum--Meeting of Baker, Speke, and Grant at Gondokoro--First Explorers of the Upper Nile--Ismailia, and expedition of Baker against Fatiko slave-traders--Exploration of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and discovery of the Welle by Schweinfurth--_Zeribas_ on the Bahr-el-Ghazal--Ivory trade and kidnapping--Gordon’s government--Europeans at the King of Uganda’s court--Gessi Pasha on Lake Albert--Conquest of Darfur, Shekka, and Dar-Fertit--Revolt of Suleiman Bey--The Egyptian Soudan--Deposition of Ismail Pasha and Recall of Gordon--Raouf Pasha at Khartoum.
At the date of the earliest events which it is the purpose of this book to narrate, M. Louis Vossion, then French Vice-Consul at Khartoum, wrote the following description of the place:--
“Khartoum, the capital of the Egyptian Soudan, stands on the left bank of the Blue Nile, just at its junction with the White Nile.
“Any traveller arriving at the town for the first time could not fail to experience much surprise. After passing what is called the Ras-el-Khartoum at the confluence of the two streams, a low tract of alluvial soil, covered with thick herbage relieved by occasional clumps of palms, the boat, all sails set, glides into the Blue Nile. A few minutes more and, hailed by the vociferous shouts of the Nubian boatmen, the town rises suddenly into view, with its palm-trees, its lines of little houses along the shore, its white mosques, with their pointed minarets, all standing out sharply against the clear blue sky. Heavy boats called ‘nuggers,’ laden with durra-corn, wood, and gum-arabic, are ranged for nearly half a mile along the river-bank. The stone buildings of the Roman Mission of Verona and of Marquet’s factory are conspicuous above the dwellings of Nile mud to which they are in proximity.
“Upon landing, the stranger will find himself surrounded by a whole swarm of inquisitive negroes, and his astonishment will increase at every step; he will at once be struck by the variety of the types of the tribes of the Soudan into which he is thrown so suddenly. There are the Denka, Shilluk of the White River, Bari from Gondokoro, people from Unyoro, Niam-niam from Makraka, Mombuttu, Nuer, Jur, Bongo, Fertit from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Galla, Abyssinians, negroes from Jebel-Nuba, Dongola, Darfur, and Kordofan; add to these Arabs of the various semi-independent tribes, Bishareens, Hadendoas, Shukries, Kababishes, Bagaras, Jews, Syrians, Greeks, and it may be imagined what a strange and well-nigh unique spectacle is presented by such an agglomeration of nationalities, all retaining their own traditions and marked out by their peculiar costumes!
“The general impression is intensified when it is remembered that Khartoum is on the very fringe of the civilised world, and is the threshold of that mysterious Africa which holds so many secrets in its bosom.”
* * * * *
When, in 1838, the energetic Viceroy Mehemet Ali made his journey into the Soudan, Khartoum was a mere fishing village; but with a quick appreciation of its importance as a geographical position, he determined to rear upon its site a town that should become the capital of the new equatorial province over which it was his dream that he should reign. His successors, one after another, added a stone to the edifice by increasing the area of the new city, to which it was found that traders, not only from Egypt but from Europe, were ready and eager to flock.
The increase of the population of Khartoum, thus rapid, was altogether beyond and out of proportion to the progress of its internal appliances. Sir Samuel Baker, who saw it for the first time in June 1862, describes it as one of the most dirty, miserable, and unhealthy places that could be imagined. Built of sun-dried bricks, it stood upon a low-lying flat, which was often quite under water at the period of the floods. Notwithstanding that the houses were overcrowded with a population exceeding 30,000, there was no drainage nor sanitary arrangements of any kind. The streets were full of filth of every description; the bodies of the dead animals that lay about were so many centres of corruption and disease. The entire aspect was that of utter misery.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF KHARTOOM.
(_From a Photograph by Herr Richard Buchta._)]
In matters of administration things were even worse. Musa Pasha, by his deplorable misgovernment, was ruining the country. From the highest to the lowest of his officials, dishonesty and fraud were the common characteristics; every one cheated according to his rank. Slave traffic, with all its abominations, was the leading business of the place, a fact which has been demonstrated alike by Baker and Schweinfurth, who, at separate times, had ample opportunity of studying the matter upon the very scene of the misdoings.
It was the laudable ambition to ascertain the true sources of the Nile that took Baker into regions south of Khartoum that had previously been unexplored. Accompanied by his courageous wife, on February 2, 1863, he reached Gondokoro, then a miserable group of turf-cabins occupied only for two months in the year by the Khartoum traders whose “_dahabiehs_” could go no farther. He landed there to meet Speke and Grant, who, weary, ragged, and destitute, were on their way back from the interior along the Nile, of which they had just discovered the real springs. The meeting was a memorable epoch in the history of the Soudan; it marked a new stage in the progress of the opening up of Equatorial Africa, betokening at the same time a fresh extension of Egyptian rule towards the south.
In his own lively manner Baker gives a description of the incident:--“Shots in the distance. The ivory-bearers that I have been expecting have arrived. My people are running frantically towards my boat and shouting that two white men from the sea are with them. Is it possible that they can be Speke and Grant? Away I start. True enough, there they are! Hurrah for old England! Returned they have from the Victoria Nyanza; thence it is that the Nile flows forth; ... the mystery of the ages is solved.
“At the same time, with all the excitement of joy there is mingled a sense of disappointment. It would have pleased me better to meet them farther on. However, it was satisfactory to know that I had made such arrangements as would have ensured my meeting them in case they were in any difficulty, as I ascertained that they had returned by the very route which I had proposed to follow.
“My people are mad with delight: in firing a salute they have managed to kill one of my donkeys, a melancholy sacrifice in celebration of the accomplishment of the great geographical discovery!
“When I first caught sight of them they were approaching my boats. At the distance of some hundred yards, I recognised my old friend Speke; my heart throbbed with ecstasy, and raising my cap, I called aloud ‘Hurrah!’ and ran towards him. At first he did not know me; a beard and moustache of ten years’ growth had so altered my countenance that, not expecting to meet me, he did not comprehend my sudden apparition. There was no need for Speke to introduce me to his companion, as we already felt like intimate friends. When the first transports of this propitious meeting were over we all proceeded to my _dahabieh_, through a cloud of smoke raised by the continuous salutes of my people.”
A year after the exploration of Lake Victoria by Speke and Grant, Baker made his name illustrious by the discovery of Lake Albert. Thenceforward an increasing interest was centred on these regions, and Gondokoro, from being the mere halting-place that it was when the three English travellers met there, became a new centre for the commercial activity of the Khartoum traders, as well as a starting-point for various scientific expeditions, the history of the Soudan becoming from that time intimately connected with the history of discovery.
Antecedent to the enterprises that were undertaken by the three great Englishmen, there had already been various expeditions, half scientific, half commercial, which had partially raised the veil that concealed the inland regions of Africa from the curiosity of European eyes. William Lejean and Petherick had visited the Upper Nile; Piaggia had explored the Jur country and the Bahr-el-Ghazal; Dr. Peney had reached Mount Nyiri; Dr. Cuny had penetrated to Darfur, Poncet to Dar-Fertit, and Munziger to Kordofan.
Greedier than the vultures and hyenas of the desert, the Egyptian troops and Government officials had followed in the wake of the explorers and traders, so that, little by little, the political limits of the new province were extended, while the native populations (their opposition and outbreaks being promptly suppressed by relentless bloodshed) successively submitted to the conqueror.
In 1870 the extension of Egyptian territory towards the south was pushed forward by a larger and more rapid impetus. During that year Ismail Pasha, alarmed no doubt by the reports that reached him that the Soudan was becoming overrun by the Bashi-Bazouks, who, beyond control, were making perpetual incursions into it, made an appeal for European assistance to strengthen him in completing the conquest of Central Africa. Baker was accordingly placed in command of 1200 men, supplied with cannon and steam-boats, and received the title of Governour-General of the provinces which he was commissioned to subdue. Having elected to make Gondokoro the seat of his government, he changed its name to Ismailia. He was not long in bringing the Bari to submission, and then, advancing southwards, he came to the districts of Dufilé and Fatiko, a healthy region endowed by nature with fertile valleys and irrigated by limpid streams, but for years past converted into a sort of hell upon earth by the slave-hunters who had made it their headquarters.
From these pests Baker delivered the locality, and having by his tact and energy overcome the distrust of the native rulers, he established over their territory a certain number of small military settlements, by means of which communication could be kept up with Egypt, and its authority over the country be maintained.
This expedition was accompanied by M. de Bizemont, a lieutenant in the French navy, as scientific _attaché_; but in spite of the favourable auspices which attended it at its outset, it can hardly be said to have fulfilled the expectations that had been formed about it. From the very first Baker had protested too strongly that he had come to the Upper Nile to destroy the slave-trade, and the consequence was, that he made himself enemies at once amongst the Viceroy’s officials, who were all more or less interested in the negro traffic, and conspired accordingly to frustrate his plans and to impede his progress. The result was, that he found himself unable to carry out his design of advancing as far as Lake Albert, and had to stop short at Masindi, the residence of Kamrasi, the native king of Unyoro.
Baker returned to Europe flattering himself with the delusion that he had put an end to the scourge of slave-dealing. It was true that various slave-dealers’ dens on the Upper Nile had been destroyed, a number of outlaws had been shot, and a few thousand miserable slaves had been set at liberty; but beyond that nothing had been accomplished; no sooner had the liberator turned his back than the odious traffic recommenced with more vigour than before through the region south of Gondokoro.
This, however, was only one of the slave-hunting districts, and by no means the worst. To the west the basin of the Bahr-el-Ghazal was far more infested. Nowhere throughout the Soudan had the negro trade been more hideous and disastrous in its working than in the fertile and populous plains inhabited by the Denka, the Jur, the Bongo, and the Niam-niam. While Baker was at Cairo organising his second expedition, Dr. Schweinfurth was exploring all this fine and interesting country, pushing forward to the Mombuttu land, where he discovered the large river Welle. The story of his journey, which claims to be remembered as one of the most important scientific records of Equatorial Africa ever published, has thrown light upon districts in which for the last quarter of a century the Khartoum traders have established a series of fortified depôts. As this eminent traveller points out, these depôts were originally brought into existence for the sake of the ivory trade. They were set up in places where elephants were most abundant, and in the midst of peaceable populations, devoted to agriculture and cattle-breeding, and every year were visited by the Khartoumers, who carried back the ivory that had been procured. The men who were armed and despatched on these annual expeditions were composed of the very scum of the people. Ascending the Nile as far as Lake No, they spread themselves over the lands adjacent to the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Bahr-el-Arab, and their affluents, and having thus gained a footing, proceeded to apportion the country amongst them. They reduced the natives to a state of subjection, and for the purpose of securing a base for further operations and obtaining free access to the surrounding districts, they established isolated settlements, which they enclosed by palisades and thorn-hedges, and which hence were called _zeribas_. The whole line of the various watercourses was thus studded with these _zeribas_, which usually bore the names of the traders to whom they belonged, and are so distinguished upon the maps.
But although originally designed purely for mercantile purposes, the settlements became gradually transformed into centres for slave-hunting. They were (and, though in a diminished degree, they are) the starting-points for expeditions of armed marauders, who made sudden attacks upon the native villages, to which they set fire, and then, having reduced the terrified residents to a condition of helplessness, carried off the women and children, along with the ivory and the cattle. Destined to be bartered by the slavers for either money or merchandise, the miserable captives were yoked two and two together, and dragged in long caravans to some place of embarkation, where they were crammed down into the holds of the _dahabiehs_, and conveyed to the markets either on the coast or in the interior.
Such was the way in which the ill-fated districts of the Egyptian Soudan, and especially those of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Darfur, Kordofan, and Jebel-Nuba, became, as it were, the nursery whence were supplied more than 30,000 slaves every year to satisfy the requirements of Oriental luxury and debauch.
But the eyes of the civilised world were at length opened to the atrocities that at the close of the nineteenth century were thus being perpetrated in the Soudan with the knowledge, and often by the connivance, of the Egyptian authorities. Under European compulsion, therefore, the Khedive Ismail undertook to promote measures to put a stop to the scandal. He entered into various conventions with England on the subject; and in order to convince the Powers of the sincerity of his intentions, he consented to put the equatorial provinces under the administration of an European officer, who should be commissioned to carry on the work of repression, conquest, and organisation that had been commenced by Baker. His choice fell upon a man of exceptional ability, a brilliant officer trained at Woolwich, who had already gained high renown in China, not only for military talent, but for his adroitness and skill in negotiation and diplomacy. This was Colonel Gordon, familiarly known as “Chinese Gordon,” who was now to add fresh lustre to his name in Egypt as Gordon Pasha.
Gordon was appointed Governour-General of the Soudan in 1874. With him were associated Chaillé-Long, an American officer, who was chief of his staff; the German, Dr. Emin Effendi, medical officer to the expedition; Lieutenants Chippendall and Watson; Gessi and Kemp, engineers; two Englishmen, Messrs. Russell and Anson; and two Frenchmen, MM. Auguste and Ernest Linant de Bellefonds, sons of an engineer who had been Minister of Public Works under Mehemet Ali.
[Illustration: GENERAL GORDON.
(_From a Photograph by Herr Richard Buchta._)]
Thenceforward the territories, of which so little had hitherto been known, became the continual scene of military movements and scientific excursions.
Colonel Chaillé-Long, with a mission from Gordon to Mtesa, the king of Uganda, reached the residence of that potentate without hindrance, and was entertained with much magnificence. He availed himself of the opportunity to explore the northern section of Lake Victoria, and descending the Somerset Nile, not without some conflict with the native tribes, he discovered on his way the lake which he designated by the name of Ibrahim Pasha. He rejoined Gordon at Gondokoro, and was subsequently despatched by him, in company with Marno, the Austrian naturalist, to make an exploration of the Makraka district.
Shortly after Chaillé-Long had taken his departure from Uganda, Mtesa received other European visitors. M. Ernest Linant de Bellefonds arrived at the court, and was much surprised to find that the king had already welcomed another white stranger, who was seated at his side. His first impression was that this must be Cameron, but it proved to be Stanley, who, having started from Zanzibar to make further investigations at Lake Victoria, had been for some days the guest of the black chief.
Subsequently there arrived the German, Dr. Schnitzer, then known as Emin Effendi, but afterwards as Emin Bey. In the mission with which he was charged by Gordon to Mtesa he exhibited such diplomatic skill as to attract the approbation of his superior, and to mark him out for the important duties which he would afterwards be called to fulfil.
All the time that Gordon was thus negotiating with Mtesa, and endeavouring to secure him as an ally who would acquiesce in his schemes, he was likewise laying himself out to extend his own authority in the direction of Lake Albert. Two others of his party, the Englishmen Chippendall and Kemp, were sent out to explore the unknown portion of the Nile between Gondokoro and the lake, and succeeded in launching, above the rapids, a steam vessel, the “Khedive,” and two iron-plated boats. On board one of these, the Italian engineer Gessi, accompanied by his fellow-countryman Piaggia, made his grand circumnavigation of Lake Albert in March and April 1876, taking possession of it in the name of the Khedive.
Two years previously, after Ismail Ayoub’s smart campaign, Darfur, Shekka, and Dar-Fertit had been annexed, Colonels Purdy, Colston, and Mason having, by a series of military advances, united the new conquests to Dongola and Khartoum.
In the meanwhile Gordon Pasha, on his part, was vigorously carrying on the work of organisation in the equatorial provinces. Leaving Gondokoro, which was situated in a bad and unhealthy locality, exposed to the miasma of stagnant water, he crossed over to Lado, on the other bank of the Nile, and there established the seat of his government. The storm which had broken out at the time of his arrival seemed now to have subsided into a calm; hostilities had been overcome, and the Soudan was so far conquered as to be held by about a dozen military outposts stationed along the Nile from Lake No to Lakes Albert and Ibrahim.
In that Darfur campaign the Government had been backed up by a rich trader, Zebehr, the owner of numerous _zeribas_ and of large companies of armed slaves in the Bahr-el-Ghazal district. Having been rewarded for his support with the title of Bey and Mudir of Shekka, he seemed to be able to set no bounds to his ambition. Dazzled by his power, and irritated by the request of the Government that he should desist from his slave-raids, he broke out in revolt, and making alliance with the dethroned Sultan of Darfur, he attacked the Egyptian outposts, and fostered an insurrection which very nearly led to the loss of the province and that of the Bahr-el-Ghazal.
Had it not been for the energy and courage of Gessi, whom Gordon despatched with all speed to quell the rising rebellion, there is every probability that not only the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Darfur, but part of Kordofan also, would have repudiated the authority of the Khedive, and relapsed into the control of the slave-hunters. Gessi, however, was equal to his task. Although without provisions, and almost without ammunition, and supported by a comparatively small force, he made an intrepid advance, and by his resolution not only succeeded in preventing the two enemies from effecting a junction, but routed them separately before they could combine. Suleiman Bey and his chief officers were arrested and executed, Gessi taking up his quarters in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, of which he was appointed Governour.
Under Gessi’s administration the province was enabled to enjoy a period of peace and prosperity. Owing to his energy and skill, ways of communication were opened, forsaken villages were repopulated, lands were brought afresh into cultivation, slave-raids ceased, the natives regained confidence, and agriculture and commerce began to take a new start.
In 1876 Gordon went back to Cairo. Nevertheless, although he was wearied with the continual struggle of the past two years, worn down by the incessant labours of internal organisation and geographical investigations, disheartened, too, by the jealousies, rivalries, and intrigues of all around him, and by the ill feeling of the very people whom the Khedive’s Government had sent to support him, he consented to return again to his post; this time with the title of Governour-General of the Soudan, Darfur, and the Equatorial Provinces. At the beginning of 1877 he took possession of the Government palace at Khartoum, at the gate of which, eight years afterwards, so dire a tragedy was destined to be performed.
Egyptian authority, allied with European civilisation, appeared now at length to be taking some hold on the various districts, and the Cairo Government might begin to look forward to a time when it could reckon on some reward for its labours and sacrifices.
The area of the new Egyptian Soudan had now become immense. Geographically, its centre included the entire valley of the Nile proper, from Berber to the great lakes; on the east were such portions of the valleys of the Blue Nile and Atbara as lay outside Abyssinia; and on the west were the districts watered by the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Bahr-el-Arab, right away to the confines of Wadaï. Politically, it consisted of Upper Nubia, the ancient island of Meroë, Sennar, Bagara, Kordofan, Darfur, Shekka, Dar-Fertit, the lands of the Shilluk, Nuer, Denka, Bongo, Bari, Lattuka, Madi, and Aluri, with the northern part of Unyoro.
The dream of Mehemet Ali was in a measure realised. The foundations of a great Soudanese empire under Egyptian rule had been laid upon the Upper Nile, and the little fishing village which the first conqueror, with far-seeing augury, had destined for its capital, had grown into a flourishing town, with a population of more than 45,000, and was the seat of government and the general trade-centre of the entire region.
Unfortunately in 1879 Ismail Pasha was deposed, and, to the grievous loss of the Soudan, Gordon was recalled. As the immediate consequence, the country fell back into the hands of Turkish pashas; apathy, disorder, carelessness, and ill feeling reappeared at Khartoum, and the Arab slave-dealers, who had for a period been kept under by Baker, Gessi, and Gordon, came once more to the front.
It is only too obvious that the slave-trade must for a long time be the great obstacle to any true progress in the Soudan, preventing its taking its own proper part in the movement which will ultimately result in its civilisation. The Arab merchants, to the present day, consider the traffic in slaves to be perfectly legitimate, and detest not only the Egyptian Government, but especially the European officers in its employ, for obstructing their operations, seizing their boats, liberating the negroes, and otherwise damaging their abominable trade. This detestation is made manifest on every conceivable occasion.
Year after year had Gordon, as Governour-General, to deal with the hordes of Arab slave-dealers; and although he succeeded in suppressing their rebellions and punishing their misdoings, he was never able to quench the spirit of revolt, which, nurtured by fanaticism and hatred to the infidel, secretly brooded underneath all outward appearance of submission, keeping up amongst them the hope that some accident would open up for them an opportunity to overthrow the administration which they hated, and bring back the old _régime_, under which they could continue their nefarious practices free and uncontrolled.
It was Raouf Pasha who, in 1879, succeeded Gordon as Governour-General. He had three Europeans as his subordinates--Emin Bey, who, before Gordon left, had been placed in charge of the province of the equator; Lupton Bey, an Englishman, who had followed Gessi as Governour on the Bahr-el-Ghazal; and Slatin Bey, an Austrian, in command at Darfur.
Raouf had barely been two years at Khartoum when the Mahdi appeared on the scene.