CHAPTER IV.

JUNKER AND CASATI.

The Welle--Biography and travels of Dr. Junker--The Niam-niam--Dr. Junker and the Niam-niam chiefs--Captain Casati--The Mombuttu--Cannibalism--Dr. Junker in the Aruwimi basin and at Ali-Kobo’s _zeriba_--Bad news from the north--Junker and Casati with Emin Bey at Lado.

Emin Bey and Lupton Bey were not the only Europeans who were blocked in the heart of Africa by the Mahdi’s victories. At that period the Russian, Dr. Junker, and Captain Casati, the Italian, were still farther south, investigating the basin of the Welle.

The Welle is the name given in its upper course to the most important of the right-hand tributaries of the Congo; it is a powerful stream, which, in length and volume, may be compared to the Danube; it receives nearly all the water from the region situated between the northern Congo and the ridge-line whence the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Shari, the Binue, and their several affluents take their source.

As the result of the explorations of recent years its upper section is beginning to be fairly well known. It has been ascertained that, under the name of the Kibbi, it has its source on the western slope of the low range of the Blue Mountains, somewhat to the west of Wadelai; that it then flows from east to west for nearly 1000 miles, taking a slight curve, and being parallel to the Congo. Amongst many affluents, the principal are the Garamba, the Duru, the Bomokandi, the Werre, the Mbima, and the Mbomu.

What becomes of the Welle after its confluence with the last of the above tributaries must as yet be held as an open question. Various solutions have been suggested during the last fifteen years. It has been stated that it finds an outlet into the Shari, into the Ogowe, or into the Aruwimi; it has been asserted that it flows into a Lake Liba, the existence of which is enigmatical, a second Lake Tchad; and finally, it has been maintained that it joins the Itimbiri and the Mongalla, inferior affluents of the Congo. A conclusive answer to the question has still to be awaited; future observation can alone decide; nevertheless geographers are now almost unanimous in accepting the hypothesis promulgated nearly three years since by the writer of this volume, which would identify the Welle of Schweinfurth and Junker with the mighty Mobangi, whose confluence with the Congo a little south of the Equator the Belgian Captain Hanssens was the first to discover, and which was ascended by Grenfell, a missionary from England, beyond the Zongo rapids. “It may fairly be believed,” says M. Élisée Reclus, “that the Welle continues to flow from east to west below its confluence with the Mbomu, and that, after describing a south-westerly curve parallel to the Congo, it joins the Mobangi about 250 miles from the spot where Junker left its course.”[1]

It must be added that Dr. Junker, during his explorations of the river-basin, extending over three years, has done much to verify this hypothesis; he has, moreover, by his numerous itineraries, provided the material for a map of this unknown region, and has amassed such valuable scientific information as must make the history of his travels, now in preparation, a geographical contribution of the highest importance.

This eminent explorer, Wilhelm Junker (to whom the present volume is dedicated), was born at Moscow on the 6th of April 1840. He studied at Gottingen, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Prague. His earlier travels were in Iceland, but in 1874, abandoning the frozen zone for tropical Africa, he made various excursions into Tunis and Lower Egypt, whence he proceeded to the Natron Lakes and Fayoum, and crossing to the Red Sea, went in succession to Suakin, Kassala, and Khartoum; then, having explored the Sobat, he made his way to Gondokoro. The year 1877 found him in the basin of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Yei.

After four years’ wanderings, with many useful results, the Doctor returned to Europe for rest; but the attraction of African life was too strong to be resisted, and in 1878 he started again by way of Suakin for Berber, going on to Khartoum, where he arrived in January 1880.

This time he had a definite purpose in view: he had determined to explore the almost unknown regions that were watered by the Welle, and set his mind on following its course as far as possible to the west, that he might put to rest the dubious question of its ultimate issue. Accompanied by a specialist in natural history, M. Frederic Bohndorf, and by a young negro whom he had taken with him to Europe after his first journey, he made his way to the heart of the continent, halting at the _zeribas_ Meshra-er-Rek, Jur-Ghattas, Wau, Dem Suleiman, and Dem Bekir, and finally taking up his quarters, as the base of his operations, at the residence of Ndoruma, a powerful Niam-niam chief in the Congo basin.

The Niam-niam are that strange people whose existence, surrounded by mystery and legend, was attested by the very earliest adventurers into the Soudan. They were the famous “men with tails” in whom certain _savants_ imagined that they had discovered the missing link between ape and man; and such was their weird repute that Soudanese and Nubians alike associated their name with all the savage devilry that imagination could conjure up. The appellation by which we distinguish them is borrowed from the dialect of the Denka, and signifies “great eaters,” an allusion only too suggestive of cannibal propensities.

Dr. Schweinfurth was the first to give any detailed particulars about the Niam-niam, whose general aspect excited his repeated wonder. He writes:--“No traveller could possibly find himself for the first time surrounded by a group of true Niam-niam without being almost forced to confess that all he had hitherto witnessed amongst the various races of Africa was comparatively tame and uninteresting.” He thus describes a Niam-niam warrior:--“The stranger, as he gazes on him, may well behold in this true son of the African wilderness every attribute of the wildest savagery that may be conjured up by the boldest flight of fancy.... I have seen the wild Bishareen and other Bedouins of the Nubian desert, I have gazed with admiration upon the stately war-dress of the Abyssinians, I have been riveted with surprise at the supple forms of the mounted Bagara, but nowhere in any part of Africa have I ever come across a people that in every attitude and in every motion exhibited so thorough a mastery over all the circumstances of war or of the chase as the Niam-niam. Other nations in comparison seemed to me to fall short in the perfect ease, I might almost say dramatic grace, that characterised their every movement.”[2]

Equally well may the Niam-niam be described as a nation of hunters or a nation of agriculturists. As with most African races, the cultivation of the soil is carried on by the women; not that this involves any excessive labour, inasmuch as the natural productiveness of the soil, the exuberance of which in some districts is unsurpassed, makes all culture exceptionally easy. The whole land is pre-eminently rich in many products that conduce to the direct maintenance of life, and eleusine, sweet potatoes, yams, manioc, and colocasiæ may be said to grow all but spontaneously.

Speaking generally, it may be said that they have no cattle; cows, goats, and sheep are hardly known otherwise than by report. The acme, however, of human enjoyment for a Niam-niam would seem to be _meat_; every one is a hunter, and it may be, within certain limits, a cannibal. The cry that resounds in all their campaigns is, “Meat, meat!”

As to cannibalism, there is no doubt that it has been attributed to them by all the surrounding nations, and perhaps few could venture to dispute this widespread testimony; on the other hand, it must be acknowledged that travellers have met with Niam-niam chiefs who vehemently repudiate the idea of eating human flesh. At the same time, it is asserted of other chiefs that they have openly and without reserve, if not ostentatiously, confessed their predilection; whilst it is stated, in addition, that they adorn themselves with the teeth of the victims they have devoured, and exhibit their skulls conspicuously among their hunting-trophies. Moreover, it is said that the fat of the human body is in general use.

The country inhabited by the Niam-niam is so immense that as yet it has been but partially explored. The ridge between the basins of the Nile and the Congo forms pretty nearly a central line through the whole. Eastwards their population extends to Lake Albert and the Nile; westwards they probably reach to the north of the French Congo, to the sources of the Binue; and to the south they occupy the greater portion of the Congo Free State, on the banks of the Welle.

They have no national unity. Schweinfurth counted no less than thirty-eight independent chiefs in the country north of Tangasi, and a still larger number was visited by Junker, whose travels carried him along both banks of the Welle; he makes special mention of Ndoruma and Semmio, well-known rulers, in whose domains he established stations, and further speaks of Bakangai and Kanna, who reside in the Bomokandi basin within the limits of the Congo State, as the most powerful chiefs that he came across throughout his entire journey.

Of towns in an ordinary sense, or even of villages, the Niam-niam have none. Their huts are grouped in little clusters, which are scattered about the cultivated lands and separated from each other by tracts of wilderness more or less extensive, broken by forests and savannahs that are the haunts of innumerable herds of elephants and antelopes. The country everywhere is picturesque, and in the valleys, where heat and moisture are combined, the scene is often charming as fairy-land.

M. Bohndorf pronounces the climate to be superior to that of Java or India, and considers that when the ameliorating appliances of civilisation shall have been introduced, the mortality of the white man will be comparatively small.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN CASATI.]

Personal security is nowhere more assured than in the majority of the districts farther north. The European has only to use a little tact and he may travel quite unarmed. Except on a few excursions when he obtained an escort either from Gessi Pasha or from the Soudanese traders, Dr. Junker made all his journeys accompanied only by a few lads and porters. His sole precaution, before entering the territory of an unknown chief, was to send some messengers in advance to announce his arrival, and to declare that his intentions were quite peaceable. A few presents went far to conciliate the favour of the chief, not only obtaining permission for the white man’s entry, but procuring the loan of guides to conduct him onwards.

By such prudent policy, and probably through the absolute want of anything like military display, Junker was able to travel for more than two years in the Niam-niam country, going southwards beyond the Bomokandi, and westwards to a little above the confluence of the Mbomu, in the Banjia tribe, where Ali Kobbo, a merchant, has established a _zeriba_ for the ivory-trade. To the east he penetrated into the abode of the Mombuttu, where, in August 1882, at the village of Tangasi, he met the Italian explorer, Casati.

Gaetano Casati, a native of Monza, in Upper Italy, was serving as a captain of _Bersaglieri_, when it was proposed to him by M. Camperio, the founder of the Italian Society for the Exploration of Africa, that he should join his countryman, Gessi Pasha, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, as correspondent to the geographical review, _L’Exploratore_.

The offer was accepted; and on December 24, 1879, Casati embarked at Genoa for Suakin, whence he continued his way to the interior, where he has resided ever since, staying successively in the lands of the Jur, the Denka, and the Makraka, and proceeding, after Gessi had taken his departure, westward of Lake Albert into the district of the Mombuttu.

This interesting negro race, the Mombuttu or Monbuttoo, thirty years back, was not even known to have an existence; it has now been brought into notoriety by Dr. Schweinfurth, the first European to make his way so far in that direction. According to the estimate he formed about them, they are a people that must take a foremost rank amongst African tribes. They are a noble race, with a higher grade of culture than their savage neighbours. They exhibit a public spirit and a national pride, and certainly possess an intelligence and judgment such as few Africans can boast. Their word is sure, and their friendship lasting. The Nubians who reside among them can never say enough in praise of their fidelity, their military qualities, and their personal courage.

A marked development characterises their capabilities; and as potters, wood-carvers and boat-builders, they are second to no tribe on the entire continent. It is, however, in their architecture that the versatility of their artistic faculty most reveals itself. Alike in size, in arrangement, and in decoration, their buildings excel all that travellers in Central Africa have found elsewhere; the great hall in the palace of Munza, who was king of the Mombuttu at the time of Schweinfurth’s visit, was not much short of a hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty feet high; not unlike the central portion of a large railway-station, its vaulted roof being supported on three long rows of pillars formed of polished wood.

The Mombuttu sovereigns enjoy far higher prerogatives than the rulers of the Niam-niam. Besides the monopoly of ivory, they claim regular contributions, levied upon the products of the soil. In addition to his bodyguard proper, Munza was always attended by a large _suite_, never leaving his residence without being accompanied by a retinue of some hundred men, and preceded by a long array of trumpeters, drummers, and couriers with large iron bells.

And yet, advanced as they seem in some respects towards civilisation, and eminent as travellers declare them to be for hospitality, they are a people amongst whom the practice of cannibalism is most flagrant. They are skilled sportsmen, and hunt elephants, buffaloes, and antelopes; they take the guinea-fowl, the francolin, and the bustard in snares; but there is no game for which they have a keener relish than for human flesh.

Living in a state of perpetual warfare with the inferior tribes of the Aruwimi basin, their neighbours on the south, they have hunting-grounds which are inexhaustible in the supply of this coveted food. The dead bodies of those who fall in battle are immediately distributed to be cut up, and are dried upon the field, preparatory to being carried away. Every family would seem to have its supply, and human fat is universally employed for domestic purposes. According to Schweinfurth, children are regarded as a special delicacy, and are reserved for the table of the king.

It is now accepted as a fact, established by the testimony alike of transient travellers and of agents permanently residing in the Congo State, that all the tribes inhabiting the vast region between the Congo and the Welle are addicted to cannibalism; but if Schweinfurth’s impression be correct, the cannibalism of the Mombuttu is the most inveterate of all; he had no difficulty in getting two hundred skulls of their victims to be submitted to him, of which he selected forty to bring away.

Nothing short of European occupation, with the introduction of cattle and the suppression of internecine wars, can ever avail to put an end to the revolting practice.

Situated as it is between Emin Pasha’s province and the Congo Free State, it is to be hoped that the Mombuttu country can hardly be long before being brought under European influence. From a politico-economical point of view, it holds out a promise of great importance; its fertility, its population, its wealth, its comparative salubrity, and its picturesqueness attract the interest equally of travellers and traders. “The Mombuttu land,” says Schweinfurth, “greets us as an Eden upon earth. Unnumbered groves of plantains bedeck the gently heaving soil; oil-palms, incomparable in beauty, and other monarchs of the stately woods, rise up and spread their glory over the favoured scene; along the streams there is a bright expanse of charming verdure, whilst a grateful shade ever overhangs the domes of the idyllic huts.”[3]

Like the Niam-niam, the Mombuttu have no real villages. To quote Schweinfurth again:--“The huts are arranged in sets following the lines of the brooks along the valleys, the space between each group being occupied by plantations of oil-palms. The dwellings are separated from the lowest parts of the depression by the plaintain grounds, whilst above, on the higher and drier soil, extend the fields of sweet potatoes and colocasiæ.”[4]

Notwithstanding his efforts to make further progress to the south, Dr. Schweinfurth, in 1871, found himself unable to advance beyond a spot within King Munza’s dominions, on the left bank of the Welle, the present site of Tangasi.

Captain Casati was more fortunate. Taking a south-westerly course, he succeeded in passing beyond the Mombuttu frontier, and reached the residence of the Niam-niam chief, Bakangai, who, being afraid that he might be held responsible for the death of a European traveller, refused to allow him to penetrate farther west into the country of the fierce Ababua.

About the same time as Casati, Dr. Junker also arrived at the quarters of Bakangai. Not to be deterred, he made a bold dash from Tangasi towards the south, and managed to get across the southern ridge of the Welle basin, and having passed through the Mabode country into the Aruwimi valley, reached the quarters of one of their chiefs named Sanga, a prince of Mombuttu origin.

This spot, on the banks of the river Nepoko, was destined to be the farthest point that was reached in the adventurous enterprises of that date.

Both Junker’s and Casati’s investigations were now to be interrupted, and finally to be altogether checked, by the disquieting intelligence from Khartoum that was forwarded to them by Lupton and Emin Bey.

In November 1882, just as he was leaving Semmio for the west, Dr. Junker received a warning from Lupton that, instigated by the Arabs, the Denka had risen in revolt, and that the route towards Meshra-er-Rek was quite unsafe. Persevering, however, and not allowing his schemes to be frustrated by the tidings, he pursued his way into the unknown regions to the west, resolved, if possible, to ascertain the real direction of the course of the Welle-Makua. He traversed the territory of the Banjia tribes, and arrived at the _zeriba_ Ali-Kobbo, in the Abassange country, the extreme point hitherto reached on the great river.

It was, however, only for four days that he could remain there. He had hardly arrived when letters from Lupton overtook him, forwarded in urgent haste, announcing the rapid progress of the Mahdi’s revolt and the rising of the natives in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. There was no alternative for him but to return at once; at the very moment when he seemed to have the immediate prospect of being able to solve the question of the Welle, he was obliged to abandon his undertaking and beat a retreat.

By the following May he was back in Semmio. After waiting in doubt and anxiety for six months, and still despairing of finding any way open to the north, he set out towards the east in the direction of the province of the Equator, where Emin Pasha was pressing him to come and join him without delay. He reached Lado on the 23d of January 1884. Casati had arrived there some months previously.

It was high time; the crisis was at hand; stern action must be taken.