CHAPTER XXVI

THE EASTERN BASIN OF THE NILE

We will now turn to the eastern part of the Nile basin--the first to be explored, the last to be finished. It has been already related how, alarmed at the rapid successes of the Portuguese in India, the Persian Gulf, and East Africa, the Abyssinians resolutely ejected the Portuguese missionaries from their country during the seventeenth century, and how the attempts of Louis XIV. to supplant the Portuguese by French influence resulted disastrously. Bruce had broken the spell which rested on this strange country, so fascinating to Europeans, because while being absolutely “Africa” it was ruled, and for the most part inhabited, by more or less Caucasian races, its rulers having a Semitic history which attached them to the fountains of civilisation. Our previous review of exploration in Abyssinia ended with Bruce’s journey, and with the attempts on the part of French and German explorers during the early part of the nineteenth century to enter Abyssinia up the course of the Blue Nile. Meantime the overland route to the East had been conceived by Lieutenant Waghorn, the British government had seized Aden in 1839, and a much greater interest than heretofore was taken in the navigation of the Red Sea, which was rapidly becoming the main route to India. Although Abyssinia then as now had no acknowledged political control over any part of the Red Sea littoral, it was early recognised that Abyssinia was an important factor in the political problems governing the control of the Red Sea. Even before the safety of the British route to India became a matter of urgent importance, we had sought to enter into direct relations with Abyssinia. In 1805 a British mission under Lord Valentia and Consul Henry Salt was sent to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia and obtain a port on the Danakil coast by means of which Britain could, if necessary, convey troops to Abyssinia, and so take a French Egypt in the rear. The writings of Henry Salt added greatly to our knowledge of the peoples, languages, and fauna of Abyssinia and of the Zanzibar coast, but did not contribute materially to the elucidation of Nile problems. During the first part of the nineteenth century Abyssinia was in the throes of civil war caused by the struggles for supremacy between the ruler of Tigre (the northern province) and the Ras or Governor of Amhara (the central province). The Ras of Tigre--Sabagadis--threw open northern Abyssinia to the English, cordially inviting missionaries, mechanics, and explorers to enter his dominions. In this way the Church Missionary Society’s missions to eastern Africa started by the despatch of Protestant missionaries (mostly Germans in the pay of the Society) to Tigre. On the other hand, the war between Tigre and Amhara having resulted in the death of both the chiefs, a third potentate, the ruler of the lofty Samien Mountains, annexed Tigre, and out of opposition to his predecessor’s policy invited Frenchmen to develop the country. Captains Galinier and Ferret accepted the commission to survey Tigre and Samien by careful triangulation. This task was accomplished in 1842, and resulted in the correct mapping of the affluents of the Atbara. Meantime the British Protestant missionaries had penetrated into Amhara, while Tigre and Samien came under French Roman Catholic influence. In fact, the history of Uganda was given here on a larger scale. Simultaneously the southern province of Ethiopia, Shoa, under the enlightened ruler Selasié had attracted the attention of Europeans. Major (afterwards Sir William) Harris was sent by the Indian government in 1841 to conclude a treaty with Shoa, as it was thought that this country might eventually extend its influence over Somaliland, and so come into direct contact with the Indian government at Aden. This British mission was naturally followed by a French one, and a French envoy applied to the Pope for the starting of a Roman Catholic mission in Shoa.

The work of Monseigneur Massaja, who was despatched by Pope Pius IX., though it throws much interesting light on the structure of the Gala language, hardly comes within the sphere of Nile exploration. Meantime an adventurer named Kasa had arisen in Amhara, and had gradually made himself master of the northern and western provinces of Abyssinia. He had himself crowned King of Kings of Ethiopia under the name of Theodore, and then proceeded to annex the province of Shoa to his dominions.

During the early part of Theodore’s reign the two brothers d’Abbadie were at work surveying Abyssinia and collecting invaluable information regarding the languages, literature, coins, inscriptions, and religions of that assemblage of Semitic, Hamitic, and Negro states. Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie and his brother Arnaud Michel were actually born in Dublin, their father being French and their mother Irish. They were however educated in France. Their bent for scientific exploration was early recognised, for the French Academy sent the elder of the two on a scientific mission to Brazil at the age of twenty-five. The younger d’Abbadie explored Algeria. This leading his thoughts in the direction of Abyssinia, he proposed to his brother a joint mission of exploration, which commenced in 1838 by their landing at Masawa. Besides carefully surveying the northern and central provinces of Abyssinia they did work of special novelty and interest in the south. Until the journeys of Cecchi and other Italians twenty years ago the d’Abbadies’ information concerning the countries lying to the south of Abyssinia represented all that we knew of Kaffa and Enarea,--names indeed which had been cited by the Portuguese, but names unsupported by geographical information. Antoine d’Abbadie penetrated the furthest into Kaffa. He collected an immense amount of information regarding the languages spoken in the vague south and southwest districts inhabited mainly by races of Hamitic origin. The d’Abbadies closed their survey of Abyssinia in 1848, though the younger brother paid the country another short visit in 1853. They were in no hurry to give the results of their explorations to the world; in fact, the “Géographie de l’Éthiopie” (of which only one volume was published) did not appear till 1890. Their actual surveys of Abyssinia were published between the years 1860 and 1873. Their Ethiopian manuscripts came out also during that period, but Antoine’s Dictionary of the Amharic tongue was published no further back than 1881. Their twelve years’ work in Abyssinia was the greatest contribution that has ever been made to our knowledge of that country, but most of their labours do not lie sufficiently within the field of Nile exploration to admit of an adequate description in this book. Antoine d’Abbadie lived to the age of eighty-seven (he died in 1897). About 1859 he found himself involved in a somewhat acrid conflict of opinion with another Abyssinian explorer, Dr. C. T. Beke, who visited Abyssinia in the forties of the last century. D’Abbadie was naturally prejudiced in favour of the Blue Nile being the main Nile, since that river and its southern affluents had been the special object of his researches during twelve years. On the other hand, Dr. Beke was hotly in favour of the White Nile, especially after Speke’s discovery of the Victoria Nyanza. Dr. Beke was right in his main contentions, but seems to have thrown unnecessary aspersions on the genuineness of Antoine d’Abbadie’s explorations in southern Abyssinia. We now know d’Abbadie’s work to have been perfectly accurate.

[Illustration: DR. C. BEKE.]

Mansfield Parkyns, an Englishman, visited Abyssinia from 1843 to 1846, wrote interestingly on the country in confirmation or correction of Bruce’s statements, but did not add materially to our geographical knowledge, though his book is still often quoted in regard to habits and customs now dying out.

Amongst the Protestant missionaries first despatched to the country by the Church Missionary Society of London was the celebrated Krapf, already alluded to in Chapter XI. as the joint discoverer of the East African snow-mountains. Krapf penetrated far south into Shoa, and gave considerable information, both interesting and true, regarding the dwarfish Negro tribes found to the southwest of the Abyssinian Empire.

Lij Kasa, who had become King of Kings of Ethiopia under the name of Theodore III., showed himself, when he had consolidated his power, very fond of the English, and encouraged English missionaries and consuls to go to his court. He seems, however, to have pursued this policy more with the idea of strengthening his prestige and improving his kingdom by the spread of mechanical appliances and the manufacture of superior arms and ammunition, than from any desire to encourage missionary work. In the early sixties he became offended at a supposed slight on the part of the British government, which left unanswered a letter addressed to it by Theodore in 1863. His subsequent proceedings in regard to the imprisonment of the consul and missionaries eventually brought about the British expedition of 1868. A force of sixteen thousand British and Indian soldiers under Sir Charles Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) marched from Masawa up and along the eastern escarpment of the Abyssinian plateau, and captured the citadel of Magdala, which is situated within the basin of the Nile, close to the northeasternmost tributary of that river. This expedition was accompanied by Dr. W. T. Blanford, who compiled a valuable work on the geology and zoölogy of Abyssinia, which was published in 1870.

For ten years after the withdrawal of the British expedition, in 1869, little advance was made in our knowledge of Abyssinian geography. Theodore was succeeded by another adventurer, also called Kasa,--a native of Tigre,--who afforded considerable help to the British. By means of our indirect support he succeeded in getting himself crowned as Yohannes (John), King of Kings of Ethiopia. Shoa alone, where Menelik (the present emperor) was slowly recovering the power of his father (who had lost the country to Theodore), was not actually conquered by the Emperor John; for just as he was starting to subdue Menelik, he himself was attacked by the Egyptian army under Munzinger, the Swiss Governor of Masawa. Munzinger was urging the Khedive’s government to occupy and annex Abyssinia, and Egypt had, as a preliminary, seized the Bogos country, the greater part of which still remains Egyptian. But in 1875 John inflicted a tremendous defeat on the Egyptian army near the river Mareb, and in 1876 a second defeat, still more disastrous to the Egyptian power. This brought about the intervention of General Gordon, who, in 1876 and 1879, made two attempts to come to a friendly understanding with Abyssinia. His journeys added a little to our knowledge of the affluents of the Blue Nile and the Atbara.

In 1879 the Earl of Mayo (who subsequently travelled with the writer of this book in southwest Africa) made an interesting journey along the Takaze River, which is the upper waters of the Atbara. His sporting expedition was followed by that of the brothers W. and F. L. James (who subsequently explored Somaliland). The Italians began to take an interest in Abyssinia at the end of the seventies, but the first expeditions undertaken by their explorers have no connection with the Nile basin.

In 1839 or 1840 one of the most important affluents of the Nile was discovered by the expedition of Turks and Europeans despatched by Muhammad Ali to explore the White Nile. This was the Sobat (as it was named by the Nile Arabs), which enters the White River under the ninth degree of latitude. The word Sobat was evidently an ancient Nubian or Ethiopian term which was in existence two thousand years ago, when it was applied to the White Nile (Asta Sobas), in contradistinction to the Blue Nile (Ast’apos). At the present day the Sobat is known by the name of Kir[114] on its lower portion, and Baro on its upper course. In subsequent years steamers ascended the Sobat from the Nile as far as it was navigable, namely, to a point called Nasr. Johann Maria Schuver, a Dutch traveller in the seventies of the last century, and several Europeans in the service of the Egyptian government, collected a little more information about the Sobat and its tributaries above Nasr, but this river long remained one of the unsolved problems of Nile geography. Schuver did much to explore the western Gala countries between the Sobat and the Blue Nile. On some of these journeys he was accompanied by the Italian explorer Piaggia[115] (who had discovered Lake Kioga on the Victoria Nile). Piaggia, in endeavouring once more to force his way towards the Sobat, died at Karkoj, on the Blue Nile, in 1882.

[Illustration: NATIVES OF THE BARO (UPPER SOBAT) SKINNING HIPPOPOTAMUS.]

The surcease of the Nile exploration which followed on the Mahdi’s revolt in 1882, closed for a time the exploration of the Sobat and its affluents. But one result of this revolt was to urge European inquirers more and more towards Abyssinia, especially the southern provinces of that empire. A French explorer, Jules Borelli, made remarkable journeys to the south and southwest of Abyssinia at the close of the eighties of the last century, and, besides discovering the river Omo, which flows into Lake Rudolf, he gave much new information regarding the source of the Sobat. The book which he published in 1890--“Ethiopie Méridionale”--is one of the best and most beautifully illustrated works which have appeared on Africa.

Italy having assumed an unacknowledged protectorate over Abyssinia, subsidised expedition after expedition, nominally for scientific research. Among the best equipped of these undertakings, and the most fruitful in geographical results, was an expedition under Vittorio Bottego, L. Vannutelli, and C. Citerni, which explored the head-waters of the Sobat (Baro, Akobo, etc.) in the southern Abyssinian highlands, and also the waters of the Didessa (Dabessa), which is the southernmost tributary of the Blue Nile.

In 1898 the celebrated Captain (now Colonel) J. B. Marchand, who had made a most remarkable journey across the Nyam-nyam country in the western Nile basin from the Mbomu (a northern affluent of the Welle-Ubangi), across the Nile watershed to the Sue River, and down the Sue to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and Fashoda, left Fashoda[116] in consequence of the agreement between France and Great Britain, and travelled to Abyssinia more or less along the course of the Sobat River, thus, first of all Europeans, practically connecting the southern provinces of Abyssinia with the White Nile by a direct journey up the valley of the Sobat or Baro. Marchand’s explorations were supplemented by those of MM. de Bonchamps and Michel.

[Illustration:

_Photo by Pierre Petit & Fils._]

COLONEL J. B. MARCHAND.]

These explorers were soon followed in the same direction by the late Captain M. S. Wellby. Captain Wellby also made a most interesting journey from Abyssinia to Lake Rudolf, down the east coast of Lake Rudolf to Lake Baringo and the Uganda Protectorate, and then northwest through the Turkana country, which lies to the west of Lake Rudolf. Here Captain Wellby found himself on the Nile-Rudolf water-parting. To the west of the Turkana, in the Karamojo country, he crossed an important stream named the Ruzi,[117] which was flowing in a general way northwest. Farther north he encountered another river also named Ruzi, which might or might not be the same, but which in doubt he called Ruzi II. From the second of these Ruzis he eventually reached the main Sobat. Thenceforth he believed that in one or other of the Ruzis he had discovered the southernmost affluent, or perhaps the headwaters of the Sobat River. His theory, however, was strongly contested by Major H. H. Austin, who, in company with Major R. G. T. Bright, travelled over the greater part of the Sobat system in 1900–1901, giving us for the first time a fairly accurate survey of that river, and of its southern affluents, especially the Pibor-Akobo, which for length of course, though not in volume, might lay claim to be the main Sobat River. The Akobo rises in the mountains to the north of Lake Rudolf, its source being very close to the stream of the Omo, the principal feeder of Lake Rudolf. It does receive an affluent from the south, which is named by Major Austin “Neubari,” but this stream is at present unexplored in its lower course. It might turn out to be one of the rivers named by Captain Wellby “Ruzi.” At the same time Dr. Donaldson-Smith, who crossed this region in 1900, does not appear to have encountered running water where the junction of the Ruzi and the Neubari should have taken place. Probably the two Ruzis discovered by Captain Wellby are two different streams, one of which flows northwestward into the Nile and the other into the northwest corner of Lake Rudolf. The countries to the south of Akobo and northwest of Lake Rudolf are described by the few travellers who have visited them as being a region of appalling drought.

[Illustration: GORGE OF THE RIVER BARO (UPPER SOBAT).]

Mr. Weld Blundell had succeeded the Bonchamps-Michel expedition as an explorer of the Blue Nile, and of its interesting southern affluent, the Didessa. Mr. Blundell made several interesting changes in the delineation of the course of the Blue Nile westward of Gojam. Blundell’s work was succeeded by the remarkable surveys of Major C. W. Gwynn and Lieutenant L. C. Jackson, who contributed a map of the Blue Nile from Roseires up stream to the Gubba country, on the frontiers of Abyssinia. They also threw a little more light on the course of the Didessa and Yabus affluents of the Blue Nile, and the upper waters of the Rahad, which also flows (somewhat intermittently) into the Blue Nile. From the Rahad they crossed the tiny stretch of mountainous country (Galabat) to the Atbara. Here they showed that only a distance of about five miles of mountains separates the affluents of the Atbara from the affluents of the Rahad, which is a tributary of the Blue Nile. But for this intervening ridge of five miles in breadth, the systems of the Atbara and the Blue Nile would (as the ancients and Arabs formerly believed) have turned the whole country of Sennar into a huge island, in which form it was represented by most travellers down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Major Gwynn also explored the head-waters of the river Garre, which is the northernmost affluent of the Baro-Sobat, and also the Pibor. As to the country between the Baro or the main upper Sobat and the Pibor, Major Gwynn describes it as “a dried-up marsh covered with a thick choking layer of black ash resulting from the burning of the grass.” The Nuers, one of the eastern tribes of the Nilotic Negroes, he describes as a wonderfully fine race physically, averaging nearly six feet in height. Of the work of the earliest European pioneer in western Galaland Major Gwynn gives a generous estimate:--

“Up to this point (the Lega-Gala country) we had been traversing a land which had to a certain extent been explored by Schuver, and his work had, on the whole, been found to be very accurate in detail, though in the southern portions of his map a considerable error in latitude had appeared.... Schuver was much liked and respected throughout the country, and a great impression had been produced by his dog, which must have been a big Newfoundland. (He is still always spoken of by the Galas as Abu Sari, ‘the Father of the Dog.’)”

[Illustration: BERTA NEGROES.]

On the middle of the Blue Nile, north of the country of Fazokl, the aboriginal inhabitants are purely Negro--Berta and Barun. These Negro races were probably first mentioned by Cailliaud, the French explorer, and Ferdinand Werne, the German, who travelled on the Blue Nile between 1829 and 1843. Major Gwynn describes them as “a very black race, large, well made, but slothful and stupid to a degree. Going up to their villages in the hills, one finds them stretched out, sunning themselves on the rocks, looking for all the world like great black snails. Funny little black pigs and stringy fowls share the huts on equal terms.”

An interesting journey was made by Mr. Oscar T. Crosby across southern Abyssinia and down the Blue Nile in 1900. In an article by Mr. Crosby in the “Geographical Journal” of July, 1900, an interesting description is given of the deep gorge of the Blue Nile in the Gomar country of Gojam. The level of the river at this point is 4,725 feet above sea-level. The edge of the plateau above the river is 9,650 feet, and this plateau descends nearly five thousand feet in a series of abrupt steps or “benches.”

At the beginning of 1900 Mr. Oscar Neumann, a German, already noted for his explorations of the eastern part of the Uganda Protectorate, reached Abyssinia by the now well-trodden route from Zeila to Harar, and after visiting the Blue Nile in Gojam, explored the northern part of the Rudolf basin, and then reached the Galo, which is one of the rivers that might claim to be the head-waters of the Sobat, a river rising in those lofty, snow-patched highlands to the southwest of Enarea. From the Galo, Neumann crossed to the Akobo, and followed this stream down to its confluence with the Pibor. At this confluence he makes the Pibor such an important stream that it may well be Captain Wellby’s Ruzi. In the country immediately to the south of Kaffa and on the water-parting between the systems of the Nile and Lake Rudolf Mr. Neumann claims to have discovered Negro races of the Bantu stock. Apparently he means merely in physical type,--in other words, Negroes of more or less West African affinities; but if he or any other traveller should be able to support this statement by specimens of the language of these Sheko and Binesho peoples which actually showed affinities with the Bantu family, he would have thrown a remarkable new light on the unsolved problem concerning the source of this interesting family of African languages. The present writer has been able to show that Bantu languages of the most archaic type exist at the present day on the northwest slopes of Mount Elgon. This is the furthest point to the northeast to which the Bantu family has been traced. Thence southwards and westwards it spreads as the dominating family of languages as far as Cape Colony and Fernando Po.

[Illustration: A BERTA VILLAGE IN THE MATONGWE MOUNTAINS.]

Almost the only large white spot now remaining unexplored in the Nile basin is the district occupied by Nilotic Negroes (Dinka, Nuēr, Shiluk), lying between the Sobat River on the northeast and the main White Nile on the west and southwest. This region appears to be a flat country of alternate marsh and arid steppe, producing few or no great rivers of its own. On the west it is watered by the affluents of an important river, vaguely known as the Oguelokur, some of which (such as the Tu and Kos) rise in those high mountains of the Lotuka country in the northernmost parts of the Uganda Protectorate. Mr. Ewart Grogan, accompanied part of the way by Mr. Sharp, in 1899 and 1900, made a remarkable journey, literally from the Cape to Cairo. He travelled from the north end of Lake Tanganyika by way of lakes Kivu and Albert Edward to the Albert Nyanza, and thence down the Nile to the sudd barriers beyond Bor. After which, taking to the land, he traversed the unknown country along that branch of the White Nile called Bahr-az-Ziraf or the Giraffe River. He discovered another branch of the Mountain Nile which joins the Bahr-az-Ziraf, and at the junction of these rivers he notes the entry of a powerful tributary from the southeast, doubtless the Oguelokur. It is sometimes supposed that the southernmost of the Ruzi rivers discovered by Captain Wellby also joins the Oguelokur, and not the Sobat, though the more northern Ruzi may be the head-waters of the Pibor. Some distance to the west of the Pibor is a river called in Sudanese Arabic “Khor Felus.” This river was practically discovered by Captain H. H. Wilson in 1902. Starting southwards from the Sobat, not far from its confluence with the main Nile, Captain Wilson followed the Khor Felus up stream for a distance of some eighty-five miles in a direct line due south. He describes the country traversed by this winding river as being flat and uninteresting,--nothing but a vast grassy plain, with hardly a tree to be seen. The river or khor was not traced to its source, which indeed was said by the natives to be the White Nile itself. If this be true, another branch of the White Nile would start from near Bor and flow northeastwards into the Sobat; further, more natural canals seem to connect the Khor Felus with the Pibor or the Upper Sobat. If this is the case, then in that vast plain lying between the Sobat and the Nile, which was once a portion of the “Lake of Fashoda,” we have still remains of many old channels of the Nile which, as the lake drained off to the northwards, meandered over its drying bed.

[Illustration: THE NILE IN EGYPT.]