Eventually the corps became a model of morality, and was distinguished for valour and fidelity throughout the expedition.
Six months' rations were on board for all hands, in addition to the general stores of corn, and cases, bales, &c., innumerable.
On the 8th February, 1870, the bugles announced the departure. The troops hurried on board their respective transports according to the numbers painted on their sides and sails. The official parting was accomplished. I had had to embrace the governor, then a black pacha, a rara avis in terris, and a whole host of beys, concluding the affecting ceremony with a very fat colonel whom my arms could not properly encircle.
A couple of battalions lined the shore; the guns fired the usual salute as we started on our voyage; the flotilla, composed of two steamers, respectively of thirty-two and twenty-four horsepower, and thirty-one sailing vessels, with a military force of about 800 men, got away in tolerable order. The powerful current of the Blue Nile quickly swept us past Khartoum, and having rounded the point, we steamed up the grand White Nile. The wind blew very strong from the north, thus the entire fleet kept pace with the steamers, one of which was towing my diahbeeah, and the other that of the colonel, Raouf Bey. Thank God we were off; thus all intrigues were left behind, and the future would be under my own command.
On reference to my journal, I find the following entry upon 8th February, 1870:—
"Mr. Higginbotham, who has safely arrived at Berber with the steel steamers in sections for the Albert N'yanza, will, I trust, be provided with vessels at Khartoum, according to my orders, so as to follow me to Gondokoro with supplies, and about 350 troops with four guns.
"My original programme—agreed to by his Highness the Khedive, who ordered the execution of my orders by the authorities—arranged that six steamers, fifteen sloops, and fifteen diahbeeahs, should leave Cairo on 10th June, to ascend the cataracts to Khartoum, at which place Djiaffer Pacha was to prepare three steamers and twenty-five vessels to convey 1,650 troops, together with transport animals and supplies.
"The usual Egyptian delays have entirely thwarted my plans. No vessels have arrived from Cairo, as they only started on 29th August. Thus, rather than turn back, I start with a mutilated expedition, without a SINGLE TRANSPORT ANIMAL."
Having minutely described the White Nile in a former work, "The Albert N'yanza," I shall not repeat the description. In 103 hours and ten minutes' steaming we reached Fashoda, the government station in the Shillook country, N. lat. 9 degrees 52 minutes, 618 miles by river from Khartoum.
This town had been fortified by a wall and flanking towers since I had last visited the White Nile, and it was garrisoned by a regiment of Egyptian soldiers. Ali Bey, the governor, was a remarkably handsome old man, a Kurd. He assured me that the Shillook country was in excellent order; and that according to the instructions received from the Khedive he had exerted himself against the slave trade, so that it was impossible for vessels to pass the station.
Fashoda was well situated for this purpose, as it completely dominated the river; but I much doubted my friend's veracity.
Having taken on board a month's rations for all hands, we started; and, with a strong breeze in our favour, we reached the Sobat junction on 16th February, at 12.30 p.m.
There we took in fresh water, as that of the Sobat is superior to the White Nile. At this season the river was about eight feet below the level of the bank. The water of the Sobat is yellowish, and it colours that of the White Nile for a great distance. By dead reckoning I made the Sobat junction 684 miles by river from Khartoum.
When I saw the Sobat, in the first week of January 1863, it was bank-full. The current is very powerful, and when I sounded in various places during my former voyage, I found a depth of twenty-six to twenty-eight feet. The volume of water brought to the Nile by this river is immense, and the power of the stream is so superior to that of the White Nile, that as it arrives at right angles, the waters of the Nile are banked up. The yellow water of the Sobat forms a distinct line as it cuts through the clear water of the main river, and the floating rafts of vegetation brought down by the White Nile, instead of continuing their voyage, are headed back, and remain helplessly in the backwater. The sources of the Sobat are still a mystery; but there can be no doubt that the principal volume must be water of mountain origin, as it is coloured by earthy matter, and is quite unlike the marsh water of the White Nile. The expeditions of the slave-hunters have ascended the river as far as it is navigable. At that point seven different streams converge into one channel, which forms the great river Sobat. It is my opinion that some of these streams are torrents from the Galla country, while others are the continuation of those southern rivers which have lately been crossed by the slave-hunters between the second and third degrees of N. latitude.
The White Nile is a grand river between the Sobat junction and Khartoum, and after passing to the south of the great affluent the difference in the character is quickly perceived. We now enter upon the region of immense flats and boundless marshes, through which the river winds in a labyrinth-like course for about 750 miles to Gondokoro.
Having left the Sobat, we arrived at the junction of the Bahr Giraffe, thirty-eight miles distant, at 11 a.m. on 17th February. We turned into the river, and waited for the arrival of the fleet.
The Bahr Giraffe was to be our new passage instead of the original White Nile. That river, which had become so curiously obstructed by masses of vegetation that had formed a solid dam, already described by me in "The Albert N'yanza," had been entirely neglected by the Egyptian authorities. In consequence of this neglect an extraordinary change had taken place. The immense number of floating islands which are constantly passing down the stream of the White Nile had no exit, thus they were sucked under the original obstruction by the force of the stream, which passed through some mysterious channel, until the subterranean passage became choked with a wondrous accumulation of vegetable matter. The entire river became a marsh, beneath which, by the great pressure of water, the stream oozed through innumerable small channels. In fact, the White Nile had disappeared. A vessel arriving from Khartoum in her passage to Gondokoro would find, after passing through a broad river of clear water, that her bow would suddenly strike against a bank of solid compressed vegetation—this was the natural dam that had been formed to an unknown extent: the river ceased to exist.
It may readily be imagined that a dense spongy mass which completely closed the river would act as a filter: thus, as the water charged with muddy particles arrived at the dam where the stream was suddenly checked, it would deposit all impurities as it oozed and percolated slowly through the tangled but compressed mass of vegetation. This deposit quickly created mud-banks and shoals, which effectually blocked the original bed of the river. The reedy vegetation of the country immediately took root upon these favourable conditions, and the rapid growth in a tropical climate may be imagined. That which had been the river bed was converted into a solid marsh.
This terrible accumulation had been increasing for five or six years, therefore it is impossible to ascertain or even to speculate upon the distance to which it might extend. The slave-traders had been obliged to seek another rout, which they had found via the Bahr Giraffe, which river had proved to be merely a branch of the White Nile, as I had suggested in my former work, and not an independent river.
I was rather anxious about this new route, as I had heard conflicting accounts in Khartoum concerning the possibility of navigating such large vessels as the steamers of thirty-two horse-power and a hundred feet length of deck. I was provided with guides who professed to be thoroughly acquainted with the river; these people were captains of trading vessels, who had made the voyage frequently.
On 18th February, at 10 A.M., the rear vessels of the fleet arrived, and at 11.40 A.M., the steamers worked up against the strong current independently. Towing was difficult, owing to the sharp turns of the river. The Bahr Giraffe was about seventy yards in width, and at this season the banks were high and dry. Throughout the voyage on the White Nile we had had excellent wild-fowl shooting whenever we had halted to cut fuel for the steamers. One afternoon I killed a hippopotamus, two crocodiles, and two pelicans, with the rifle. At the mouth of the Bahr Giraffe I bagged twenty-two ducks at a right and left shot with a No. 10-shot