Mohawks on the Nile. Carl Benn

had served as a missionary in Sudan and spoke Arabic, while the medical officer, Surgeon-Major Hubert Neilson of the Regiment of Canadian Artillery, not only was a veteran of Red River, but had been a Red Cross observer in Serbia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. All of the officers were Canadian and drawn from the nation’s militia, except for one, who, although Canadian, came from a British regiment. As a group, they were more familiar with boat work and military campaigning than might have been expected, although they generally were not as proficient as regular army officers and later would have some difficulty maintaining discipline among their men.³⁸ Most of the foremen and pilots in the contingent were adept at their jobs to a greater or lesser degree, aside from forty-five or so white individuals from Manitoba who possessed few qualifications for the demanding tasks that lay ahead. Naturally, even the experienced boatmen possessed varying levels of skill. One report said the most able among them comprised about one-quarter of the contingent, with most of these superior recruits coming from the ranks of the Mohawks and the Ojibways who provided about one-fifth of the total number of boatmen and foremen. (We need to take these figures as being impressionistic rather than precise because other observers presented somewhat different assessments, as we shall see below.)³⁹ In addition to seven officers and a hospital sergeant, the contingent comprised, according to Denison, seventy-seven “Indians” (including natives from Manitoba), ninety-three French-Canadians, 158 other Canadians, thirty-six “English and Scotch” (by which he meant British immigrants), and sixteen men from elsewhere in the world, for a total of 388 individuals (although the number who would serve in Egypt was 385).⁴⁰ Some of those the commanding officer classified as “Canadians” were Métis and presumably included people with some Iroquois blood beyond the sixty or so Mohawks directly associated with Kahnawake, Kanesatake, and Akwesasne. At the same time, some of the voyageurs in the Kahnawake contingent undoubtedly had ancestries that included other aboriginal and European nations because of intermarriage and other such reasons, although one Montreal newspaper, Le Monde, affirmed that all of them were “sauvages” — a word that does not have quite the negative connotation as its English-language equivalent.⁴¹ It also is possible that there were people within the contingent whose ancestry included African origins, but the historical record does not allow us to confirm that. The officers enjoyed military status, pay, and allowances, whereas the foremen and boatmen were civilian employees hired on contract, although they were subject to military discipline. Beyond the voyageurs, a small number of other people from Canada would serve in the campaign as civilian steamboat pilots (mainly between Aswan and Wadi Halfa) and in the British army and the Royal Navy.⁴²

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      After tearful goodbyes from relatives at the wharf at Kahnawake and at the quayside in Montreal (with some people begging their men not to go), combined with enthusiastic farewells from public officials and some alcohol-infused celebrations among white and native boatmen alike, the bulk of the contingent set sail on September 14, 1884. Their ship was the Ocean King, a 1,632-tonne, 107-metre steamer built in Scotland in 1878, which had been fitted with five hundred berths for the Canadian Voyageur Contingent and which received praise for the quality of its ventilation, sanitary arrangements, and other comforts.⁴³ She made stops at Trois-Rivières and Quebec to pick up more recruits (including some Mohawks who missed the boarding in Montreal but who caught up with the ship by rail). At Quebec the contingent underwent a military-style inspection and an official send-off from Lord and Lady Lansdowne in the presence of various dignitaries, including the Canadian minister of Militia and Defence, Adolphe-Philippe Caron.⁴⁴ The governor general delivered a bilingual speech to the assembled crowd, praising the English, French, and First Nations men in an address that generated cheers from the voyageurs in return and which, according to Surgeon-Major Neilson, “inspired them with new courage and enthusiasm.”⁴⁵ One ill-tempered observer at the departure was a Roman Catholic clergyman, Henri Têtu, who revealed both his class and racial prejudices when he described the voyageurs as an “assemblage estrange,” with the whites in the ranks consisting of swarthy, hardened, and wild shantymen, and with the “Iroquois de Caughnawaga” presenting their “sinistres visages” to the world. Such a rough group, in Têtu’s view, would not represent Canada well on the international stage, although the logic of his perspective would suggest that he was less concerned about the competence of the voyageurs to fulfil their tasks on the Nile than their appearance, which presumably could have been improved if the contingent had been formed entirely of respectable-looking white men. At least some of his discomfort was alleviated after the officers distributed uniforms on board the ship because he also objected to their “habits de toutes couleurs.”⁴⁶

      The clothing purchased in Canada and issued on the Ocean King included grey woollen undershirts and drawers; socks; blue flannel twill shirts; soft, felt grey hats with wide brims; thick, grey tweed trousers; belts; and Norfolk jackets — a range of garments that would strike British observers upon the contingent’s arrival in Egypt as unsuitable for the local climate. The foremen received suits in a somewhat lighter shade of grey than the rest of the men, and the officers acquired tropical uniforms, complete with swords and revolvers, by the time they reached the Nile. In addition, the voyageurs received boots and knee-high moccasins, grey blankets, rubber groundsheets, towels, tumplines to help portage supplies, and canvas bags for carrying their possessions. On board the Ocean King they were supplied with straw mattresses, extra blankets, pillows, and towels to use while making their way to Africa. After they arrived in Egypt, British military officials provided them with additional items, including tropical helmets, standard army field dressings for wounds, and cholera belts, the latter being wide flannel wraps worn around the stomach and which were thought to prevent cholera and dysentery. These belts were common in hot climates in the army until the early twentieth century, but in 1884 and 1885, they were of immediate importance to those who wore them because cholera was making one of its periodic drives across the planet at the time, and would strike in both Egypt and Canada.⁴⁷ Naturally, once on campaign, the men of the Canadian contingent received cooking and camping supplies as well as tents, which one voyageur said were “of the best kind.”⁴⁸ Beyond the official issue of gear, individuals brought along personal items of clothing and equipment, including knives and handguns. In addition, an optician in London, England, Mr. B. Laurence supplied 450 pairs of blue-tinted glasses to preserve the voyageurs’ eyes from the glare of the tropical sun (and gave instructions that, if there was an extra pair, the Canadians should present it to “El Mahdi with Mr. Laurence’s compliments”).⁴⁹

       Two voyageurs wearing variations in their official clothing issue: the man on the left sports a tropical helmet and knee-high moccasins; the one on the right has boots and a grey felt hat. Both wear the thick tweed trousers provided in Canada and carry large paddles for guiding their boats.

      To keep everyone content on their journey to Egypt, Lord Melgund supplemented the Ocean King’s food stores with such supplies as beans, cabbage, and apples, since he knew that shantymen were not accustomed to limits on the quantity of food they ate while working in the bush, where they subsisted largely on pork and beans. His efforts more or less doubled the standard military allowance that the British government had arranged to almost one kilogram of meat and a similar amount of vegetables per day. On board the ship, London’s rations included bacon and other meats, potatoes, rice, peas, flour for bread and puddings, butter, biscuits, oatmeal, sugar, molasses, tea, raisins, spirits, and other items. Throughout the expedition, the voyageurs received their food as part of the compensation offered for their services (along with their travel costs), which differed from many other employment situations at the time where workers had to pay their board and other expenses. Beyond attending to their dietary needs, Lord Lansdowne donated games along with books and magazines in English and French to make the journey more congenial.⁵⁰

      Once out of the Saint Lawrence, the ship coaled at Sydney, Nova Scotia, and then again at Gibraltar on the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. At Sydney, some of the men got drunk and caused trouble. One inebriated character staggered into the local courthouse, determined to wish the magistrate goodbye; but when a constable on the scene tried to