The Bari tribe are very hostile, and are considered to be about the worst of the White Nile. They have been so often defeated by the traders' parties in the immediate neighborhood of Gondokoro, that they are on their best behavior, while within half a mile of the station; but it is not at all uncommon to be asked for beads as a tax for the right of sitting under a shady tree, or for passing through the country. The traders' people, in order to terrify them into submission, were in the habit of binding them, hands and feet, and carrying them to the edge of a cliff about thirty feet high, a little beyond the ruins of the old mission-house: beneath this cliff the river boils in a deep eddy; into this watery grave the victims were remorselessly hurled as food for crocodiles. It appeared that this punishment was dreaded by the natives more than the bullet or rope, and it was accordingly adopted by the trading parties.
Upon my arrival at Gondokoro I was looked upon by all these parties as a spy sent by the British Government. Whenever I approached the encampments of the various traders, I heard the clanking of fetters before I reached the station, as the slaves were being quickly driven into hiding-places to avoid inspection. They were chained by two rings secured round the ankles, and connected by three or four links. One of these traders was a Copt, the father of the American Consul at Khartoum; and, to my surprise, I saw the vessels full of brigands arrive at Gondokoro, with the American flag flying at the mast-head.
Gondokoro was a perfect hell. It is utterly ignored by the Egyptian authorities, although well known to be a colony of cut-throats. Nothing would be easier than to send a few officers and two hundred men from Khartoum to form a military government, and thus impede the slave-trade; but a bribe from the traders to the authorities is sufficient to insure an uninterrupted asylum for any amount of villany. The camps were full of slaves, and the Bari natives assured me that there were large depots of slaves in the interior belonging to the traders that would be marched to Gondokoro for shipment to the Soudan a few hours after my departure. I was the great stumbling-block to the trade, and my presence at Gondokoro was considered as an unwarrantable intrusion upon a locality sacred to slavery and iniquity. There were about six hundred of the traders' people at Gondokoro, whose time was passed in drinking, quarrelling, and ill-treating the slaves. The greater number were in a constant state of intoxication, and when in such a state, it was their invariable custom to fire off their guns in the first direction prompted by their drunken instincts; thus, from morning till night, guns were popping in all quarters, and the bullets humming through the air sometimes close to our ears, and on more than one occasion they struck up the dust at my feet. Nothing was more probable than a ball through the head by ACCIDENT, which might have had the beneficial effect of ridding the traders from a spy. A boy was sitting upon the gunwale of one of the boats, when a bullet suddenly struck him in the head, shattering the skull to atoms. NO ONE HAD DONE IT. The body fell into the water, and the fragments of the skull were scattered on the deck.
After a few days' detention at Gondokoro, I saw unmistakeable signs of discontent among my men, who had evidently been tampered with by the different traders' parties. One evening several of the most disaffected came to me with a complaint that they had not enough meat, and that they must be allowed to make a razzia upon the cattle of the natives to procure some oxen. This demand being of course refused, they retired, muttering in an insolent manner their determination of stealing cattle with or without my permission. I said nothing at the time, but early on the following morning I ordered the drum to beat, and the men to fall in. I made them a short address, reminding them of the agreement made at Khartoum to follow me faithfully, and of the compact that had been entered into, that they were neither to indulge in slave-hunting nor in cattle-stealing. The only effect of my address was a great outbreak of insolence on the part of the ringleader of the previous evening. This fellow, named Eesur, was an Arab, and his impertinence was so violent, that I immediately ordered him twenty-five lashes, as an example to the others.
Upon the vakeel (Saati) advancing to seize him, there was a general mutiny. Many of the men threw down their guns and seized sticks, and rushed to the rescue of their tall ringleader. Saati was a little man, and was perfectly helpless. Here was an escort: these were the men upon whom I was to depend in hours of difficulty and danger on an expedition in unknown regions; these were the fellows that I had considered to be reduced "from wolves to lambs!"
I was determined not to be done, and to insist upon the punishment of the ringleader. I accordingly went towards him with the intention of seizing him; but he, being backed by upwards of forty men, had the impertinence to attack me, rushing forward with a fury that was ridiculous. To stop his blow, and to knock him into the middle of the crowd, was not difficult; and after a rapid repetition of the dose, I disabled him, and seizing him by the throat, I called to my vakeel Saati for a rope to bind him, but in an instant I had a crowd of men upon me to rescue their leader. How the affair would have ended I cannot say; but as the scene lay within ten yards of my boat, my wife, who was ill with fever in the cabin, witnessed the whole affray, and seeing me surrounded, she rushed out, and in a few moments she was in the middle of the crowd, who at that time were endeavoring to rescue my prisoner. Her sudden appearance had a curious effect, and calling upon several of the least mutinous to assist, she very pluckily made her way up to me. Seizing the opportunity of an indecision that was for the moment evinced by the crowd, I shouted to the drummer boy to beat the drum. In an instant the drum beat, and at the top of my voice I ordered the men to "fall in." It is curious how mechanically an order is obeyed if given at the right moment, even in the midst of mutiny. Two-thirds of the men fell in, and formed in line, while the remainder retreated with the ringleader, Eesur, whom they led away, declaring that he was badly hurt. The affair ended in my insisting upon all forming in line, and upon the ringleader being brought forward. In this critical moment Mrs. Baker, with great tact, came forward and implored me to forgive him if he kissed my hand and begged for pardon. This compromise completely won the men, who, although a few minutes before in open mutiny, now called upon their ringleader Eesur to apologize, and that all would be right. I made them rather a bitter speech, and dismissed them.
From that moment I knew that my expedition was fated. This outbreak was an example of what was to follow. Previous to leaving Khartoum I had felt convinced that I could not succeed with such villains for escort as these Khartoumers: thus I had applied to the Egyptian authorities for a few troops, but had been refused. I was now in an awkward position. All my men had received five months' wages in advance, according to the custom of the White Nile; thus I had no control over them. There were no Egyptian authorities in Gondokoro; it was a nest of robbers; and my men had just exhibited so pleasantly their attachment to me, and their fidelity. There was no European beyond Gondokoro, thus I should be the only white man among this colony of wolves; and I had in perspective a difficult and uncertain path, where the only chance of success lay in the complete discipline of my escort, and the perfect organization of the expedition. After the scene just enacted I felt sure that my escort would give me more cause for anxiety than the acknowledged hostility of the natives.
I made arrangements with a Circassian trader, Koorshid Aga, for the purchase of a few oxen, and a fat beast was immediately slaughtered for the men. They were shortly in the best humour, feasting upon masses of flesh cut in strips and laid for a few minutes upon the embers, while the regular meal was being prepared. They were now almost affectionate, vowing that they would follow me to the end of the world; while the late ringleader, in spite of his countenance being rather painted in the late row, declared that no man would be so true as himself, and that every "arrow should pass through him before it should reach me" in the event of a conflict with the natives. A very slight knowledge of human nature was required to foresee the future with such an escort:—if love and duty were dependent upon full bellies, mutiny and disorder would appear with hard fare. However, by having parade every morning at a certain hour, I endeavoured to establish a degree of regularity. I had been waiting at Gondokoro twelve days, expecting the arrival of Debono's party from the south, with whom I wished to return. Suddenly, on the 15th February, I heard the rattle of musketry at a great distance, and a dropping fire from the south. To give an idea of the moment I must extract verbatim from my journal as written at the time.
"Guns firing in the distance; Debono's ivory porters arriving, for whom I have waited. My men rushed madly to my boat, with the report that two white men were with them who had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old England! they had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile springs …. The mystery of ages solved. With my pleasure of meeting them is the one disappointment, that I had not met them farther on the road in my search for them; however, the satisfaction is, that my previous arrangements had been such as would have insured my finding them had they been in a fix …. My projected route would have brought me vis-a-vis with them, as they had come from the lake by the course I had proposed to take …. All my men perfectly mad with excitement: firing salutes as usual with ball cartridge, they shot one of my donkeys; a melancholy sacrifice as an offering at the completion of this geographical discovery."
When I first met them they were walking along the bank of the river towards my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I recognised my old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took off my cap and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran towards him. For the moment he did not recognize me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache had worked a change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden appearance in the center of Africa appeared to him incredible. I hardly required an introduction to his companion, as we felt already acquainted, and after the transports of this happy meeting we walked together to my diahbiah; my men surrounding us with smoke and noise by keeping up an unremitting fire of musketry the whole way. We were shortly seated on deck under the awning, and such rough fare as could be hastily prepared was set before these two ragged, careworn specimens of African travel, whom I looked upon with feelings of pride as my own countrymen. As a good ship arrives in harbor, battered and torn by a long and stormy voyage, yet sound in her frame and seaworthy to the last, so both these gallant travelers arrived at Gondokoro. Speke appeared the more worn of the two; he was excessively lean, but in reality he was in good tough condition; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that wearying march. Grant was in honourable rags; his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trowsers that were an exhibition of rough industry in tailor's work. He was looking tired and feverish, but both men had a fire in the eye that showed the spirit that had led them through.
They wished to leave Gondokoro as soon as possible, en route for England, but delayed their departure until the moon should be in a position for an observation for determining the longitude. My boats were fortunately engaged by me for five months, thus Speke and Grant could take charge of them to Khartoum.
At the first blush on meeting them I had considered my expedition as terminated by having met them, and by their having accomplished the discovery of the Nile source; but upon my congratulating them with all my heart, upon the honour they had so nobly earned, Speke and Grant with characteristic candour and generosity gave me a map of their route, showing that they had been unable to complete the actual exploration of the Nile, and that a most important portion still remained to be determined. It appeared that in N. lat. 2 degrees 17 minutes, they had crossed the Nile, which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but the river, which from its exit from that lake had a northern course, turned suddenly to the WEST from Karuma Falls (the point at which they crossed it at lat. 2 degrees 17 minutes). They did not see the Nile again until they arrived in N. lat. 3 deg. 32 min., which was then flowing from the W.S.W. The natives and the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them that the Nile from the Victoria N'yanza, which they had crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for several days' journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the Luta N'zige; that this lake came from the south, and that the Nile on entering the northern extremity almost immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river continued its course to the north, through the Koshi and Madi countries. Both Speke and Grant attached great importance to this lake Luta N'zige, and the former was much annoyed that it had been impossible for them to carry out the exploration. He foresaw that stay-at-home geographers, who, with a comfortable armchair to sit in, travel so easily with their fingers on a map, would ask him why he had not gone from such a place to such a place? why he had not followed the Nile to the Luta N'zige lake, and from the lake to Gondokoro? As it happened, it was impossible for Speke and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma:—the tribes were fighting with Kamrasi, and no strangers could have got through the country. Accordingly they procured their information most carefully, completed their map, and laid down the reported lake in its supposed position, showing the Nile as both influent and effluent precisely as had been explained by the natives.
Speke expressed his conviction that the Luta N'zige must be a second source of the Nile, and that geographers would be dissatisfied that he had not explored it. To me this was most gratifying. I had been much disheartened at the idea that the great work was accomplished, and that nothing remained for exploration; I even said to Speke, "Does not one leaf of the laurel remain for me?" I now heard that the field was not only open, but that an additional interest was given to the exploration by the proof that the Nile flowed out of one great lake, the Victoria, but that it evidently must derive an additional supply from an unknown lake as it entered it at the NORTHERN extremity, while the body of the lake came from the south. The fact of a great body of water such as the Luta N'zige extending in a direct line from south to north, while the general system of drainage of the Nile was from the same direction, showed most conclusively, that the Luta N'zige, if it existed in the form assumed, must have an important position in the basin of the Nile.