“20th.  Got a pigeon; and some flour and water for breakfast.  We can
only allow ourselves a spoonful of flour each at a time, and it won’t
last many days even at this rate.

“Killed a large camel for food at sunset.  We would rather have killed a
worse one, but this bull had, in the early part of our journey, got a
very bad back, and was unable to work for a long time. . . .

“21st.  Cutting up and jerking camel-meat.  The inside has given us a
good supper and breakfast.  This is a much better beast than the old,
worn-out cow we killed before, and we have utilized every scrap, having
had a sharp lesson as to the value of anything we can masticate. . . .

“25th.  All the camel-meat has been successfully jerked, and we have
lived since the 20th on bone-broth and gristle.  The birds were getting
shy, so when we killed the camel we gave them a rest; to-day we go at
them again.  I hope the water-searchers will return this evening; our
prospects are not very bright under any circumstances, but if we get
water anywhere between south and west we shall have a prospect of
overcoming the difficulties and dangers that threaten us. . . .

“29th.  A short rain squall passed over us last evening; it has cooled
the ground a little.  Economy is, of course, the order of the day in
provisions.  My son and I have managed to hoard up about one pound of
flour and a pinch of tea; all our sugar is gone.  Now and then we afford
ourselves a couple of spoonfuls of flour, made into paste.  When we
indulge in tea the leaves are boiled twice over.  I eat my sun-dried
camel-meat uncooked, as far as I can bite it; what I cannot bite goes
into the quart pot, and is boiled down to a sort of poor-house broth.
When we get a bird we dare not clean it, lest we should lose anything.

“More disasters this morning.  One of our largest camels very ill; the
only thing we could do for it was to pound four boxes of Holloway’s
pills, and drench the animal. . . .  One of the Afghans apparently wrong
in his head. . . .  In the evening the camel was still very sick.”

The animal, however, was better on the following day, and the expedition
again toiled onward across the sands.  Very troublesome were the ants,
which seemed to have undertaken a deliberate campaign against the
much-suffering travellers.  They were small black ants, and in such
numbers that a stamp of the foot on the ground started them in thousands.
When the wearied men flung themselves down in the shade of a bush to
obtain the solace of half an hour’s sleep, these pestilent persecutors
attacked them, making their way through their scanty clothing, and
dealing sharp painful nips with their strong mandibles.

On the evening of the 1st of November, they began their “rush” or forced
march for the Oakover river, and across the wearisome sand-hills actually
accomplished five and twenty miles.  Colonel Warburton then felt unable
to continue the journey, thirst, famine, and fatigue having reduced him
to a skeleton, while such was his weakness that he could scarcely rise
from the ground, or when up, stagger half a dozen steps forward.
“Charley” had been absent all day, and when he did not return at sunset,
much alarm was felt about him.  The Colonel knew not what to do.  Delay
meant ruin to them all, considering their want of food and water; yet to
leave the camp without the Colonel seemed inhuman, as it was dooming him
to certain death.  Until nine o’clock in the evening they waited.  Then a
start was made, but before they had gone eight miles, the poor lad joined
them.  Notwithstanding the fatigue of the previous night’s travelling,
the lad had actually walked about twenty miles; he had fallen in with a
large party of natives, and accompanied them to their water.  “It may, I
think, be admitted,” says Colonel Warburton, “that the hand of Providence
was distinctly visible in this instance.”—Is it not in _every_
instance?—“I had deferred starting until nine p.m., to give the absent
boy the chance of regaining the camp.  It turned out afterwards that if
we had expedited our departure by ten minutes, or postponed it for the
same length of time, Charley would have crossed us; and had this
happened, there is little doubt that not only myself, but probably other
members of the expedition, would have perished from thirst.  The route
pursued by us was at right angles with the course pursued by the boy, and
the chances of our stumbling up against each other in the dark were
infinitesimally small.  Providence mercifully ordered it otherwise, and
our departure was so timed that, after travelling from two to two hours
and a half, when all hope of the recovery of the wanderer was almost
abandoned, I was gladdened by the ‘cooee’ of the brave lad, whose keen
ears had caught the sound of the bells attached to the camels’ necks.  To
the energy and courage of this untutored native may, under the guidance
of the Almighty, be attributed the salvation of the party.  It was by no
accident that he encountered the friendly well.  For fourteen miles he
followed up the tracks of some blacks, though fatigued by a day of severe
work, and, receiving a kindly welcome from the natives, he had hurried
back, unmindful of his own exhausted condition, to apprise his companions
of the important discovery he had made.”

At the native camp, Colonel Warburton’s party obtained some kangaroo
meat, and a good supply of fresh water.  They rested for twenty-four
hours, and the repose and the food together temporarily reinvigorated
them.  At this time their position was lat. 20° 41′, and long. 122° 30′;
so that they were only three days’ journey from the Oakover.  Forward
they went, the country still presenting the two main features of sand and
spinifex; forward they went, over the cheerless, monotonous plains,
broken by sand ridges; growing weaker every day, but losing not one jot
of hope or resolution.  The annals of travel present few examples of more
heroic tenacity and persistent purpose; few records of suffering more
patiently borne, or of obstacles more steadfastly overcome.  The highest
energy, perseverance, and fortitude were necessary to the leader of an
exploring expedition through so forlorn a wilderness, and these were
never wanting on the part of Colonel Warburton, whose name, amongst the
pioneers of civilization in Australia, must always be held in honour.

On the 11th of November, the seven members of the expedition were living
wholly on sun-dried strips of meat, as devoid of nutriment as they were
of taste; and as these were almost exhausted, they had to consider the
probability of having to sacrifice another camel.  They had no salt—a
terrible deprivation; no flour, tea, or sugar.  Next day, they were
surrounded by sand-hills, and no water was visible anywhere.  It was
certain that, unless some providentially opportune help arrived, they
could not live more than twenty-four hours; for the burning heat and the
terrible country could not be endured without water.  Not a snake, kite,
or crow could they discover; one little bird, the size of a sparrow, was
all that their guns could procure.  Writing in his journal, the Colonel
calmly says:—“We have tried to do our duty, and have been disappointed in
all our expectations.  I have been in excellent health during the whole
journey, and am so still, being merely worn out from want of food and
water.  Let no self-reproaches afflict any one respecting me.  I
undertook the journey for the benefit of my family, and was quite equal
to it under all the circumstances that could reasonably be anticipated,
but difficulties and losses have come upon us so thickly for the last few
months that we have not been able to move; thus our provisions are gone,
but this would not have stopped us could we have found water without such
laborious search.  The country is terrible.  I do not believe men ever
traversed so vast an extent of continuous desert.”

Early on the 14th Charley sighted in the distance a native camp, and
while the remainder of the party, with the camels, kept out of sight, he
advanced alone towards it.  The blacks received him kindly and gave him
water, but when he “cooed” for the party to come up, they seem to have
thought he had entrapped them, and instantly speared him in the back and
arm, cut his skull with a tomahawk, and nearly broke his jaw.  After
perpetrating this cruelty, they fled ignominiously.  Colonel Warburton
took possession of the fire they had kindled, and rejoiced at obtaining
water.  Charley’s wounds were serious, but they were bound up as
carefully as circumstances permitted, and it is satisfactory to state
that he recovered from them.  Another camel was killed, and Charley was
nursed upon soup.  This supply of meat enabled the expedition to continue
its march towards the Oakover, which receded apparently as they advanced;
and they toiled onward painfully, with the hot sun and hot wind
exhausting their small resource of energy, the ants tormenting them at
night, the sand and spinifex oppressing them by their monotony.  On the
25th, to save themselves from starvation, they killed another camel, and
all hands were employed in cutting up and jerking the meat.  At last, on
the 4th of December, they camped on a rocky creek, tributary to the
Oakover, and were able to take leave of the dreadful desert which had so
long hemmed them in on every side.  Their spirits revived, for there was
no longer a scarcity of water and they hoped that the river would supply
them with the means of subsistence.

But they had soon reason to feel that their difficulties were not all at
an end.  It was pleasant to look on the beautiful trees and profuse
vegetation of the creek, but the charms of nature will not satisfy
stomachs that have had no food for two days.  So, on the evening of the
6th, a third camel was killed.  Next day a few small fish were caught;
they were greatly relished, and proved of real benefit.  The 8th was
happily marked by another banquet of fish; but as they had no net or
fishing apparatus, it was by no means easy work to catch them.  Still,
the travellers did not grow stronger; want of rest and of wholesome food,
and the strain of continuous exertion and anxiety for so long a period,
had undermined the whole system, and they could not rally.

On the 11th they struck the Oakover in lat. 21° 11′ 23″.  This must be a
noble river, writes the Colonel, when the floods come down.  The bed is
wide and gravelly, fringed with magnificent cajeput or paper-bark trees.
How grateful was its lovely and shady refuge from the hot fierce sun
after the terrible sand-hills among which the travellers had wandered so
long!

On the 13th Lewis and an Afghan driver, on the only two camels that could
travel, were sent forward to search for the station of Messrs. Harper and
Co., and procure some help both in food and carriage.  During his absence
the Colonel and his companions lived, to use an expressive phrase, from
hand to mouth.  They could not get the fish to bite; but one day Richard
Warburton shot a teal, and they rescued from the talons of a hawk a fine
black duck, which supplied them with a splendid dinner.  They were
compelled, however, to fall back upon their last camel, though he was so
lean and worn-out that he did not cut up well.  On the 23rd they rejoiced
in the capture of a couple of wood-ducks, and they also secured a little
honey—a delightful novelty for persons who for many weeks had been
deprived of the strengthening and useful properties of sugar.  Still,
these occasional “tidbits” could not supply the want of regular and
nutritious food; and all the travellers could hope for was to stave off
actual famine.  Day after day passed by, and Lewis did not return.
Colonel Warburton had calculated that he would be absent about fourteen
days; but the seventeenth came, and yet there was no sign of Lewis.
Writing in his journal, Colonel Warburton, on December 20th, sums up his
position in a few pithy and pregnant sentences:—“We have abundance of
water, a little tobacco, and a few bits of dried camel.  Occasionally an
iguana or a cockatoo enlivens our fare; and, lastly, I hope the late rain
will bring up some thistles or some pig-weed that we can eat.  Our
difficulties are, to make our meat last, though, so far from doing us
good, we are all afflicted with scurvy, diarrhoea, and affection of the
kidneys from the use of it.  We cannot catch the fish; we cannot find
opossums or snakes; the birds won’t sit down by us, and we can’t get up
to go to them.  We thought we should have no difficulty in feeding
ourselves on the river, but it turns out that, from one cause or another,
we can get very little, and we are daily dropping down a peg or two
lower.”  But a few hours after making this entry, the Colonel’s long
period of suffering and anxiety was at an end.  He and his son were lying
down near the little hut of boughs which they had constructed as a
shelter, and listlessly eyeing the boy Charley, who had climbed a tree to
look for honey, when they were startled by his cry—whether a yell of pain
or shout of joy, it was impossible to determine.  But in a moment the
cause of his emotion was satisfactorily explained; out from the thick
brushwood trotted a string of six horses, driven by the gallant Mr.
Lewis, accompanied by another white man from a station on the De Grey
river.  They brought an ample supply of nutritious food, and on the
following day some additional stores came up on camels.  Mr. Lewis’s
apparent delay was soon explained; the station, which belonged to Messrs.
Grant, Harper, and Anderson, was one hundred and seventy miles distant.

On the 3rd of January Colonel Warburton started down the river.  For the
first few days he had to be lifted on his horse’s back, but with good
food and moderate exercise he regained something of his old strength, and
the journey to the station was accomplished in a week and a day.  Ten
days were then given to rest under the hospitable roof of Messrs. Grant,
and on the 21st he started for Roebourne, one hundred and seventy miles
further, arriving there on the 26th.  His after stages were Lepack,
Fremantle, Perth, Albany.  At Glenelg, in South Australia, the Colonel
and his companions arrived on Easter Sunday, having travelled by land
four thousand miles, and by sea two thousand miles.

The casualties are quickly recorded: the Colonel lost the sight of one
eye, and his son’s health was seriously shaken.  Out of seventeen camels,
only two arrived safely at the station on the De Grey river.

It is almost needless to say that everywhere in West Australia Colonel
Warburton was received with the public honours due to a man who has
courageously and successfully accomplished a work of equal difficulty and
danger.  He was entertained in the most generous and cordial manner, and
the high utility of his labours was liberally acknowledged.  On his
return to South Australia he met, of course, with an enthusiastic
welcome.  A great banquet was given to the explorers, and the Legislative
Assembly voted the sum of £1000 to the leader, and £500 to be divided
among the subordinates.  In 1874 the Royal Geographical Society of London
conferred upon him its gold medal, and a few months later the Queen
appointed him a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

Here closes a simple but stirring narrative, of which it is not, perhaps,
too much to say, as has been said, that scarcely has a record of terrible
suffering more nobly borne been given to the world.  Hunger and thirst,
intense physical exhaustion, the burning heat of a tropic sun, the
glowing sands of an arid desert—not a single circumstance was wanting
that could test the heroic endurance and patient heroism of the
explorers.  The country through which they toiled day after day was
barren, inhospitable, desolate; a wilderness of coarse yellow herbage, a
sombre waste of sand-hills.  Their hearts were never cheered by bright
glimpses of gorgeous scenery, of forests clothed with magnificent
vegetation, of rivers pouring their ample waters through sylvan valleys;
everywhere the landscape was melancholy and unprofitable.  He who, with
his life in his hand, penetrates the frozen recesses of the Polar World,
and dares its storms of snow and its icy winds, has at least the
inspiration to support him that springs from the grandeur of huge cliffs
of ice and vast glaciers and white-gleaming peaks outlined against a deep
blue sky.  But in the wide Australian interior the landscape is always
marked by the same monotony of dreariness, the same uniformity of gloom;
and it tests and taxes the traveller’s energies to rise superior to its
depressing influences.

The reader, therefore, will feel that “the Municipal Council and
inhabitants of Fremantle” used no language of undeserved eulogy when, in
their address of welcome to Colonel Egerton Warburton, they said—

“The difficulties to be overcome in the work of Australian exploration
are acknowledged to be as formidable as are to be found in any part of
our globe, and to meet these difficulties requires a combination of
intelligence, energy, perseverance, and fortitude that few men possess;
and the fact that you have surmounted all obstacles, and borne up under
so many privations, has awakened in all our minds the deepest feelings of
gratitude and admiration.”  {324}

MAJOR BURNABY,
AND A RIDE TO KHIVA.

I.

THAT vast and various region of sandy deserts and fertile valleys, of
broad open plains and lofty highlands, which extends eastward from the
Caspian Sea to the borders of Afghanistan, and from Persia northward to
the confines of Siberia, is known to geographers by the name of
Turkistan, or “the country of the Turks.”  Across it, from north to
south, strikes the massive chain of the Bolor-tagh, dividing it into two
unequal portions.  The western division is popularly known as Independent
Tartary, or Great Bokhara; it covers an area of nearly 900,000 square
miles—that is, it is ten times as large as Great Britain—and it consists
of the arid sandy plain of the Caspian and Aral Seas, and of the hilly
districts which skirt the ranges of the Bolor-Tagh, the Thian-Shan, and
the Hindu Kush.  The eastern division, or Upper Tartary, probably
contains 700,000 square miles, and extends from Asiatic Russia on the
north to Thibet and Kashmir on the south, from Mongolia on the east to
the Bolor-Tagh on the west.  The Thian-Shan separates its two provinces,
which the Chinese call Thian-Shan-Pe-lû and Thian-Shan-Nan-lû.  The
reader’s attention, however, will be here directed only to Western
Turkistan, which is divided into the Khanates of Khokan (north-east),
Badakshan (south-east), Bokhara (east), and Khiva (west).  To the north
stretch the steppes of the nomadic Kirghiz; to the south the hills and
dales are occupied by the hordes of the Turkomans.  Its two great rivers
are the Amu-Daria and the Syr-Daria, the ancient _Oxus_ and
_Jaxartes_,—the former traversing the centre, and the latter the south of
the district, on their way to the great Arabian Sea; and the valleys
through which they flow, as well as those of their tributary streams, are
mostly fertile and pleasant.  As might be inferred from the character of
the country, the chief resources of the population are the breeding of
domestic animals, and the cultivation of the soil; but in the towns of
Khokand, Bokhara, Urgondji, and Karshi, a brisk manufacturing industry
flourishes, which disposes of its surplus produce, after the local demand
is satisfied, to the merchants of Russia, Persia, India, and China.

Since 1864, the supremacy of Russia has been steadily advancing in
Western Turkistan.  In ordinary circumstances, the extension of the power
of a civilized nation over a number of semi-barbarous states, constantly
engaged in internecine warfare, is regarded as a just and legitimate
movement, or, at all events, as one that is inevitable and calls for no
expression of regret; but the eastward progress of Russia has long been
considered, by a large party in England, as a menace to the safety of our
Indian empire.  Every fresh step of the Russian armies has therefore
excited alarm or created suspicion among those who are known as
Russophobists.  How far their fear or their mistrust is justifiable or
dignified it is not our business in these pages to inquire; but it has
been necessary to allude to it because it was this Russophobism which
impelled Major (then Captain) Burnaby to undertake the difficult, if not
dangerous, task of visiting Western Turkistan, that he might see with his
own eyes what the Russians were doing there.  The Russians had recently
conquered Khokand and Khiva; it was thought they were preparing for
further annexations; and Major Burnaby determined on an effort to reach
Khiva, which during the Russian campaign had been visited, as we have
seen, by Mr. MacGahan, the war correspondent of the _New York Herald_.
Having obtained leave of absence from his regiment, the Royal Horse
Guards, Major Burnaby rapidly equipped himself for his adventurous
journey.  He was well aware that the Russian authorities did not welcome
the inquisitive eyes of English travellers, and that from them he could
expect no assistance.  His confidence in his resources, however, was
great; he felt _totus in se ipso_; and he did not intend to be baffled in
his object by anything but sheer force.  The climate was another
difficulty.  The cold of the Kirghiz desert is a thing unknown in any
other part of the world, even in the Arctic wastes and wildernesses; and
he would have to traverse on horseback an enormous expanse of flat
country, extending for hundreds of miles, and devoid of everything save
snow and salt-lakes, and here and there the species of bramble-tree
called saxaul.  The inhabitants of Western Europe can form no conception
of the force of the winds in Turkistan.  They grumble at the pungent,
irritating east; but they little imagine what it is like in countries
exposed to the awful vehemence of its first onset, before its rigour has
been mitigated by the kindly ocean, and where its wild career is
unimpeded by trees or rising land, by hills or mountains.
Uninterruptedly it blows over dreary leagues of snow and salt, absorbing
the saline matter, and blighting or almost gashing the faces of those
unfortunates who are exposed to its fury.  But no fear of the east wind
prevailed over Major Burnaby’s patriotic curiosity.  He provided against
it as best he could: warm were the garments specially made for him; his
boots were lined with fur; his hose were the thickest Scottish fishing
stockings; his jerseys and flannel shirts of the thickest possible
texture; and he ordered for himself a waterproof and airproof
sleeping-bag, seven feet and a half long, and two feet round.  A large
aperture was left on one side, so that the traveller might take up his
quarters in the interior, and sleep well protected from the wintry
blasts.  For defensive purposes he took with him his rifle, a revolver,
cartridges, and ball.  His cooking apparatus consisted of a couple of
soldier’s mess-tins.  A trooper’s hold-all, with its accompanying knife,
fork, and spoon, completed his kit; and, by way of instruments, he
carried a thermometer, a barometer, and a pocket sextant.

On the 30th of November, 1875, Major Burnaby left London.  He arrived at
St. Petersburg on the 3rd of December, and immediately set to work to
obtain the necessary authorization for his proposed journey, which he
defined as a tour to India _viâ_ Khiva, Merv, and Kabul; in other words,
across Central Asia and Afghanistan.  All that he _did_ obtain was a
communication to the effect that the commandants in Russian Asia had
received orders to assist him in travelling through the territory under
their command, but that the Imperial Government could not acquiesce in
his extending his journey beyond its boundaries, as it could not answer
for the security or the lives of travellers except within the Emperor’s
dominions—a self-evident fact.  The reply was evidently intended to
discourage Major Burnaby; but Major Burnaby was not to be discouraged.
It is not in the English character to be daunted by a consideration of
prospective or possible dangers; certainly, it is not in the character of
English officers.  So the adventurous guardsman started by railway for
Orenburg, the great centre and depôt of Central Asiatic traffic.  At
Riajsk he obtained a vivid illustration of the heterogeneous character of
the Russian empire, the waiting-room being crowded with representatives
of different nationalities.  Here stalked a Tartar merchant in a long
parti-coloured gown, a pair of high boots, and a small yellow fez.  There
a fur trader, in a greasy-looking black coat, clutched his small leather
bag of coin.  Here an old Bokharan, in flowing robes, was lulled by opium
into a temporary forgetfulness of his troubles.  There Russian peasants
moved to and fro, with well-knit frames, clad in untanned leather, which
was bound about their loins by narrow leather belts, studded with buttons
of brass and silver.  Europe and Asia met together in the waiting-room at
Riajsk station.

The railway went no further than Sizeran, where Major Burnaby and a
Russian gentleman hired a troika, or three-horse sleigh, to take them to
Samara.  The distance was about eighty-five miles; but as the thermometer
marked 20° below zero (R.), the travellers found it necessary to make
formidable preparations.  First they donned three pairs of the thickest
stockings, drawn up high above the knee; next, over these, a pair of
fur-lined low shoes, which in their turn were inserted into leather
goloshes; and, finally, over all, a pair of enormously thick boots.
Allow for extra thick drawers and a pair of massive trousers; and add a
heavy flannel under-shirt, a shirt covered by a thick wadded waistcoat
and coat, and an external wrap in the form of a large shuba, or fur
pelisse, reaching to the heels; and you may suppose that the protection
against the cold was tolerably complete.  The head was guarded with a fur
cap and vashlik, _i.e._ a kind of conical cloth headpiece made to cover
the cap, and having two long ends tied round the throat.  Thus accoutred,
the travellers took their places in the troika, which, drawn by three
horses harnessed abreast, and with jingling bell, rapidly descended the
hill, and dashed on to the frozen surface of the river Volga.  Along the
solid highway furnished by the ice-bound stream, past frozen-in shipping
and sledges loaded with various kinds of wares, sped the troika;
sometimes, in its turn, outstripped by other troikas,—drivers and
passengers all alike white with glittering hoar-frost, until they seemed
a company of grey-beards.  The solid river flashed like a burnished
cuirass in the rays of the morning.  Here the scene was varied by a group
of strangely patterned blocks and pillars; there a fountain gracefully
shooting upwards with shapely Ionic and Doric columns, reflected a myriad
prismatic hues from its diamond-like stalactites.  Here a broken Gothic
arch overhung the shining highway; there an Egyptian obelisk lay half
buried beneath the snow.  Such were the fantastic shapes into which the
strong wind had moulded the ice as it was rapidly formed.

Regaining the main road, Major Burnaby and his companion sped on towards
Samara.  Their first halting-place was a farmhouse, called Nijny Pegersky
Hootor, twenty-five versts from Sizeran, where some men were winnowing
corn after a fashion of antediluvian simplicity.  Throwing the corn high
up into the air with a shovel, they allowed the wind to blow away the
husks, and the grain fell upon a carpet laid out to catch it.  As for the
farmhouse, it was a square wooden building, containing two low but
spacious rooms.  A large stove of dried clay was so placed as to warm
both apartments; and above it, a platform of boards, not more than three
feet from the ceiling, supplied the family with sleeping accommodation.
On the outside of the building a heavy wooden door opened into a small
portico, at one end of which stood the obraz, or image—as usual an
appendage to a Russian house, as were the Lares and Penates, or household
gods, to a Roman house.  The obrazye are made of different patterns, but
usually represent a saint or the Trinity; they are executed in
silver-gilt on brass relief, and adorned with all kinds of gewgaws.

A fresh team having been obtained, the travellers resumed their journey;
but the cold had increased, the wind blew more furiously, and their
suffering was severe.  In thick flakes fell the constant snow, and the
driver had much ado to keep the track, while the half-fed horses
floundered along heavily, and frequently sank up to the traces in the
gathering drift.  The cracks of the whip resounded from their jaded
flanks like pistol-shots.  With sarcastic apostrophes the driver
endeavoured to stimulate their progress:—

“Oh, sons of animals!” (whack!)

“Oh, spoiled one!” (whack!)  This to a poor, attenuated brute.

“Oh, woolly ones!” (whack, whack, whack!)  Here all were upset into a
snow-drift, the sleigh being three-parts overturned, and the driver flung
in an opposite direction.

The sleigh was righted; the travellers once more took their seats; and on
through the darkening day they drove, until they came to a long
straggling village, where the horses stopped before a detached cottage.
Benumbed with the bitter cold, Major Burnaby and his companion dashed
inside, and made haste, in front of a blazing stove, to restore the
suspended circulation.  Then, while the women of the house made tea in a
samovar, or urn, they unfroze in the stove some cutlets and bread which
they had carried with them, and proceeded to enjoy a hearty repast.  In
one hour’s time they were ready to start; but their driver demurred.  The
snowstorm was heavy; wolves prowled along the track; the river ice might
give way.  It was better to wait until the morning, when, with beautiful
horses, they might go like birds to the next station.  The two travellers
could do nothing with him, and were compelled to resign themselves to
pass the night on the hard boards, in an atmosphere infested by many
unpleasant smells.  A good hour before sunrise all were again in motion.
The Major and his companion abandoned their heavy troika, and engaged two
small sleighs with a pair of horses to each, one for themselves and one
to carry their luggage.

It was a glorious winter morning, and the sun came forth like a
bridegroom to run his course, invested with indescribable pomp of colour.
First, over the whole of the eastern horizon extended a pale blue streak,
which seemed, like a wall, to shut off the vast Beyond.  Suddenly its
summit changed into rare lapis-lazuli, while its base became a sheet of
purple.  From the darker lines shot wondrous waves of grey and crystal;
and in time the purple foundations upheaved into glowing seas of fire.
The wall broke up into castles, battlements, and towers—all with magical
gleams, which gradually floated far away, while the seas of flame,
lighting up the whole horizon, burst through their borders and swelled
into a mighty ocean.  The sight was one on which the eye of man could
scarcely gaze.  The sunny expanse of the winter-bound earth reflected as
in a mirror the celestial panorama.  Shafts of light seemed to dart in
rapid succession from earth to sky, until at last the vast luminous orb
of day rose from the depth of the many-coloured radiance, and with its
surpassing glory put everything else to shame.

The travellers reached Samara—a well-built prosperous town, situated on a
tributary of the Volga.  There Major Burnaby parted from his companion,
whose road thenceforward lay in a different direction, and proceeded to
make his preparations for a drive across the steppes to Orenburg.

He started next morning, in a sleigh which he had purchased, and had
caused to be well repaired, and took the road towards Orenburg.  The
country was flat and uninteresting; buried beneath a white shroud of
sand, with a few trees scattered here and there, and at intervals a
dreary-looking hut or two.  The first post-station, for changing horses,
was Smeveshlaevskaya, twenty versts (a verst is two-thirds of an English
mile); the next, Bodrovsky, where Burnaby arrived a little after sunset.
After drinking a few glasses of tea to fortify himself against the
increasing cold (25° below zero, R.), he pushed forward in the hope of
reaching Malomalisky, about twenty-six and a half versts, about nine p.m.
But plunging into the heart of a terrible snowstorm, he and his driver
were so blinded and beaten, and the horses so jaded by the swiftly
forming snow-drifts, that he was compelled to give the order to return,
and to pass the night at Bodrovsky.

At daybreak the resolute guardsman was on his way.  In the course of the
day he fell in with General Kryjonovsky, the governor of the Orenburg
district, who was bound for St. Petersburg; and a brief conversation with
him showed that the authorities, as he had suspected, by no means
approved of his expedition to Khiva.  At one of the stations, the man
assigned to him as driver had been married only the day before, and
undertook his duties with obvious reluctance.  His sole desire was to
return as quickly as possible to his bride, and with this intent he
lashed his horses until they kicked and jumped in the most furious
contortions.  The Major was thrown in the air, and caught again by the
rebound; upset, righted, and upset again; gun, saddle-bags,
cartridge-cases, and traveller, all simultaneously flying in the air.
After a third of these rough experiences, the Major resolved to try the
effect of a sharp application of his boot.

“Why do you do that?” said the driver, pulling up his horse.  “You hurt,
you break my ribs.”

“I only do to you what you do to me,” replied the Major.  “You hurt, you
break my ribs, and injure my property besides.”

“Oh, sir of noble birth,” ejaculated the fellow, “it is not my fault.  It
is thine, oh moody one!” to his offside horse, accompanied by a crack
from his whip.  “It is thine, oh spoilt and cherished one!” to his other
meagre and half-starved quadruped (whack!) “Oh, petted and caressed sons
of animals” (whack, whack, whack!), “I will teach you to upset the
gentleman.”

At length, after a journey of four hundred versts, Orenburg was reached.
At this frontier town, situated almost on the verge of civilization, our
traveller was compelled to make a short sojourn.  He had letters of
introduction to present, which procured him some useful friends; a
servant to engage, provisions to purchase, information to collect about
the route to Khiva, and his English gold and notes to convert into
Russian coin.  Through the good offices of a Moslem gentleman, he was
able to engage a Tartar, named Nazar—not five feet high—as a servant; and
after some delay he obtained from the military chief a podorojoraya, or
passport, as far as Kasala, or Fort No. 1.  This pass ran as follows: “By
the order of His Majesty the Emperor Alexander, the son of Nicolas,
Autocrat of the whole of Russia, etc., etc.  From the town of Orsk to the
town of Kasala, to the Captain of the English service, Frederick, the son
of Gustavus Burnaby, to give three horses, with a driver, for the legal
fare, without delay.  Given in the town of Orenburg, 15th December,
1875.”

The next day, Frederick, “the son of Gustavus Burnaby,” with his Tartar
servant, took their departure from Orenburg, and in a few minutes were
trotting along the frozen surface of the river Ural.  Every now and then
they fell in with a caravan of rough, shaggy, undersized camels, drawing
sleighs laden with cotton from Tashkent; or a Cossack galloped by,
brandishing his long spear; or a ruddy-faced Kirghiz slowly caracolled
over the shining snow.  Three stations were passed in safety, and Burnaby
resolved on halting at the fourth, Krasnojorsk, for refreshment.  But as
the afternoon closed in, the Tartar driver began to lash his weary jades
impatiently; as an excuse for his vehemence, pointing to the clouds that
were rising before them, and the signs of a gathering snowstorm.  Soon
the air was filled with flakes; the darkness rapidly increased; the
driver lost his way, and, at length, the team came to a standstill,
breast deep in a snow-drift.  What was to be done?  It was equally
impossible to go forward or to return; there was no wood in the
neighbourhood with which to kindle a fire, no shovel with which to make a
snow house; nothing could the belated wayfarer do but endure the bitter
cold and the silent darkness, and wait for morning.  Burnaby suffered
much from the exposure, but the great difficulty was to prevent himself
from yielding to the fatal lethargy which extreme cold induces—from
falling into that sleep which turns inevitably into death.  How he
rejoiced when the day broke, and he was able to despatch the driver on
one of the horses for assistance; and how he rejoiced when the man
returned with three post horses and some peasants, and the road was
regained, and the journey resumed, and the station reached at last!
There they rested and refreshed themselves, before, with invigorated
spirits, they dashed once again into the snow-bound depths of the
steppes.

After a while the aspect of the country grew more cheery.  The low chain
of mountains to the north-east was sometimes abruptly broken, and a
prominent peak thrust its summit into the interval.  Through the fleecy
snow various coloured grasses were visible.  Olive-tinted branches, and
dark forests of fir and pine, contrasted strongly with the whitely
shining expanse that spread as far as the eye could see.  Spider-like
webs of frozen dew hung from the branches.  The thin icicles glistened
like prisms with all the colours of the rainbow.  Thus, through a
succession of fairy landscapes, such as the dwellers in Western lands can
form but a faint idea of, the travellers dashed onward to Orsk.

Then the face of the country underwent another change.  They were fairly
in the region of the steppes—those wide and level plains which, during
the brief summer, bloom with luxuriant vegetation, and are alive with the
flocks and herds of the nomads, but in the long drear winter, from north
to south and east to west, are buried deep beneath frozen snow.  Wherever
you direct your gaze it rests upon snow, snow, still snow; shining with a
painful glare in the mid-day sun; fading into a dull, grey, melancholy
ocean as noon lapses into twilight.  “A picture of desolation which
wearies by its utter loneliness, and at the same time appals by its
immensity; a circle of which the centre is everywhere, and the
circumference nowhere.”  Travel, in this world-beyond-the-world, in this
solitude which Frost and Winter make all their own, tests the courage and
endurance of a man, for it makes no appeal to the imagination or the
fancy, it charms the eye with no pleasant pictures, suggests no
associations to the mind.  But it has its dangers, as Major Burnaby
experienced.  He had left the station of Karabootak (three hundred and
seventeen miles from Orsk), and as the road was comparatively smooth, and
the wind had subsided, he leaned back in his sleigh and fell asleep.
Unluckily he had forgotten to put on his thick gloves, and his hands,
slipping from the fur-lined sleeves of his pelisse, lay exposed to the
full potency of the cold air.  In a few minutes he awoke with a feeling
of intense pain; and looking at his hands, he saw that the finger-nails
were blue, blue too the fingers and back of the hands, while the wrists
and lower part of the arms had assumed the hue of wax.  They were
frost-bitten!  He called his servant, and made him rub the skin with some
snow in the hope of restoring the vitality.  This he did for some
minutes; but, meanwhile, the pain gradually ascended up the arms, while
the lower portion of the arms was dead to all feeling, all sensation.
“It is no good,” said Nazar, looking sorrowfully at his master; “we must
drive on as fast as possible to the station.”

The station was some miles off.  Miles?  Each mile seemed to the tortured
traveller a league; each league a day’s journey; the physical pain
consumed him, wore him down as mental anguish might have done.  But at
last the station was reached; Burnaby sprang from the sleigh, rushed into
the waiting-room, and to three Cossacks whom he met there showed his
hands.  Straightway they conducted him into an outer apartment, took off
his coat, bared his arms, and plunged him into a tub of ice and water up
to the shoulders.  He felt nothing.

“Brother,” said the eldest of the soldiers, shaking his head, “it is a
bad job; you will lose your hands.”

“They will drop off,” remarked another, “if we cannot get back the
circulation.”

“Have you any spirit with you?” asked a third.

Nazar, on hearing this inquiry, immediately ran out, and returned with a
tin bottle containing naphtha for cooking purposes; upon which the
Cossacks, taking the Major’s arms out of the icy water, proceeded to rub
them with the strong spirit.

Rub, rub, rub; the skin peeled under their horny hands, and the spirit
irritated the membrane below.  At last a faint sensation like tickling—we
are using the Major’s own words—pervaded the elbow-joints, and he
slightly flinched.

“Does it hurt?” asked the eldest Cossack.

“A little.”

“Capital, brothers,” he continued; “rub as hard as you can;” and after
continuing the friction until the flesh was almost flayed, they suddenly
plunged his arms again into the ice and water.  This time, the pain was
sharp.

“Good,” exclaimed the Cossacks.  “The more it hurts, the better chance
you have of saving your hands.”  And after a short time they let him
remove his arms from the tub.

“You are fortunate, little father,” said the eldest Cossack.  “If it had
not been for the spirit your hands would have dropped off, even if you
had not lost your arms.”

“Rough, kind-hearted fellows were these poor soldiers,” adds Major
Burnaby; “and when I forced on the oldest of them a present for himself
and comrades, the old soldier simply said, ‘Are we not all brothers when
in misfortune?  Would you not have helped me if I had been in the same
predicament?’”

The Major shook his hand heartily, and retired to the waiting-room to
rest upon the sofa, as the physical shock he had undergone had for the
moment thoroughly prostrated him.  Moreover, his arms were sore and
inflamed, the spirit having in some places penetrated the raw flesh; and
several weeks elapsed before he thoroughly recovered from the effects of
his carelessness.

At Terekli, about five hundred miles from Orenburg, our traveller entered
the province of Turkistan, and found himself in the region which
acknowledges the authority of General Kauffmann—a restless and ambitious
soldier, to whose energy much of Russia’s recent advance eastward would
seem to be due.  He still pushed forward with characteristic resolution,
braving the terrors of the climate and the dangers of the road in his
determined purpose to reach Khiva.  At one station no horses were to be
obtained, and, instead, three gigantic camels were harnessed to the tiny
sleigh.  A strange spectacle!  “I have tried many ways of locomotion in
my life, from fire-balloons to bicycles, from canoes and bullocks to
cows, camels, and donkeys; whilst in the East the time-honoured sedan of
our grandfathers has occasionally borne me and my fortunes; but never had
I travelled in so comical a fashion.  A Tartar rode the centre camel.
His head-gear would have called attention, if nothing else had, for he
wore a large black hat, which reminded me of an inverted coal-scuttle,
whilst a horn-like protuberance sticking out from its summit gave a
diabolical appearance to his lobster-coloured visage.  The hat, which was
made of sheepskin, had the white wool inside, which formed a striking
contrast to the flaming countenance of the excited Tartar.  He had
replaced the usual knout used for driving, by a whip armed with a thin
cord lash, and he urged on his ungainly team more by the shrill sounds of
his voice than by any attempt at flagellation, the Tartar seldom being
able to get more than four miles an hour from the lazy brutes.

“All of a sudden the camel in the centre quickly stopped, and the rider
was precipitated head-over-heels in the snow.  Luckily, it was soft
falling; there were no bones broken, and in a minute or two he was again
in the saddle, having changed the system of harnessing, and placed one of
the camels as leader, whilst the other two were driven as wheelers.  We
got on very fairly for a little while, when the foremost of our train
having received a rather sharper application of the lash than he deemed
expedient remonstrated with his rider by lying down.  Coaxing and
persuasion were now used; he was promised the warmest of stalls, the most
delicious of water, if he would only get up.  But this the beast
absolutely declined to do, until the cold from the snow striking against
his body induced him to rise from the ground.

“We now went even slower than before.  Our driver was afraid to use his
whip for fear of another ebullition of temper on the part of the
delinquent, and confined himself to cracking his whip in the air.  The
sounds of this proceeding presently reaching the ears of the leader,
perhaps made him think that his companions were undergoing chastisement.
Anyhow, it appeared to afford him some satisfaction, for, quickening his
stride, he compelled his brethren behind to accelerate their pace; and
after a long, wearisome drive we arrived at our destination.”

Under the influence of milder weather the aspect of the country rapidly
modified and brightened, and instead of a uniform sheet of frozen snow,
broad patches of vegetation met the eye.  On these the Kirghiz horses
were browsing with evident delight.  How they live through the winter is
a mystery, as their owners seldom feed them with corn, and they are
compelled to trust to the scanty grasses which may still be partially
alive underneath the snow.  Nor are they in any way protected from the
cold.  As a necessary consequence, the spring finds them reduced to mere
skeletons, whose ribs are barely covered by their parchment-like skin;
but they soon gain in flesh and strength when once the rich pasturage of
the steppes is at their disposal.  Their powers of endurance are
wonderful; and without rest, or water, or food, they will accomplish
surprising distances, maintaining a first-rate speed.  An instance is on
record of a Kirghiz chief having galloped two hundred miles, over a rocky
and mountainous ground, in twenty-four hours.  A Russian detachment of
cavalry, mounted on Kirghiz horses, marched 333 miles in six days.

Major Burnaby was soon apprised that he was nearing the Sea (or Lake) of
Aral by the salt breeze which blew persistently in his face.  The whole
district for miles around was impregnated with salt, and the springs and
streams had all a brackish taste and strong saline flavour.  At
Nicolaivskaya his road touched close upon the north-eastern extremity of
the sea.  This great inland basin of brackish water is separated from the
Caspian by the dense plateau of Ust-Urt.  It measures about 260 miles
from north to south, and 125 from east to west.  On the north-east it
receives the waters of the Syr-Daria, or Jaxartes; on the south-east
those of the Amu-Daria, or Oxus.  As it is on the same level with the
Caspian, we may reasonably suppose that both seas were at one time
connected.  Owing to the excessive evaporation which takes place, it is
understood to be decreasing in size.

At Kasala, or Fort No. 1, our traveller struck the Syr-Daria, some forty
or fifty miles above its outlet in the Aral.  Kasala is inhabited by
nomad Kirghiz, who pitch their kibitkas in its outskirts in the winter,
to resume their migratory life with the first breath of spring; by
Russian and Tartar merchants, who dwell in one-storied houses, built of
brick or cement; and by a motley population of Greeks, Khivans,
Bokharans, Tashkentians, and Turcomans generally, attracted thither by
the hope of gain.  Owing to its geographical position, it is the centre
of a considerable trade; for all goods to Orenburg from Western Turkistan
must pass through it.  Its civil population numbers about 5000 souls; its
garrison consists of about 350 infantry and 400 cavalry, and it is also
the head-quarters in winter of the sailors of the Aral fleet, which is
made up of four small steamers of light draught.  As for the fort, it is
simply an earthwork, constructed in the shape of a half-star, with a
bastion on the south extending to the bank of the Syr-Daria.  A dry
ditch, thirty feet broad by twelve feet deep, and a parapet, eight feet
high and twelve feet thick, surround it.  Sufficiently strong to overawe
the Kirghiz, it could offer no effective resistance to an European force.

Major Burnaby paid a visit to a Kirghiz kibitka, or tent, and his
description of it may be compared with Mr. Atkinson’s.  Inside it was
adorned with thick carpets of various hues, and bright-coloured cushions,
for the accommodation of the inmates.  In the centre a small fire gave
out a cloud of white smoke, which rose in coils and wreaths to the roof,
and there escaped through an aperture left for the purpose.  The fuel
used is saxaul, the wood of the bramble tree, and it emits an acrid,
pungent odour.  The women in the tent had their faces uncovered; they
received their visitor with a warm welcome, and spread some rugs for him
to sit down by their side.  They were all of them moon-faced, with large
mouths, but good eyes and teeth.

The master of the kibitka, who was clad in a long brown robe, thickly
wadded to keep out the cold, poured some water into a large caldron, and
proceeded to make tea, while a young girl handed round raisins and dried
currants.  A brief conversation then arose.  The Kirghiz were much
surprised to learn that their visitor was not a Russian, but had come
from a far Western land, and were even more surprised to find that he had
brought no wife with him—a wife, in the opinion of the Kirghiz, being as
indispensable to a man’s happiness as a horse or camel.  In entering into
matrimony, the Kirghiz have one great advantage over the other Moslem
races; they see the girls whom they wish to marry, and are allowed to
converse with them before the bargain is concluded between the parents,
one hundred sheep being the average price given for a young woman.

On the 12th of January Major Burnaby left Kasala for Khiva.  His retinue
consisted of three camels, loaded with a tent, forage, and provisions,
his Tartar servant, who bestrode the largest camel, and a Kirghiz guide,
who, like himself, was mounted on horseback.  His provisions included
stchi, or cabbage soup, with large pieces of meat cut up in it, which,
having been poured into two large iron stable buckets, had become hard
frozen, so that it could be easily carried slung on a camel’s back.  He
also took with him twenty pounds of cooked meat.  A hatchet, to chop up
the meat or cut down brushwood for a fire, and a cooking lamp, with a
supply of spirit, formed part of his equipment.

Crossing the icy surface of the Syr-Daria, our traveller once more
plunged into the solitude of the steppes, bravely facing the storm-wind
and the ridges of snow which rolled before it, like the wave-crests of a
frozen sea.  After a five hours’ march, he called a halt, that the camels
might rest and be fed—for they will feed only in the daytime; wherefore
it is wise to march them as much as possible during the night.  Their
ordinary pace is about two miles and a third in an hour; and the best
plan is to start at midnight, unload them for about two hours in the day
to feed, and halt at sunset: thus securing sixteen hours’ work per day,
and accomplishing a daily journey of at least thirty-seven miles.

The kibitka was soon raised.  “Imagine,” says our traveller, “a bundle of
sticks, each five feet three inches in length, and an inch in diameter;
these are connected with each other by means of cross sticks, through the
ends of which holes are bored, and leather thongs passed.  This allows
plenty of room for all the sticks to open out freely; they then form a
complete circle, about twelve feet in diameter, and five feet three in
height.  They do not require any pressing into the ground, for the
circular shape keeps them steady.  When this is done, a thick piece of
cashmar, or cloth made of sheep’s wool, is suspended from their tops, and
reaches to the ground.  This forms a shield through which the wind cannot
pass.  Another bundle of sticks is then produced.  They are all fastened
at one end to a small wooden cross, about six inches long by four broad;
a man standing in the centre of the circle raises up this bundle in the
air, the cross upwards, and hitches their other ends by means of little
leather loops one by one on the different upright sticks which form the
circular walls.  The result is, they all pull against each other, and are
consequently self-supporting; another piece of cloth is passed round the
outside of this scaffolding, leaving a piece uncovered at the top to
allow the smoke to escape.  One stick is removed from the uprights which
form the walls.  This constitutes a door, and the kibitka is complete.”

While the Major and his followers were enjoying a meal of rice and
mutton, and a glass of hot tea, three Khivans rode up to them—a merchant
and his two servants.  The Khivan merchant was strongly built, and about
five feet ten inches in height.  He wore a tall, conical black Astrakhan
hat; an orange-coloured dressing-gown, thickly quilted, and girt about
the loins with a long, red sash; and over all, enveloping him from hand
to foot, a heavy sheepskin mantle.  His weapons consisted of a long,
single-barrelled gun, and a short, richly mounted sabre.  An exchange of
civilities followed, and then both parties retired to rest.  At about
three o’clock in the morning, after some difficulty with his guide and
camel-driver, the Major resumed his march, and for six hours the weary
tramp and toil over the frost-bound plain continued.  At nine a halt was
called, soup was made, and the party breakfasted.  By the time they were
ready to set out again, the Khivan merchant’s caravan had come up, and
all went on together.

In advance rode the guide, singing a song in praise of mutton, and
descriptive of his partiality for that succulent meat.  The Kirghiz poets
make the sheep the special subject of their metrical eulogium; in truth,
it fills in their poetry as conspicuous a place as the dove in the
love-songs of the Latin bards.  Nor is to be wondered at.  The sheep
represents the wealth, the property of the nomads.  During the summer and
autumn they live upon their milk, and never think of killing them except
to do honour to a guest by serving up before him a leg of mutton.  In the
winter they are, of course, obliged very frequently to sacrifice the
highly esteemed animal, but they live upon horseflesh and camel’s flesh
as much as they can.  Their clothing is furnished by the sheep, being
made entirely of sheep’s wool wrought into a coarse homespun.  Finally,
if they want to buy a horse, a camel, or a wife, they pay in sheep; and a
man’s worth in the world is reckoned by the numbers of his flock.

On the following day, in the course of their march, the travellers came
upon a Kirghiz encampment, the members of which were considerably excited
by Major Burnaby’s announcement of his desire to purchase a whole sheep.
The head of the principal kibitka, accompanied by a pretty Kirghiz girl,
hastened to conduct him to the sheepfold, that he might select an animal,
and the fattest of the flock became his for the small sum of four
roubles.  The pretty young girl acted as butcher, receiving the skin and
head in acknowledgment of her trouble, and the carcase was conveyed to
the Major’s tent, where it was duly cooked, and devoured by his
followers, who showed the most intense appreciation of his liberality.

The march being resumed, Major Burnaby made for a place called
Kalenderhana, instead of the Russian settlement of Petro-Alexandrovsky,
having a shrewd suspicion that if he went thither, as the governor of
Kasala had desired, he would, in some way or other, be prevented from
reaching Khiva.  Pushing forward steadily, he left his Khivan merchant
far behind, and strode across an undulating country in the direction of
south-south-west.  Next he came into a salt district, barren and dreary;
and afterwards reached the desert of Jana-Daria, the dried-up bed of a
river, which is lost in the sand.  Still continuing his march, he came
upon an unbounded ocean of sand, which, in the glaring sunshine,
glittered like a sea of molten gold.  When this was traversed, the
country grew pleasanter and more fertile.  Traces of game appeared.
Sometimes a brown hare darted through the herbage; while in the distance
herds of saigak, or antelopes, bounded with elastic tread across the
sward.  A chain of mountains running east and west rose up before the
wanderer’s path, and presented a picturesque spectacle, with their broken
crests, sharp pinnacles, and masses of shining quartz.  Upon their rugged
sides could be traced the furrows ploughed by the torrents which the
spring lets loose and feeds with its abundant rains.  Through a dark and
deep defile, about seven miles long, the little company penetrated the
mountain barrier of the Kazan-Tor, and descended into a broad plain,
overspread by a network of canals for irrigation, where a striking
indication of the desultory but ceaseless hostilities waged between the
Kirghiz and the Turcomans was presented in the rude fortifications, a
high ditch and a wattled palisade, that encircled every little village.
Kalenderhana was fortified in this manner.  Here Major Burnaby was warmly
welcomed, and in great state escorted to his Kirghiz guide’s house, or
kibitka, where a curious throng quickly surrounded him, and proceeded to
examine, and comment unreservedly upon, every part of his attire.  Major
Burnaby, if less outspoken, was not less curious, and carefully noted
that the hostess was a good-looking woman, clad in a flowing white
dressing-gown, with a whiter turban, folded many times around her small
head.  The brother-in-law, a short hump-backed fellow, had a horse to
sell, which Major Burnaby expressed his willingness to purchase, if he
went to Khiva.  The guide had been ordered by the Russian governor of
Kasala to conduct the Englishman to Petro-Alexandrovsky, and at first he
was reluctant to run the risk of punishment; but the domestic pressure
put upon him could not be resisted, and he agreed to go to Khiva, on
condition that the Major completed his bargain with the horse-dealer.
This was at last arranged, and a Tartar being sent forward with a letter
to the Khan, requesting permission to visit his capital, the traveller
resumed his journey, with Nazar proudly seated astride the new purchase.

A brief ride carried them to the bank of the great Amu-Daria, the Oxus of
Alexander the Great, which at this time was frozen over, presenting a
solid highway of ice, half a mile in breadth.  There they met with some
Khivan merchants—stalwart men, with dark complexions and large eyes,
dressed in long red thickly wadded dressing-gowns and cone-shaped black
lambskin hats.  A caravan of camels was crossing the river, and numerous
arbas, or two-wheeled carts, each drawn by one horse, passed to and fro.
Every man whom they encountered saluted them with the customary Arab
greeting, “_Salam aaleikom_!” to which the response was always given,
“_Aaleikom salam_!”  Soon after crossing the frozen river, Major Burnaby
determined to halt for the night; and the guide began to look about for
suitable quarters.  He pulled up at last by the side of a large,
substantial-looking square building, built of clay.  A rap at the high
wooden gates brought out an old man bent nearly double with age, who, on
hearing that the travellers wanted a night’s hospitality, immediately
called to his servants to take charge of the horses and camels, and
across the square-walled courtyard ushered Major Burnaby into his house.
The guest-room was spacious and lofty.  One end of it was covered with
thick carpets; this was the place of honour for visitors.  In the centre
a small square hearth was filled with charcoal embers, confined within a
coping about three inches high.  On the coping stood a richly chased
copper ewer—which might have been dug out of the ruins of the buried
Pompeii, so classic was it in shape and appearance—with a long swan-like
neck, constructed so as to assist the attendant in pouring water over the
hands of his master’s guests before they began their repast.  On one side
of the hearth was a square hole about three feet deep, filled with water,
and reached by a couple of steps.  It was the place of ablution—something
like the _impluvium_ in a Roman villa—and its sides were lined with
ornamental tiles.  The windows were represented by two narrow slits, each
about two feet long by six inches wide, while some open wooden
trellis-work supplied the place of glass.

After a brief absence the host reappeared, carrying in his hand a large
earthenware dish full of rice and mutton, while his servants followed,
with baskets of bread and hard-boiled eggs.  A pitcher of milk was also
produced, and an enormous melon, weighing quite twenty-five pounds.  When
the host and his visitor had completed their repast, they began to
converse, the Khivan asking many questions about the countries which the
Englishman had travelled.  To his inquiry whether there were camels in
England, Major Burnaby replied with an amusing description of our
railways and locomotives.

“We have trains,” he said, “composed of arbas with iron wheels; they run
upon long strips of iron, which are laid upon the ground for the wheels
to roll over.”

“Do the horses drag them very fast?” asked the Khivan.

“We do not use live horses, but we make a horse of iron and fill him with
water, and put fire under the water.  The water boils and turns into
steam.  The steam is very powerful; it rushes out of the horse’s stomach,
and turns large wheels which we give him instead of legs.  The wheels
revolve over the iron lines which we have previously laid down, and the
horse, which we call an engine, moves very quickly, dragging the arbas
behind him; they are made of wood and iron, and have four wheels, not
two, like your arbas in Khiva.  The pace is so great that if your Khan
had an iron horse and a railway, he could go to Kasala in one day.”

Next morning, after remunerating his host for his hospitality, Major
Burnaby proceeded towards the goal of his daring enterprise.  He passed
through the busy trading town of Oogentel, the first in Khivan territory
on the road from Kalenderhana, and, as an Englishman, attracted the
attention of the population.  This attention grew into wild excitement,
when he found his way to a barber, intent upon getting rid of a beard of
thirteen weeks’ growth.  In Oogentel the people shave their heads and not
their chins; so that the traveller’s desire to have his chin shaved,
instead of his head, begat an extraordinary sensation.  An increasing
crowd gathered round the barber’s shop; moullahs (or priests),
camel-drivers, and merchants jostling one another in their anxiety to
obtain good points of view, like the London populace on the Lord Mayor’s
Show day.  The thought occurred to Major Burnaby that this fanatical
Moslem multitude might not be displeased if the barber cut an
unbeliever’s throat, and it was not without a qualm he resigned himself
to his hands.  No such catastrophe happened, however; but the barber,
rendered nervous by the accumulated gaze of hundreds of eyes, let slip
the thin strip of steel which did duty for a razor, and inflicted a
slight wound on his customer’s cheek.  As no soap was used, and the
substitute for a razor was innocent of “edge,” the operation was
sufficiently disagreeable; and if the crowd were sorry, Major Burnaby was
heartily rejoiced when it came to an end and he was free to continue his
journey.

At nine versts from Oogentel he and his party crossed the canal of the
Shabbalat, and rode through a barren tract of sand until they arrived at
a cemetery.  The tombs were made of dried clay, and fashioned into the
strangest shapes; while over several of the larger floated banners or
white flags, from poles ten or twelve feet high, indicating the last
resting-place of some unknown and unchronicled hero.  _Multi fortes
vixerunt ante Agamemnona_; but they have found no bard to record their
deeds of prowess in immortal verse.  The Khivan warriors who fell in
defence of their wild father-land must sleep for ever in nameless graves.

At a village called Shamahoolhur, the traveller was received with true
Khivan hospitality.  His entertainer was a fair-looking man, with a
genial address and a hearty glance in his dark eyes, and appeared, from
his surroundings, to be possessed of considerable wealth.  He was a
sportsman, and kept several hawks; these birds being used in Khiva to fly
at the saigahs and hares.  The bird strikes his victim between its eyes
with a force which stuns or confuses it, so that it can make no
resistance or attempt at escape when the hounds seize it.

“Do you not hunt in this way in your country?” said the Khivan.

“No; we hunt foxes, but only with hounds, and we ourselves follow on
horseback.”

“Are your horses like our own?” he asked.

“No; they are most of them stouter built, have stronger shoulders, and
are better animals; but though they can gallop faster than your horses
for a short distance, I do not think they can last so long.”

“Which do you like best, your horse or your wife?” inquired the man.

“That depends upon the woman,” I replied; and the guide, here joining in
the conversation, said that in England they did not buy or sell their
wives, and that I was not a married man.

“What! you have not got a wife?”

“No; how could I travel if I had one?”

“Why, you might leave her behind, and lock her up, as our merchants do
with their wives when they go on a journey!”

The next morning Major Burnaby encountered on the road the messenger he
had despatched to Khiva.  He was accompanied by two Khivan noblemen, one
of whom courteously saluted the English traveller, and explained that the
Khan had sent him to escort him into the city, and bid him welcome.

They rapidly approached the capital, and above its belt of trees could
see its glittering crown of minarets and domes.  The landscape round
about it was very pleasant to see, with its leafy groves, its walled
orchards, and its avenues of mulberry trees; and recalled to the
traveller’s mind the descriptions which figure in the pages of Oriental
story-tellers.  A swift ride brought the party to the gates of Khiva.
The city is built in an oblong form, and surrounded by two walls; of
which the outer is not less than fifty feet in height, and constructed of
baked bricks, with the upper part of dried clay.  This forms the first
line of defence.  At a quarter of a mile within it rises the second wall,
somewhat lower than the first, and protected by a dry ditch.  It
immediately surrounds the tower.  The space between the two walls is used
as a market, and high above the throng of vendors and buyers, and the
press of cattle, horses, sheep, and camels, rises the cross-beam of the
ghastly gallows, on which all people convicted of theft are executed.

But as we have already spoken of this now famous city, we must confine
ourselves in these pages to Major Burnaby’s individual adventures.
Lodging was provided for him in the house of his escort, and directly on
his entry he was served with refreshments.  Afterwards he was conducted
to the bath.  In the evening a succession of visitors arrived; and it was
late when the Major was at liberty to seek repose.

II.

In the afternoon of the following day two officials arrived from the
Khan, with an escort of six men on horseback and four on foot, to conduct
the English officer to the palace.  Mounting his horse, he rode forth,
preceded by the six horsemen, and with an official on either side; the
rear being brought up by Nazar, with some attendants on foot, who lashed
out freely with their long whips when the staring crowd drew
inconveniently near the _cortége_.  Fresh sightseers arrived every
moment, for the name of England exercises a charm and a power in Khiva,
where people are never weary of talking of the nation which holds in fee
the gorgeous Indian empire, and is regarded as the rival and inevitable
foe of the White Czar.  The very housetops were lined with curious eyes.
Through the hum and din of voices the Englishman proceeded to the Khan’s
residence; a large building, with pillars and domes reflecting the sun’s
rays from their bright glazed tiles.  At the gates stood a guard of
thirty or forty men with flashing scimitars.  The company passed into a
small courtyard, from which a door opened into a low passage, and this
led to some squalid corridors, terminating in a large square room, where
was seated the treasurer, with three moullahs, busily engaged in counting
up his money.  He made a sign to the attendants, and a large wooden box
was at once pushed forward, and offered to Major Burnaby as a seat.  An
interval of fifteen minutes, as the playwrights say, followed.  Then a
messenger entered the room, and announced that the Khan was at liberty to
receive the stranger.  Away through a long corridor, and across an inner
courtyard, to the reception-hall—a large dome-shaped tent or kibitka.  A
curtain was drawn aside, and the Englishman found himself face to face
with the celebrated Khan.

The portrait he draws of the Khivan potentate differs in some particulars
from that drawn by Mr. MacGahan (see p. 283):—“He is taller than the
average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is
strongly built.  His face is of a broad massive type; he has a low square
forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose, with dilated nostrils,
and a coal-black beard and moustache.  An enormous mouth, with irregular
but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at
all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face,
must complete the picture.  He did not look more than eight and twenty,
and had a pleasant genial smile, and a merry twinkle in his eye, very
unusual amongst Orientals; in fact, a Spanish expression would describe
him better than any English one I can think of.  He is _muy simpatico_. . . .
The Khan was dressed in a similar sort of costume to that generally
worn by his subjects, but it was made of much richer materials, and a
jewelled sword was lying by his feet.  His head was covered by a tall
black Astrakhan hat, of a sugar-loaf shape.”

Tea having been served in a small porcelain cup, the Khan entered into
conversation with his visitor, through the medium of Nazar, a Kirghiz
interpreter, and a moullah.  At first it turned upon the relations
existing between England and Russia, the Crimean War, the Indian
Government, and other branches of _la haute politique_; the Khan
displaying a quick and clear intelligence.  At last he said—

“You do not have a Khan at the head of affairs?”

“No,” replied Burnaby, “a Queen; and her Majesty is advised as to her
policy by her ministers, who for the time being are supposed to represent
the opinion of the country.”

“And does that opinion change?”

“Very frequently; and since your country was conquered we have had a
fresh Government, whose policy is diametrically opposite to that held by
the previous one; and in a few years’ time we shall have another change,
for in our country, as the people advance in knowledge and wealth, they
require fresh laws and privileges.  The result of this is, they choose a
different set of people to represent them;” and the Major entered on a
brief exposition of constitutional principles, which to the Khan must
surely have been unintelligible.

“Can your Queen have a subject’s head cut off?”

“No, not without a trial before our judges.”

“Then she never has their throats cut?” [the Khivan punishment for
murder].

“No.”

“Hindostan is a very wonderful country,” continued the Khan; “the envoy I
sent there a few years ago {359} has told me of your railroads and
telegraphs; but the Russians have railroads, too.”

“Yes,” replied Burnaby; “we lent them money, and our engineers have
helped to make them.”

“Do the Russians pay you for this?” he inquired.

“Yes; so far they have behaved very honourably.”

“Are there not Jews in your country like some of the Jews at Bokhara?”

“One of the richest men in England is a Jew.”

“The Russians do not take away the money from the Jews?”

“No.”

Here the Khan said a few words to his treasurer, and then remarked, in
allusion to the tribute he pays to Russia annually:—“Why do they take
money from me, then?  The Russians love money very much.”  As he said
this, he shook his head sorrowfully at the treasurer; and the latter,
assuming a dolorous expression, poured out with a pitiful accent the
monosyllable “Hum!” which, in Khivan language, seems to convey as
pregnant a meaning as Lord Burleigh’s shake of the head in “The Critic.”

With a low bow from the Khan, the interview terminated.

On the following day Major Burnaby visited the Khan’s gardens, which lie
about three-quarters of a mile from the town.  They are five in number,
surrounded by high walls of sun-dried clay, and each from four to five
acres in extent.  Entering one of them, our traveller discovered that it
was neatly laid out and trimly kept.  The fruit trees, arranged in long
avenues, were carefully cut and pruned; apple, pear, and cherry trees
abounded.  In the spring melons are grown on a large scale; and in the
summer trellis-work arbours of vines, loaded with grapes, afford a
delightful shelter from the sun’s fierce glare.  In a small summer-palace
here, the Khan holds his court in June and July, and on a raised stone
daïs outside sits to administer justice.

Returning to Khiva, Burnaby visited the prison and the principal
school—the invariable accompaniments of civilization, however imperfect.
But may we not hope that, some day, the school will destroy the gaol, and
relieve civilization from the reproach of barbarism that still attaches
to it?  Meanwhile, Nazar was preparing for the Major’s contemplated
expedition to Bokhara, his tour to Merv and Meshed, and his journey from
Persia into India, and so back to England.  It was the 27th of January,
and he had determined to spend only one more day in Khiva.  But his plans
were upset by an unexpected incident.  On the morning of the 28th, just
after his return from a ride through the market, he was “interviewed” by
two strangers, who presented him with a letter from the commandant of
Petro-Alexandrovsky, the Russian fort he had so determinedly avoided.  It
was to the effect that a telegram, which had been forwarded _viâ_
Tashkent, awaited him at the fort, whither he must be pleased to repair
to receive it.  How or why any person should consider him of importance
enough to despatch a telegram so many thousands of miles, and should go
to the expense a sending it from Tashkent where the telegraph ends, to
Khiva, a distance of nine hundred miles, by couriers with relays of
horses, Burnaby could not understand.  But there was no help for it.  He
must hasten to Petro-Alexandrovsky, where he did not want to go, and
abandon his trip to Bokhara and Merv, where he very much wished to go.
So he paid a visit to the bazar, and afterwards took leave of the Khan,
who bestowed upon him the honourable gift of a khalat, or dressing-gown,
and on the 29th bade adieu to Khiva.

He reached Petro-Alexandrovsky on the second day, and found that the
important telegram which had travelled so far was one from the Duke of
Cambridge, Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, requiring his immediate
return to European Russia.  He found also that the Russian Government had
given orders for his return by the shortest route to Kasala.  All hope of
further exploration and adventure in Central Asia had to be abandoned.
Before leaving Petro-Alexandrovsky, the disappointed traveller had an
opportunity of accompanying a coursing party, and sharing in a day’s
novel sport.  There were horses and men of all kinds and shapes,
Russians, Bokharans, Kirghiz, short-legged men on giant steeds, and
long-legged men on short-legged horses.  A short colonel, said to be well
versed in the pastime, acted as master of the hunt.  Behind him were led
seven or eight greyhounds in couples; while a stalwart Khivan bore on his
elbow a hooded falcon, graceful enough to have figured in Mr. Tennyson’s
poetical little drama.  Amid a storm of cries and shouts and yells, the
hunters rode forward at a rattling pace, crossing a flat open country,
intersected by a ditch or two; until, after an eight miles’ run, they
arrived at the cover, a narrow tract of bush and bramble-covered ground
stretching down to the bank of the frozen Oxus.  Forming in a line, at a
distance of twenty yards from one another, the horsemen rode through bush
and bramble.  A sharp yell from a Kirghiz, and after a startled hare,
which had left its covert, dashed Russians, Bokharans, Englishman, and
hounds.  On they went, down the slippery river bank, across the shining
ice, towards a dense bit of copse, where it looked as if poor puss might
find an asylum from her pursuers.  But at this moment the falcon was
launched into the air.  A swift swooping flight, and whir of wings, and
in a second it was perched on its victim’s back, while around it gathered
the well-trained dogs, with open mouths and lolling tongues, not daring
to approach the quarry.  The master galloped up, seized the prize, and in
a few minutes more the hunt was resumed; nor did the horsemen turn their
faces homeward until five hares had rewarded their chivalrous efforts.

In company with two Russian officers, and an escort of ten Cossacks,
Major Burnaby, after a pleasant sojourn at Petro-Alexandrovsky, set out
on his return to Kasala.  As the weather was warmer, and the snow had
begun to melt, the three officers travelled in a tarantass, drawn by six
Kirghiz horses; the said tarantass closely resembling a hansom cab which,
after its wheels have been removed, has been fastened in a brewer’s dray.
It has no springs, and it runs upon small but solid wooden wheels.  They
had gone but a few miles before they came again into a land of snow; the
horses had to be taken out, and a couple of camels substituted.  At night
they bivouacked, resuming their journey before daybreak.  It was a
picturesque sight:—“First, the Cossacks, the barrels of their carbines
gleaming in the moonlight, the vashlik of a conical shape surmounting
each man’s low cap, and giving a ghastly appearance to the riders.  Their
distorted shadows were reflected on the snow beneath, and appeared like a
detachment of gigantic phantoms pursuing our little force.  Then the
tarantass, drawn by two large camels, which slowly ploughed their way
through the heavy track, the driver nodding on his box but half awake,
the two officers in the arms of Morpheus inside, and the heavy woodwork
creaking at each stride of the enormous quadrupeds.  In the wake of this
vehicle strode the baggage camels.  The officers’ servants were fast
asleep on the backs of their animals, one man lying with his face to the
tail, and snoring hard in spite of the continued movement; another fellow
lay stretched across his saddle, apparently a good deal the worse for
drink.  He shouted out at intervals the strains of a Bacchanalian ditty.
Nazar, who was always hungry, could be seen walking in the rear.  He had
kept back a bone from the evening meal, and was gnawing it like a dog,
his strong jaws snapping as they closed on the fibrous mutton.  I
generally remained by our bivouac fire an hour or so after the rest of
the party had marched, and seated by the side of the glowing embers,
watched the caravan as it vanished slowly in the distance.”

At mid-day, on the 12th of February, Burnaby and his companions galloped
across the frozen highway of the Syr-Daria, and into the streets of
Kasala, having ridden three hundred and seventy one miles in exactly nine
days and two hours.  He remained at Kasala for a few days, endeavouring
to obtain permission to return to European Russia _viâ_ Western Siberia;
but his application failed, and he was informed that the authorization he
had received to travel in Russian Asia had been cancelled.  There was
nothing to be done, therefore, but to complete the necessary preparations
for his journey to Orenburg.  A sleigh was hired, and amid a chorus of
farewells from his Russian acquaintances, who showed themselves more
friendly than their Government, he started on his homeward route, having
undergone some novel experiences, and seen Khiva, but gathered no
information of any value to geographers or men of science.  In fact, the
chief interest attaching to Major Burnaby’s expedition is personal: it
shows that he was a man of much energy, resolution, and perseverance, and
he may fairly be complimented on the good use he made of these qualities
in his bold but unsuccessful Ride to Khiva. {364}

SIR SAMUEL BAKER,
AND THE SOURCES OF THE NILE.

I.

OF late years the Lake Regions of Central Africa have offered a fertile
and attractive field to the explorer.  The interest of the public in
African discovery, which had for some time been dormant, was revived in
1849, by the achievements of Dr. Livingstone, who, starting from the
south, crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and penetrated to the shores of
Lake Ngami.  In 1853 to 1856 the same great traveller traced the course
of the river Leeambye or Zambési, and traversed the entire breadth of the
“black continent” from Angola on the west coast to Zanzibar on the east.
In 1865 he resumed his labours, striking into the very heart of Africa,
with the view of tracing out the Sources of the Nile, and entering into a
fertile country, the resources of which he found to be capable of immense
development.  For the first two or three years of his absence his letters
and despatches reached England with some degree of regularity, but at
length a veil of silence fell across his path, and it began to be feared
that he, like other explorers, had fallen a victim to his enthusiasm.  An
expedition in search of the missing traveller was equipped by Mr. Gordon
Bennett, proprietor of the _New York Herald_, in 1871, and placed in
charge of Mr. Henry M. Stanley, who had the good fortune to find
Livingstone at Ujiji, near Unyanyembé, on the 10th of November.  He
remained with him until the 14th of March, 1872, when he returned to
England with his diary and other documents.  Dr. Livingstone at this time
reported that, in his belief, the Nile springs up about six hundred miles
to the south of the southernmost point of Lake Victoria Nyanza.  In
November, 1872, a relief or auxiliary expedition, under Lieutenant V.
Lovett Cameron, started from Zanzibar; but in October, 1873, while at
Unyanyembé, its leader received the intelligence of Livingstone’s death,
which had taken place at Ujiji, and soon afterwards the corpse arrived in
charge of his faithful followers.  Cameron then took up the work of
exploration, and in spite of immense difficulties, great mental and
physical suffering, and obstacles of every kind, he made his way to Lake
Tanganyika, thence to Nyangwé, and after identifying the Lualaba with the
Kongo, struck to the southward, and passing through regions hitherto
unexplored, struck the west coast at Benguela.  As a result of his
observations, Lieutenant Cameron thus sketches the river system of
Africa:—

“The basin of the Nile is probably bounded on the south-west by the
watershed reached by Dr. Schweinfurth; on the south of the Albert Nyanza,
by the high lands between that lake and the Tanganyika, whence the
watershed pursues a tortuous course to Unyanyembé (where, I believe, the
basins of the Nile, Kongo, and Lufiji approach each other), and then
follows a wave of high land running east till it turns up northwards
along the landward slopes of the mountains dividing the littoral from the
interior.  Passing by Mounts Kilima Njaro and Kenia, it extends to the
mountains of Abyssinia, where the sources of the Blue Nile were
discovered by Bruce [1770], and so on to the parched plains bordering the
Red Sea, where no rains ever fall.  The western boundary of the Nile
basin is, of course, the eastern portion of the desert.

“The basins of the Niger and the Ogowai cannot yet be defined with any
degree of exactitude, and the northern boundary of the basin of the Kongo
has still to be traced.

“The Zambési drains that portion of the continent south of the Kongo
system, and north of the Kalahari desert and the Limpopo, the northern
boundary of the Transvaal Republic; some of its affluents reaching to
within two hundred and fifty miles of the west coast.

“The mighty Kongo, king of all the African rivers, and second only to the
Amazon (and perhaps to the Yang-tse-Kiang) in the volume of its waters,
occupies a belt of the continent lying on both sides of the equator, but
most probably the larger area belongs to the southern hemisphere.  Many
of its affluents fork into those of the Zambési on a level tableland,
where the watershed is so tortuous that it is hard to trace it, and
where, during the rainy season, floods extend right across between the
head-waters of the two streams.

“The Kelli, discovered by Dr. Schweinfurth, may possibly prove to be the
Lowa, reported to me as a large affluent of the Lualaba [or Kongo] to the
west of Nyangwé; or, if not an affluent of the Lualaba, it most probably
flows either to the Ogowai or the Tchadda, an affluent of the Niger.”

In 1874 another expedition of discovery was fitted out, at the joint
expense of the proprietors of the London _Daily Telegraph_ and the _New
York Herald_, and Mr. H. M. Stanley was appointed to the command.  In
1875 he reached Lake Victoria Nyanza, and through the good offices of
Mtesa, King of Uganda, obtained a flotilla of canoes, with which he
circumnavigated the lake.  It proved to be the largest basin of fresh
water in the world, occupying the immense area of sixty thousand square
miles.  Mr. Stanley next pushed on to Lake Albert Nyanza; afterwards
circumnavigated the northern half of Lake Tanganyika; struck westward to
the Lualaba at Nyangwé (1876), and thence descended the Lualaba as far as
the Isangila Falls (June, 1877), whence he crossed the country to
Kalinda, on the west coast.

But we must now return to 1857, when Captains Burton and Speke, under the
auspices of the Royal Geographical Society of London, started from
Zanzibar to explore the inland lacustrine region; and discovered, to the
south of the equator, Lake Tanganyika, which they partially explored in a
couple of canoes.  Captain Burton being taken ill, Speke pushed on to the
north alone, and discovered the immense basin now known as the Victoria
Nyanza, which he immediately conceived to be the great reservoir and
head-waters of the Nile.  To ascertain the truth of this supposition, he
started again from the east coast in October, 1860, accompanied by
Captain Grant; crossed the great equatorial table-land of the interior;
reached the Victoria Nyanza; skirted its shores until they discovered its
main outlet, which proved to be the Nile, and then traced the course of
the famous river to Gondokoro, whence, by way of Assouan, Thebes, and
Cairo, they proceeded to Alexandria.  Their well-directed energy had to a
great extent solved the geographical problem of ages, and dispelled the
cloud-land in which the Nile springs had so long been hidden:—

    “The mystery of old Nile was solved; brave men
       Had through the lion-haunted inland past,
    Dared all the perils of desert, gorge, and glen,
       Found the far Source at last.”

With heroic patience they had accomplished on foot their journey of
thirteen hundred miles, and shown that the parent stream of the Nile,
even in its earliest course a considerable river, was fed by the vast
reservoir of the “Victorian Sea.”  What remained to be discovered was the
feeders of this vast basin, and which among them was indeed the primary
source of the Nile.  Some fresher light was thrown on the subject by Sir
Samuel Baker, {369} who, with his wife, underwent some remarkable
experiences in Central Africa, and earned a right to be included among
our Heroes of Travel.  Let us now follow him “through scorching deserts
and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle and interminable morass;
through difficulties, fatigues, and sickness,” until we stand with him on
that high cliff where the great prize burst upon his view, and he saw
before him one of the chief sources of the Nile in the Luta N’zige, or
Albert Lake.

Accompanied by his courageous and devoted wife, who insisted upon sharing
his labours and his perils, he sailed up the Nile from Cairo on the 15th
of April, 1861.  In twenty-six days they arrived at Kousko, whence they
crossed the Nubian desert, so as to cut off the western bend of the
river, touching it again at Aboù Hamed.  Eight days more and they reached
Berber, where they remained until the 11th of June.  A year was spent in
exploring the Abyssinian frontier and the Abyssinian tributaries of the
Nile; and the travellers made their appearance at Khartûm on the 11th of
June, 1862.  Khartûm is a densely populated, unclean, and pestiferous
town, in lat. 15° 29′, at the junction point of the White and Blue Nile;
it is the capital of the Soudan, and the seat of a governor-general.
Twenty years ago it was also the centre of a cruel and desolating
slave-trade, but the exertions of Sir Samuel Baker and Colonel Gordon
have done much to lessen its proportions.

Having engaged a Nile boat, or dahabeeyah, and two larger noggens or
sailing barges, with an escort of forty armed men, and forty sailors, and
accumulated four months’ supplies of provisions, Sir Samuel set sail from
Khartûm on the 18th of December, 1862.  On Christmas Day he was slowly
ascending the river, the banks of which were fringed with immense
forests.  These trees are the soont (_Acacia Arabica_), which produce an
excellent tannin; the fruit is used for that purpose, and yields a rich
brown dye.  The straight smooth trunks are thirty-five feet high, and
about eighteen inches in diameter.  When in full foliage they look well
from a distance, but on a closer approach the forest is seen to be a
desolate swamp, completely overflowed; “a mass of fallen dead trees
protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary crane perched here and
there upon the rotten boughs; floating water-plants massed together, and
forming green swimming islands, hitched generally among the sunken trunks
and branches; sometimes slowly descending with the sluggish stream,
bearing, spectre-like, storks thus voyaging on nature’s rafts to freer
lands unknown.”  This kind of scenery—depressing enough, no
doubt—continues for a considerable distance, and so long as it lasts
deprives the Nile of that romance with which it has been invested by the
imagination of poets.  There is neither beauty nor interest in it; and
one is surprised to see the low flat banks studded with populous
villages.  The flooded plains, however, afford abundant pasture for the
herds of the Shillooks, who in their choice of a locality are governed by
considerations of utility, and not by the principles of æstheticism.

The junction of the Sobat takes place in lat. 9° 21′.  This tributary, at
the point of confluence, is a hundred and twenty yards broad, and flows
at the rate of two miles and a half per hour.  Still the Nile valley
presents the same characteristics—broad tracts of marsh and grasses;
dull, monotonous levels, unrelieved by any vividness of colour.  After
receiving the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the White Nile turns abruptly to the
south-east, and winds upward through a flat country, which, in the rainy
season, is resolved into a system of extensive lakes.  Its highway is
half choked with floating vegetation, which nurtures innumerable clouds
of mosquitoes.  The people on its banks belong to the Nuehr tribe; the
women pierce the upper lip, and wear an ornament about four inches long,
of beads upon a iron wire, which projects like the horn of a rhinoceros.
The men are both tall and robust, and armed with lances.  They carry
pipes that will hold nearly a quarter of a pound of tobacco; when the
supply of “the weed” fails, they substitute charcoal.

The monotony of the voyage was broken one day by the appearance of a
hippopotamus close to Sir Samuel’s boat.  He was about half grown, and in
an instant a score of men jumped into the water to seize him.  The
captain caught him by the hind-leg; and then the crowd rushed in, and,
with ropes thrown from the vessel, slipped nooses over his head.  A grand
struggle ensued, but as it seemed likely to result in a victory for the
hippopotamus, Sir Samuel slew him with a rifle ball.  The Arab seamen,
who have an extraordinary appetite, like the old school-men, for the most
trivial arguments, observing that the animal had been “bullied” and
scarred by some other and stronger hippopotamus, plunged into a fierce
contention on the point whether he had been misused by his father or his
mother.  As they could not agree, they referred the question to the
arbitration of Sir Samuel, who pacified both parties by the felicitous
suggestion that perhaps it was his uncle!  They set to work at once with
willing vigour to cut up the ill-treated hippopotamus, which proved to be
as fat as butter, and made most excellent soup.

Continuing their “up-river” course, the voyagers came to the country of
the Kegtah tribe.  Such savages as they saw were equally uncivilized and
emaciated.  The young women wore no clothing, except a small piece of
dressed hide across the shoulders; the men, instead of the hide, assumed
a leopard-skin.  There was greater appearance of intelligence in the
termites, or white ant, than in these poor half-starved wretches.  The
white-ant hills here rise like castle-towers above the water of the
marshes.  Their inmates build them ten feet high in the dry season, and
when the rains come, live high and dry in the upper stories.  Humanity,
meanwhile, sickens in the stagnant swamp, and lingers out a miserable
existence.  The Bohr and Aliab tribes are a degree higher in the scale of
civilization, but the Shir go beyond them.  They are armed with well-made
ebony clubs, two lances, a bow and arrows; they carry upon their backs a
neatly made miniature stool, along with an immense pipe.  The females are
not absolutely naked; they wear small lappets of tanned leather as broad
as the hand; at the back of the belt which supports this apron is a tail,
depending to the lower portions of the thighs—a tail of finely cut strips
of leather, which has probably given rise to the Arab report that a tribe
in Central Africa had tails like horses.  The huts here, and all along
the Nile, are circular, with entrances so low that the inmates creep in
and out on hands and knees.  The men decorate their heads with tufts of
cock’s feathers; their favourite attitude, when standing, is on one leg,
while leaning on a spear, the uplifted leg reposing on the inside of the
other knee.

All the White Nile tribes are quick to collect their harvest of the
lotus, or water-lily, seed, which they grind into flour, and make into a
kind of porridge.  The seed-pod of the white lotus resembles an unblown
artichoke, and contains a number of light red grains about the size of
the mustard-seed, but in shape like those of the poppy, and like them in
flavour.  The ripe pods are strung upon reeds about four feet long,
formed into large bundles, and carried from the river to the villages, to
be dried in the sun, and stored away until wanted.

The 1st of February was a “white day” in the voyagers’ calendar, for on
that day the scenery of the river underwent a welcome improvement.  The
marshes gave place to dry ground; the well-wooded banks rose four feet
above the water level; the thickly populated country bloomed like an
orchard.  At Gondokoro the picture was fresh and pleasant, with a distant
view of high mountains, and neat villages nestling under the shade of
evergreen trees.  Gondokoro is not a town, but merely a station of the
ivory traders, and for ten months of the year is almost a solitude.  Its
climate is hot and unhealthy.  Sir Samuel Baker did not meet with a
friendly reception.  The men who profited by the slave-trade regarded him
with suspicion; they believed he had come to watch their doings, and
report them to the world.  Their hostility, however, did not disturb his
composure, and he amused himself in riding about the neighbourhood, and
studying the place and its inhabitants.  He admired the exquisite
cleanliness of the native dwellings, which almost rose to the standard of
the famous village of Brock.  Each house was enclosed by a hedge of the
impenetrable euphorbia, and the area within was neatly plastered with a
cement of ashes, cow-dung, and sand.  Upon this well-kept surface stood
one or more huts, surrounded by granaries of neat wicker-work, thatched,
resting upon raised platforms.  The huts are built with projecting roofs
for the sake of shade, and the entrance is not more than two feet high.
On the death of a member of the family, he is buried in the yard, his
resting-place being indicated by a pole crowned by a bunch of cock’s
feathers, and ornamented with a few ox-horns and skulls.  Each man
carries with him, wherever he goes, his weapons, pipe, and stool, the
whole (except the stool) being held between his legs when he is standing.
The Gondokoro natives belong to the Bari tribe: the men are well grown;
the women are not prepossessing, with good features, and no sign of negro
blood, except the woolly hair.  They tattoo themselves on stomach, sides,
and back, and anoint their persons with a peculiar red clay, abounding in
oxide of iron.  Their principal weapon is the bow and arrow; the arrow
they steep in the juice of euphorbia and other poisonous plants.

At the secret instigation of the slave-traders, Sir Samuel Baker’s escort
broke out into open mutiny, declaring that they had not meat enough, and
demanding leave to carry off the oxen of the natives.  The ringleader, an
Arab, was so violent that Sir Samuel ordered him to receive twenty-five
lashes.  The vakeel, Saati, advanced to seize him, when many of the men
rushed to his rescue; and Sir Samuel was compelled to interfere.  The
Arab then rushed at his employer; but Sir Samuel knocked him back into
the middle of the crowd, caught him by the throat, and called to the
vakeel for a rope to bind him; but in an instant all the mutineers sprang
forward to his assistance.  How the affair would have ended seems
doubtful; but as the fray took place within ten yards of the boat, Lady
Baker, who was ill with fever in the cabin, witnessed the whole of it,
and seeing her husband surrounded, rushed out, forced her way into the
middle of the crowd, and called on some of the least mutinous to assist.
For a moment the crowd wavered, and Sir Samuel seized the opportunity to
shout to the drummer-boy to beat the drum.  Immediately, the drum beat,
and in his loudest tones Sir Samuel ordered the men to “fall in.”  The
instinct of discipline prevailed: two-thirds of the men fell in, and
formed in line, while the others retreated with the ringleader, declaring
he was badly hurt.  Then Sir Samuel insisted upon their all forming in
line, and upon the ringleader being brought forward.  At this critical
moment, Lady Baker, with true feminine tact, implored her husband to
forgive the man if he kissed his hand and begged for pardon.  The men
were completely conquered by this generosity, and called on their
ringleader to apologize, and that all would be right.  Thus the affair
ended; but Sir Samuel rightly foresaw in it the promise of future
troubles.  According to the custom of the White Nile, the men had five
months’ wages in advance; he had therefore no control over them; yet he
and his wife were about to penetrate into the midst of a probably hostile
native population, with an escort on whose faithfulness no reliance could
be placed.

On the 15th of February, Captains Speke and Grant arrived at Gondokoro,
from the Victoria Nyanza, and the meeting between them and Sir Samuel was
necessarily very cordial.  The information they communicated had a
material effect upon his plans.  He found that they had been unable to
complete the actual exploration of the Nile—that a most important portion
remained to be determined.  It appears that in lat. 2° 17′ N. they had
crossed the Nile, after tracking it from the Victoria Lake; that the
river then turned suddenly to the west, and that they did not touch it
again until they arrived in lat. 3° 32′ N., when it was then flowing from
the west-south-west.  The natives, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had
assured them that the Nile from the Victoria Nyanza, which they had
crossed in lat. 2° 17′ N., flowed westward for several days’ journey, and
at length fell into a large lake called the Luta N’zige (“Dead Locust”);
that this lake came from the south, and that the Nile, on entering its
northern extremity, almost immediately made its exit, and as a navigable
river continued its course to the north through the Koshi and Madi
countries.  Circumstances prevented Speke and Grant from pushing their
explorations as far as the Luta N’zige; and the question that remained to
be answered was, What was the exact position of this lake in the basin of
the Nile? what was its relation to the great river?

This question Sir Samuel Baker resolved upon settling.  Speke and Grant
sailed from Gondokoro, homeward bound, on the 26th, and he immediately
began to prepare for his journey to the Luta N’zige.  His preparations
were delayed, however, by the mutinous conduct of his escort, and the
obstacles thrown in his path by the nefarious ivory-traders and
slave-hunters; and it was the 26th of March before he was able to effect
a start.  Then, with his escort reduced in number to fifteen men, with
two faithful servants, Richard and the boy Saat, and a heavily loaded
caravan of camels and donkeys, with Lady Baker mounted on a good strong
Abyssinian hunter, Tétel (“Hartebeest”), and Sir Samuel himself on his
horse Filfil (“Pepper”), and the British flag waving proudly above the
_cortége_, they left Gondokoro, and began their march into Central
Africa.

The country was park-like, but dried up by the hot weather.  The soil was
sandy, but firm, and numerous evergreen trees enlivened the landscape,
which was further animated by clusters of villages, each surrounded by a
fence of euphorbia.  It varied greatly in character as the travellers
advanced; sometimes presenting a magnificent forest, sometimes a dense
jungle, sometimes a labyrinth of ravines, through which the caravan made
its way with difficulty.  The view of the valley of Tollogo was
exceedingly picturesque.  An abrupt granite wall rose on the east side to
a height of about a thousand feet; from this perpendicular cliff huge
blocks had fallen, strewing the bottom with a confused mass of fragments,
among which the natives had built their village.  A slow stream wound its
way in the hollow, which was nowhere more than half a mile wide, in the
shade of numerous fig trees.  At Ellyria Sir Samuel narrowly escaped a
hostile encounter with an ivory-trader’s party, but through the firmness
and skilfulness of himself and his wife, not only was it avoided, but
friendly relations were established with its leader.  No supplies,
however, could be procured from the natives, whose character Sir Samuel
paints in the darkest colours.  Of the village of Wakkala he gives a
pleasant description.  The soil was very rich, and the ground being
protected from the burning sun by the large trees, there was a wealth of
luscious grass; while the good pasturage, the extensive forest, and a
plentiful supply of water insured a not less plentiful supply of wild
animals—antelopes in numerous varieties, rhinoceros, buffaloes,
elephants, and giraffes.  The next town was Latomé, where the traveller’s
presence of mind and courage were tested by another mutiny; but again he
succeeded in defeating the intentions of the insurgents, and reducing
them to obedience.

Along the foot of the Lafut mountains, which attain a general elevation
of six to seven thousand feet, the travellers pursued their way.
Desertions reduced their escort by five men, but they abated not their
high hopes or spirit of daring enterprise.  They duly arrived at
Tarangdlé, famous for its fine trees—the chief settlement of the
Latookas, a fine, frank, and warlike race, who resemble the Irish in
their readiness to join either in a feast or a fray.  The town contains
three thousand houses, each of which, as well as the town itself, is
protected by an iron-wood palisade.  The cattle are kept in large kraals,
and at various points high platforms are erected, where sentinels keep
watch and ward both day and night.  The cattle are the wealth of the
country, and so rich are the Latookas in them, that ten or twelve
thousand head are housed in every large town.  The natives are constantly
on guard to prevent the depredations of neighbouring tribes.

“The houses of the Latookas,” says Sir Samuel, “are generally
bell-shaped, while others are precisely like huge candle-extinguishers,
about twenty-five feet high.  The roofs are neatly thatched, at an angle
of about 75°, resting upon a circular wall about four feet high; thus the
roof forms a cap descending to within two feet and a half of the ground.
The doorway is only two feet and two inches high, thus an entrance must
be effected upon all-fours.  The interior is remarkably clean, but dark,
as the architects have no idea of windows.  It is a curious fact that the
circular form of hut is the only style of architecture adopted among all
the tribes of Central Africa, and also among the Arabs of Upper Egypt;
and that, although these differ more or less in the form of the roof, no
tribe has ever yet sufficiently advanced to construct a window.  The town
of Tarangdlé is arranged with several entrances, in the shape of low
archways through the palisades; these are closed at night by large
branches of the hooked thorn of the kittur bush (a species of mimosa).
The main street is broad, but all others are studiously arranged to admit
of only one cow, in single file, between high stockades; thus, in the
event of an attack, these narrow passages could be easily defended, and
it would be impossible to drive off their vast herds of cattle unless by
the main street.  The large cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in
various quarters in connection with the great road, and the entrance of
each kraal is a small archway in the strong iron-wood fence, sufficiently
wide to admit one ox at a time.  Suspended from the arch is a bell,
formed of the shell of the Oolape palm-nut, against which every animal
must strike either its horns or back, on entrance.  Every tinkle of the
bell announces the passage of an ox into the kraal, and they are thus
counted every evening when brought home from pasture.”

While at Latooka Sir Samuel was enabled to gratify his passion for the
chase, and his skill and prowess were rewarded by the capture of an
elephant.  There is a great difference, or rather, there are three great
differences between the African and the Asiatic elephant: the back of the
former is concave, that of the latter convex; the former has an enormous
ear, the latter a comparatively small one; the head of the former has a
convex front, while that of the latter exposes a flat surface a little
above the trunk.  The African animal is much larger than the Asiatic; and
while the latter seeks the forest depths during the day, and does not
wander forth upon the plains till towards evening, the former remains all
day in the vast open prairies, where the thick grass springs to a height
of twelve feet.  The African elephant feeds chiefly on the foliage of
trees; the Asiatic is an extensive grass feeder.

The natives hunt the elephant for the sake of the flesh and the tusks.
Sometimes he is caught in pitfalls; at other times, the grass of the
prairies is fired, and the elephants gradually driven back into a
confined area, where they are surrounded and speared to death.  Or,
should a number of elephants be in the neighbourhood of a village, about
a hundred men, armed with heavy-bladed lances, post themselves in as many
trees, while a multitude of natives gradually drive the animals towards
this ambush, when such as pass near enough are speared between the
shoulders.  The Bagara Arabs are famous elephant hunters.  Armed with
bamboo lances, tipped with a sharp iron head, two of them, mounted on
good horses, sally forth to secure a prize.  On coming in sight of a
herd, they single out the finest tusker and separate him from the others.
One man then leads the charge, and the animal, hotly pursued, turns
against the horse, which the rider so manages as to draw the elephant
further and further after him, while carefully keeping a safe distance
ahead.  The other man, meanwhile, is at the elephant’s heels, and
suddenly dismounting, while at full gallop, plunges his spear into its
body about two feet below the junction of the tail, driving it with all
his strength into the abdomen, and then withdrawing it.  If successful in
his thrust, he remounts his horse and escapes, or takes to flight on
foot, pursued by the elephant, until the attention of the latter is drawn
to his first assailant, who in his turn rides up, and inflicts a wound.
Sometimes the first wound proves fatal; sometimes the process is repeated
twice or thrice before the animal succumbs; and sometimes the elephant
overtakes his enemy, in which case the latter must expect no mercy.

On the 2nd of May, 1863, leaving five men in charge of his camp and
baggage, Sir Samuel started for Obbo, crossing the Kanisti river, and
travelling through a bold and romantic highland country.  He found the
vegetation of Obbo rich and various; the soil produced nine kinds of
yams, and many capital kinds of fruit.  Tobacco flourishes, and ground
nuts are plentiful.  As for the people, they attire themselves in the
skin of an antelope or goat, wearing it mantle-wise across their
shoulders; but when on the warpath, they paint their body with red and
yellow stripes.  Sir Samuel was received with all the honours by
Katchiba, the chief of Obbo, and entertained with a grand dance, in which
more vigour was displayed than elegance.  About a hundred men formed a
ring; each holding in his hand a small cup-shaped drum, formed of
hollowed wood, over the perforated end of which was lightly stretched the
skin of an elephant’s ear.  In the centre was placed the chief dancer,
wearing, suspended from his shoulders, an immense drum, also covered with
elephant’s ear.  The dance commenced with a wild but agreeable chorus,
the time being kept by the big drum, and the small _tympana_ striking in
at certain periods, with so much precision as to give the effect of a
single instrument.  The figures varied continually, and the whole
terminated with a “grand galop” in double circles, at a tremendous pace,
the inner ring revolving in a contrary direction to the outer.

Sir Samuel returned to Latooka, and collecting his baggage and escort,
started again for Obbo on the 13th of June.  Here he and his wife
remained for several months, waiting for a favourable opportunity to
resume their southward march.  Their quinine was exhausted, and
consequently they suffered much from fever.  Sir Samuel, in lieu of
horses, purchased and trained for their contemplated journey three robust
oxen, named respectively, “Beef,” “Steaks,” and “Suet.”  He also obtained
a supply of porters to carry his luggage, and arranged with Ibrahim, the
friendly trader, that he should accompany him to Unyoro with a guard of
one hundred men.  It was the 5th of January, 1864, before the expedition
started.  On the very first day, however, one of the oxen bolted; and Sir
Samuel was compelled to purchase another of one of the Turks at the price
of a double-barrelled gun.  Three days’ march through a beautiful country
brought them to the Asua river, in lat. 3° 12′ N.  Its bed was almost
dry.  On the 13th they arrived at Shooa.  This is characterized as a
lovely place.  A noble mountain of granite ascended in a sheer precipice
for about eight hundred feet from its base; perfectly abrupt on the
eastern side, the other parts were of gradual inclination, covered with
fine forest trees, and picturesquely studded with villages.  The
surrounding country, with its trees and rivulets and greensward, might
have been taken for an English park, but for the granite rocks that rose
at intervals like the gray ruins of ancient castles.

Shooa is a land of milk and honey.  The travellers found fowls, butter,
and goats abundant and ridiculously cheap; and as beads were highly
valued, they effected some good bargains.  The women flocked to see the
white lady, bringing her gifts of milk and flowers, and receiving beads
and bracelets in return.  They were gentle in manner, and evidently
anxious to establish friendly relations.  Sir Samuel was struck by the
superior cultivation of the country.  Large quantities of sesamum were
grown and carefully harvested, the crop being collected in oblong frames
about twenty feet long and twelve feet high.  These were inclined at an
angle of about 60°; the pods of the sesamum plants hanging on one facet,
so that the frames resembled enormous brushes.  When fully dried, the
crop was removed to the granaries, of which there were two kinds: the
wicker-work plastered over with cow-dung, supported on four posts, with a
thatched roof; and a simpler contrivance, which may be thus described:—A
stout pole, twenty feet long, was fixed upright in the earth, and, at
about four foot from the ground, a bundle of strong and long reeds was
tied tightly round it.  Round these reeds, at intervals, were fastened
hoop of wicker-work, until the structure assumed the shape of an inverted
umbrella half expanded.  When this is filled with grain, fresh reeds are
added, until the work has extended to within a few feet of the top of the
pole.  The whole is then crowned with a covering of reeds, securely
strapped, and resembles nothing in the world so much as one of those
cigars which slightly bulge in the middle.

At Shooa all Sir Samuel’s Obbo porters absconded, being afraid to enter
Kamrasi’s country, and he found so much difficulty in supplying their
places, that he resolved on leaving behind him every article that was not
absolutely indispensable.  How different an appearance his expedition
presented to that which it had worn on leaving Khartûm!  It was shorn of
all its “pride and circumstance;” but its leader remained as resolute and
as hopeful as ever, and started from Shooa on the 18th of January,
determined to press forward to the Luta N’zige.  After passing Fatiko, a
village perched like an eagle’s eyrie on a rocky table-land, he entered
upon a sea of prairies, an immense undulating expanse of verdure, dotted
with a few palms.  As his guide lost the road, Sir Samuel proposed to
clear the country to the south by firing the prairies, and a strangely
picturesque spectacle was the result.  In a few minutes the flames roared
before them, and waves upon waves of fire, and clouds upon clouds of
smoke, rolled away to the far horizon.  Flocks of buzzards and swarms of
beautiful fly-catchers thronged to the spot, to prey upon the innumerable
insects that endeavoured to escape from the approaching conflagration,
which continued to extend until arrested by a reedy swamp.

On the 22nd, the expedition reached the Victoria White Nile, or, as it is
sometimes called, the Somerset river, and proceeded through the
magnificent forest that crowned its bank to the Karuma Falls.  The river
here was about a hundred and fifty yards wide, and flowed between lofty
cliffs, which were green with vines, bananas, and palms.  The falls,
however, are very insignificant, not exceeding five feet in height.  Just
above them is a ferry, and Sir Samuel and Lady Baker crossing by it,
found themselves in Unyoro, King Kamrasi’s country, and in his town or
village of Atado.  Speke and Grant had left behind them pleasant
memories, so that Baker, as their friend and countryman, received a
hearty welcome.  A large hut was placed at the disposal of his wife and
himself, and in exchange for fresh beef—Sir Samuel ordering an ox to be
killed for the purpose—the natives furnished liberal quantities of flour,
beans, and sweet potatoes.  A brisk market was quickly set going, and
whole rows of girls and women arrived, bringing baskets filled with the
desired provisions.  The women, we are told, were neatly dressed in short
double-skirted petticoats: many had the bosom bare: others wore a piece
of bark-cloth, plaid-wise, across chest and shoulders.  Bark-cloth, which
is exclusively used throughout Equatorial Africa, is the produce of a
kind of fig tree.  The bark is stripped off in large pieces, soaked in
water, and beaten with a mallet.  In appearance it much resembles
corduroy, in colour tanned leather; the finer qualities are peculiarly
soft to the touch, like woven cotton.

The travellers were struck by the difference between the Unyoro people
and the tribes they had previously seen.  On the north side of the Nile
the natives were either wholly naked, or wore only a piece of skin across
their shoulders.  The river seemed to mark the limit or _ne plus ultra_
of savagedom, for the inhabitants of Unyoro shrank like Europeans from
the indecency and shame of nakedness.  Their higher civilization was
shown also by their manufactures: their smiths were very skilful, and
used iron hammers instead of stone; they converted into fine wire the
thick brass and copper wire which they received from Zanzibar; and their
pottery showed a certain degree of taste in conception.

“The natives,” writes Sir Samuel, “are particularly neat in all they do;
they never bring anything to sell unless carefully packed in the neatest
parcels, generally formed of the bark of the plantain, and sometimes of
the inner portions of reeds stripped into snow-white stalks, which are
bound round the parcels with the utmost care.  Should the plantain cider,
‘marossa,’ be brought in a jar, the mouth is neatly covered with a
finger-like mat of these clean white rushes split into shreds.  Not even
tobacco is brought for sale unless most carefully packed.  During a
journey, a pretty, bottle-shaped, long-necked gourd is carried, with a
store of plantain cider; the mouth of the bottle is stopped with a bundle
of the white rush shreds, through which a reed is inserted that reaches
to the bottom; thus the drink can be sucked up during the march without
the necessity of halting; nor is it possible to spill it by the movement
of walking.

“The natives,” he adds, “prepare the skins of goats very beautifully,
making them as soft as chamois leather; these they cut into squares, and
sew them together as neatly as would be effected by a European tailor,
converting them into mantles, which are prized far more highly than
bark-cloth, on account of their durability.  They manufacture their own
needles, not by boring the eye, but by sharpening the end into a fine
point, and turning it over, the extremity being hammered into a small cut
in the body of the needle to prevent it from catching.”

The arrival of Sir Samuel Baker being made known to Kamrasi, he requested
him to pay a visit to his capital, and sent a legion of porters to carry
his baggage.  Lady Baker suffered much from illness on the journey, which
she performed in a litter; and Sir Samuel was also attacked by a
debilitating fever.  His first interview with “the king” took place on
the 10th of February.  He describes him as a fine-looking man, whose
extremely prominent eyes gave a peculiar expression to his countenance;
about six feet high; and dressed in a long robe of bark-cloth, draped in
graceful folds.  The nails of his hands and feet were carefully tended,
and his complexion was about as dark a brown as that of an Abyssinian.
He sat upon a copper stool, with a leopard-skin carpet spread around him,
and was attended by about ten of his principal chiefs.  Of his character
as a man Sir Samuel Baker speaks in the most unflattering terms; he was
grasping, mean, mendacious, and a coward.  After some delay, and by dint
of repeated bribes, Sir Samuel obtained from him a supply of natives to
carry the baggage to the lake, where canoes were to be provided for the
voyage to Magango, a village situated at the junction of the Somerset
river.  He went to take leave of the royal savage, and was astonished by
the insolent demand that Lady Baker should be left with him!  Sir Samuel
drew his revolver; Lady Baker broke out into invectives in Arabic, which
the woman, Bachuta, translated as nearly as she could, and with indignant
emphasis, into the language of Unyoro; in short, “a scene” ensued!
Kamrasi was completely cowed, and faltered out, “Don’t be angry!  I had
no intention of offending you by asking for your wife; I will give you a
wife, if you want one, and I thought you might have no objection to give
me yours; it is my custom to give my visitors pretty wives, and I thought
you might exchange.  Don’t make it fuss about it: if you don’t like it,
there’s an end of it; I will never mention it again.”  Sir Samuel
received the apology very sternly, and insisted upon starting.  Kamrasi
did not feel in a position to interpose any further delay, and the march
to the lake began.

On the road a very painful incident occurred.  The expedition had reached
Uafour river, which ran through the centre of a marsh, and, although
deep, was so thickly covered with matted and tangled water grass and
other aquatic plants, that a natural floating bridge, some two feet in
thickness, was available for crossing.  The men passed it quickly,
sinking merely to the ankles, though beneath the tough vegetation was
deep water.  It was equally impossible to ride or be carried over this
fickle surface; Sir Samuel therefore led the way, and begged his wife to
follow on foot as quickly as possible, keeping exactly in his track.  The
river was about eighty yards wide, and Sir Samuel had scarcely
accomplished a fourth of the distance, when, looking back, he was
horrified to see her standing in one spot, and sinking gradually through
the weeds, while her face was distorted and perfectly purple.  She fell,
as if stricken dead.  Her husband was immediately by her side, and, with
the help of some of his men, dragged her through the yielding vegetation,
across to the other side.  There she was tenderly laid beneath a tree,
and her husband bathed her head and face with water, thinking she had
fainted.  But he soon perceived that she was suffering from a sunstroke;
and, removing her to a miserable hut close at hand, he watched anxiously
for some sign of returning consciousness.  We shall quote his own words
in all their pathetic simplicity:

“There was nothing to eat in this spot.  My wife had never stirred since
she fell by the _coup de soleil_, and merely respired about five times a
minute.  It was impossible to remain; the people would have starved.  She
was laid gently upon her litter, and we started forward on our funeral
course.  I was ill and broken-hearted, and I followed by her side through
the long day’s march over wild park lands and streams, with thick forest
and deep marshy bottoms; over undulating hills, and through valleys of
tall papyrus rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our melancholy
way, waved over the litter like the black plumes of a hearse.  We halted
at a village, and again the night was passed in watching.  I was wet, and
coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered with ague; but the
cold within was greater than all.  No change had taken place; she had
never moved.  I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls of about half a
pound, each of which would burn for three hours.  A piece of a broken
water-jar formed a lamp, several pieces of rag serving for wicks.  So in
solitude the still calm night passed away as I sat by her side and
watched.  In the drawn and distorted features that lay before me I could
hardly trace the same form that for years had been my comfort through all
the difficulties and dangers of my path.  Was she to die?  Was so
terrible a sacrifice to be the result of my selfish exile?

“Again the night passed away.  Once more the march.  Though weak and ill,
and for two nights without a moment’s sleep, I felt no fatigue, but
mechanically followed by the side of the litter as though in a dream.
The same wild country diversified with marsh and forest.  Again we
halted.  The night came, and I sat by her side in a miserable hut, with
the feeble lamp flickering while she lay, as in death.  She had never
moved a muscle since she fell.  My people slept.  I was alone, and no
sound broke the stillness of the night.  The ears ached at the utter
silence, till the sudden wild cry of a hyæna made me shudder as the
horrible thought rushed through my brain, that, should she be buried in
this lonely spot, the hyæna would . . . disturb her rest.

“The morning was not far distant; it was past four o’clock.  I had passed
the night in replacing wet cloths upon her head, and moistening her lips,
as she lay apparently lifeless on her litter.  I could do nothing more;
in solitude and abject misery in that dark hour, in a country of savage
heathens, thousands of miles away from a Christian land, I beseeched an
aid above all human, trusting alone to Him.

“The morning broke; my lamp had just burnt out, and, cramped with the
night’s watching, I rose from my seat, and seeing that she lay in the
same unaltered state, I went to the door of the hut to breathe one gasp
of the fresh morning air.  I was watching the first red streak that
heralded the rising sun, when I was startled by the words, ‘Thank God,’
faintly uttered behind me.  Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and
with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside.  Her eyes were full of
madness!  She spoke, but the brain was gone!”

II.

Happily, after suffering for some days from brain fever, Lady Baker
recovered consciousness, and thenceforward her progress, though slow, was
sure.  After a brief rest, the march to the lake was resumed by the
undaunted travellers; for the devoted wife would not allow any
consideration of her comfort or safety to come between her husband and
the accomplishment of the work he had undertaken.  At a village called
Parkani, the guides informed them that they were only a day’s journey
from the lake.  In the west rose a lofty range of mountains, and Sir
Samuel Baker had conjectured that the N’zige lay on the other side of it,
but he was told that it actually formed its western or further boundary.
Only a day’s journey!  That night Sir Samuel could hardly sleep; his
brain was fired with the thought that he was within so short a distance
of the Source of the Nile—that in a few hours he might drink of the
waters of its mysterious fountain.  He was up before sunrise on the 14th
of March, and crossing a deep cool valley between the hills, ascended the
slope, gained the summit, and there, before him, flashing in the light of
morning like a sea of quick-silver or a huge mirror of polished steel,