Africa

It was the middle of November - not the wretched month that chills even the recollection of Old England, but the last of the ten months of rain that causes the wonderful vegetation of the fertile soil in Equatorial Africa. The Turks were ready to return to Shooa, and I longed for the change from this brutal country to the still wilder but less bloody tribe of Madi, to the north.

In March, 1861, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains Speke and Grant, that had been sent by the English Government from the South via Zanzibar, for that object. I had not the presumption to publish my intention, as the sources of the Nile had hitherto defied all explorers, but I had inwardly determined to accomplish this difficult task or to die in the attempt.

The hour of deliverance from our long sojourn in Central Africa was at hand; it was the month of February, and the boats would be at Gondokoro. The Turks had packed their ivory; the large tusks were fastened to poles to be carried by two men, and the camp was a perfect mass of this valuable material. I counted 609 loads of upwards of 50 lbs. each; thirty-one loads were lying at an outstation: therefore the total results of the ivory campaign during the last twelve months were about 32,000 lbs., equal to about 9,630 pounds when delivered in Egypt. This was a perfect fortune for Koorshid.

All were thankful that the river voyage was concluded; the tedium of the White Nile will have been participated by the reader, upon whom I have inflicted the journal, as no other method of description could possibly convey an idea of the general desolation.

The various trading parties were assembled in Gondokoro with a total of about three thousand slaves; but there was consternation depicted upon every countenance. Only three boats had arrived from Khartoum - one diahbiah and two noggurs - these belonged to Koorshid Aga. The resume of news from Khartoum was as follows: -

by Samuel White Baker

Condensed by E.J.W From "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia"
and "The Albert N'yanza Great Basin of the Nile."

by Henry M. Stanley

"If there is love between us, inconceivably delicious, and profitable will our intercourse be; if not, your time is lost, and you will only annoy me. I shall seem to you stupid, and the reputation I have false. All my good is magnetic, and I educate not by lessons, but by going about my business." - Emerson's 'Representative Men'.

by Richard Harding Davis

1907

TO CECIL CLARK DAVIS, MY FELLOW VOYAGER ALONG THE COASTS OF AFRICA

by Richard F. Burton