Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/84

70 the Egyptian government, and backed by the support of Herr Duisberg, the vice-consul of the North German Confederation, and, though last not least, by the powerful Djaffer Pacha, governor-general of the Soudan, proceeded to make his arrangements with the traders. In this indeed he had little choice. The governor-general settled it all, and fixed on Ghattas, an ivory-trader and Coptic Christian, as the traveller's guide into the regions of Western Africa. Truth to say, Ghattas would rather have declined the doubtful honour. If anything happened to the naturalist thus confided to his hands, he would have to answer for it, and as he was the richest of the ivory-traders, the government would "have the most legitimate reasons for proceeding to the confiscation of his estates." Well, therefore, in this part of his story does Schweinfurth call Ghattas "unlucky."

Our readers must bear with us if we tell them a little more about these ivory-traders, of whom Ghattas, the only Christian, by the way, among them was the chief. The trade, according to Schweinfurth, is in the hands of some six great, assisted by about twelve minor, merchants, and for some years the total value of the ivory exported from Khartoum has not exceeded 500,000 Maria Theresa dollars, and even that amount would decrease were it not that the traders year by year penetrate farther and farther into Central Africa. In this pursuit the traders, under the protection of an armed guard procured from Khartoum, have divided the vast regions in and about the Nile Basin among themselves by mutual understanding, and have established camps or depots, called seribas by Schweinfurth, and Zareebas by Baker, in the territory thus apportioned, in which each trader deposits his ivory, ammunition, goods for barter, and supplies of food. These camps are in fact palisaded villages in which the superintendents and surbordinates of the traders permanently reside. Between these settlements and Khartoum the communication is kept open by annual expeditions, those up the Nile carrying goods for barter and stores, and those down stream bringing back that ivory which costs such immense trouble to procure, besides many a cargo of slaves. At this point we may make one remark on a question to which we shall return. If the ivory thus brought back, with infinite toil and expenditure both of labour and life, produces so little when it is at last delivered at Khartoum why in the world do these traders continue to traffic in it? For 500,000 dollars can be a sum by no means equivalent to their trouble and outlay. In a word, the ivory-trade must be attended with other advantages, or it would no longer be worth the while of the traders to carry it on. But to return to our traveller. He was consigned, as we have seen, to Ghattas, and in the boats of that trader he was to begin his journey up the White Nile, and thence along the Gazelle River to the Meshera, where his river journey was to cease. Though the unlucky Ghattas had engaged for a substantial consideration to supply the traveller with the means of subsistence and to furnish him with bearers and a guard, as well as a boat for the river journey, Schweinfurth resolved to take with him six Nubians as his personal servants, who had already travelled with Petherick and other Europeans on the Upper Nile.

At length, all contracts and preparations over, the journey began on Jan. 5, 1869. On that day Schweinfurth started with thirty-two souls in his boat, eight of whom were boatmen, fifteen so-called soldiers as a guard, and two women slaves, whose hard lot it was to grind corn incessantly, a fact which we only mention to show how soon this institution of slavery, as the Americans used to call it, makes its appearance in African travel. The voyage up the White Nile has been frequently described; we pass rapidly therefore over this part of the expedition, and only pause at Fashoda in the Shillook country, where the Egyptian government had a governor or mudir, and a fort which, in 1869, was the Ultima Thule of Egyptian rule. Since then, in 1871, the whole Shillook country has been annexed to Egypt, which at the present moment is extending its rule by the conquest of Darfour under Gordon, the successor of Sir Samuel Baker. According to Schweinfurth, the Shillook country is one of the most densely peopled of the Nile regions, the inhabitants numbering more than a million souls, while in the boundless acacia forests the finest gum is produced in such quantities that a man might with the greatest ease collect a hundredweight in a day. Not once, however, did our botanist see anyone engaged in that pursuit. As the Roman people clamoured alone for pattem et circenses, so slaves and ivory are the sole articles demanded by Khartoum trade, and for them the most valuable gums and grain and oil and 