Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/86

72 female Job, rich after the old patriarchal fashion in cattle. Her fate in a year or two was sad, as the reader will hear; but at p. 133 of his first volume Dr. Schweinfurth has depicted her in all her magnificence and ugliness. "My pen," he says, "fails to depict her repulsiveness. Her naked negro skin was leathery, coarse, and wrinkled; her figure was tottering and knock-kneed; she was utterly toothless; her thin hair hung in greasy locks; on her wrists and ankles she had almost an arsenal of metal links of iron, brass, and copper, strong enough to bind a prisoner in his cell. About her neck were hanging chains of iron, strips of leather, strings of wooden balls, and Heaven knows what lumber more. Such was old Shol." On all which we only ask what old Shol would have said had she seen some of our fine ladies, ancient women of fashion, in low dresses, their heads dressed up with ostrich feathers, and chains and beads and various trinkets around their wrinkled necks. Perhaps she would have said, "They are not so fine as I am, and they are just as ugly." So meet the extremes of fashion in every land. But besides his love of work our naturalist carried with him another receipt against African fever. In his former expeditions he had suffered so much from fever as to believe himself for that very reason fever-proof. At the very opening of his first volume he says: —


 * The chief drawback to my journey was the state of my health. I suffered from a disorganized condition of the spleen, which gave me some uneasiness and misgiving; yet after all it appeared to be just the key that had unlocked the secret of the unexampled good fortune of my journey. The numerous attacks of fever had probably reduced it to such a state of inactivity that it ceased to be affected by any miasma; or perhaps it had assumed the functions of a condensator so as to render the miasma innocuous. Anyhow, it seemed to perform services which I could not do otherwise than gratefully accept as a timely gift of Providence. As a farewell on my landing at Alexandria, I experienced one slight twinge from my malady, and then it was quiet; it did not reappear, even in the noxious swamps of the Upper Nile, which had been disastrous to so many of my predecessors. No recurrence of my disorder interrupted my activity or clouded my enjoyment; but, fever-free, I remained an exception among a hundred travellers.

What can be said of a traveller, who with boundless energy and cheerfulness derives strength and comfort from what others would have considered the best ground for apprehension and dismay, but this, that with such a spirit he was preeminently fitted to brave exposure to a deadly climate, and to succeed in exploring a field which so many others before him had reached only to die when beholding it from afar?

And now, on March 25, 1869, behold our traveller starting from the Meshera with a caravan numbering five hundred persons, of whom the armed men amounted to two hundred. These were not all Ghattas' people, for the train was swollen by those of other traders who, on a six days' march through a notoriously hostile population, were anxious to combine for mutual support. Though the ivory-traders fight like game-cocks among themselves, and especially when one intrudes on the territory or beat of the other, they are always ready to act in concert against hostile tribes. In such a caravan the men of each trader are distinguished by a peculiar banner; Ghattas', as the only Christian, bearing a white flag on which were worked a crescent and St. Andrew cross. With the exception of a few who went on the backs of asses, one of which Schweinfurth wisely declined, the whole company went on foot, the baggage being borne on the heads of bearers, whether slaves or hired. Entirely on foot, our traveller began wanderings which lasted for more than two years, and extended over two thousand miles; and, while relating this, he makes the melancholy reflection that the elephant, the only animal by the aid of which Central Africa could be opened to civilization, is made to contribute towards her degradation, for he is literally exterminated by fire and sword, while his tusks, exchanged for slaves, only serve to make paper-knives, and knife-handles, and billiard-balls for Western Europe. At first the sharp trot of the African bearers was very trying to our traveller, but he soon got used to it, and was able to keep up easily with the caravan, which proceeded at the rate of thirty miles a day till the one hundred and eighty miles between the Meshera and Ghattas' chief seriba or depot was reached without any attack from the Dinkas. At this spot, which lies between 7° and 8° of north latitude, about midway between the great rivers Djoor and 