Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure (27 page)

Grant and Speke at Kamrasi’s court.

Speke hoped that Kamrasi’s carefully concealed interest in European factory-made goods would make him eager to open a trade route to the north, and thus willing to help his new visitors to travel north-east to Gani. Yet when this subject was broached, Kamrasi remarked dismissively that all his ivory exports were sent east to Zanzibar because he was often at war with the tribes to the north. Worse still, he insisted that his ‘guests’ should expect to stay with him for three to four months. Only when Speke had agreed to part with his valuable chronometer did Kamrasi agree to let Bombay and an escort of fifteen Wanyoro depart for Gani with instructions to Petherick to wait a little longer.

Kamrasi explained to Speke and Grant that they were lucky he had been foolhardy enough to receive them, since they were the first whites to visit Bunyoro, and his brothers had warned him against bringing such unpredictable people among them. How
could he be sure they did not ‘practise all kinds of diabolical sorcery’?
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Naturally, he had taken the precaution of placing a river between his residence and theirs. The
omukama
continued to isolate them, even when Bombay had told him that his white masters were the sons of Queen Victoria. Kamrasi refused to see them as anything but traders, whose guns were their most desirable commodity. Bunyoro had a profitable trade in salt, and the East Coast Arabs had first reached the country forty years earlier along routes pioneered by the salt traders. So, before Speke’s arrival, Kamrasi had already acquired primitive muskets from the Arab-Swahili who took his ivory to Zanzibar. But, like Mutesa, he had never until now seen modern guns that could kill a cow with a single bullet. To see this miracle performed both thrilled and scared him, making him desperate to acquire such rifles.
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So when Speke promised to send back six modern carbines from Gani, Kamrasi appeared to be ready to allow him to leave. To hasten his release, Speke gave the
omukama
quinine and samples of every pill in his possession. This was in response to the king’s heartfelt request to be given medicines so that his children need not go on dying. But there would still be prolonged sessions of haggling over other desirable items – a hair-brush, a sketching stool and some dinner-knives – before Kamrasi finally permitted the explorers to leave for Gani on 9 November, exactly two months after their arrival.

Both explorers had been deeply disappointed that the
omukama
had refused to let them travel sixty miles to the west to visit an immense lake (the Luta N’zige or dead locust lake), which they imagined must be part of the Nile’s system. The great river was said to thunder into this lake over spectacular falls, and then flow out again at its northern end. But though Speke badly needed to trace the river northwards and connect it with the known Nile, Bombay’s return from Petherick’s supposed outpost on 1 November had ruled out any journey except the trek to Gani. For while Bombay had not actually seen the Welshman at Faloro in Gani, he had heard that he had gone downriver on an eight days’ journey and was expected back there soon. So
Speke’s and Grant’s priority would have to be joining forces with Petherick, because success in this would greatly increase their chances of reaching Egypt alive.
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They began their journey downstream in a large dug-out on the Kafu river, which joined the main stream after a few miles. ‘This was my first sail on the river Nile,’ enthused Grant, not for a moment doubting that the locally named Kivira was Egypt’s river. Being over 500 yards wide, populated with hippopotami, and fringed with tall papyrus rushes, its appearance certainly seemed to support such optimism. After floating downstream for four days on what Grant called ‘the sacred waters’, they abandoned the river as it turned to the west and foamed over the Karuma Falls. Steep banks, overhanging trees and occasional flashes of white water reminded Grant of ‘our wildest Scottish rivers’.
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Neither Grant nor Speke left a full explanation of why they chose not to follow the river downstream at this crucial point. But, after numerous deaths and desertions, they were down to the last twenty of their original sixty-five Wangwana followers, and so relied heavily on fifty-six porters under the orders of Kidwiga, the leader of the escort loaned to them by Kamrasi.

But it seems to have been Speke’s obsessive determination not to endanger a meeting with Petherick, which decided him against following the great river westward as far as the Luta N’zige. Already, Speke had left a significant gap in his map of the river and knew that he and Grant would be told on their return to England that they had not proved the link with the Nyanza, even up to Karuma. But by missing out the unknown lake, into which the river was said to flow, they would be leaving an even larger
lacuna.

From what Grant wrote, it is clear that if they had asked Kidwiga to accompany them to the Luta N’zige, he would have refused because Rionga, a brother of Kamrasi, was his sworn enemy and lived close to the lake. Of course, if they had somehow propitiated Rionga, and managed to reach the Luta N’zige with their twenty men, their position on returning home would have been almost unassailable. So why did they
not risk it? Probably because fighting between Rionga’s men and Kamrasi’s had been going on for years, and they might have been killed.
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Also, Speke was well aware that Kidwiga’s men would insist on returning to Bunyoro in a few weeks. This reinforced his determination to join forces with Petherick. If he arrived too late at Faloro, he would risk having to travel north with only twenty men, through regions where slave raids had made the tribes murderously hostile.

The explorers’ route from now on would be due north through Acholiland to Gani. Almost at once they were struggling through sharply pointed, head-high grass that threatened to blind them. Underfoot, the ground was swampy, with unseen rocks and ruts frequently tripping them. Since both were unwell and exhausted, they longed for a change of landscape.
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At last, they emerged into a low, flat country of yellow grass. It was a surprise, after the civilised trappings in Buganda and Bunyoro, to see women wearing no more than a fringe of leaves suspended from the waist and a pendant of chickweed behind. The equally naked men concentrated their sartorial energies on dressing each others’ hair with shells, beads and feathers. Their villages of cylindrical huts were encountered every few miles in flat grassland. For their benefit, Speke put a bullet through a buffalo and stood aside while they set about despatching it with spears ‘in their own wild fashion’.
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On 3 December they arrived at Faloro – a trading post less than twenty miles from the river, which, though the explorers did not know it, had very recently flowed northwards out of the Luta N’zige. Here, Speke and Grant joyfully prepared to join hands with John Petherick. ‘Our hearts leapt with an excitement of joy only known to those who have escaped from long-continued banishment … to meet with civilized people and join old friends.’ Yet something was wrong. Speke could not understand the appearance of three large Turkish flags at the head of the procession which was now leaving the camp to the music of fifes and drums. If Petherick was really here, the flags should surely be British? Nor did these few hundred people
look like the followers of an honorary British consul. No two were dressed alike, and most of their archaic guns were different. They appeared to be Egyptians or Sudanese of African stock, presumably sent south as ivory traders. There were many slaves in the ranks from many different tribes.

Speke halted his men just before the procession reached them.

[As it did] a very black man, named Mohammed [Mohammed Wad-el-Mek], in full Egyptian regimentals, with a curved sword, ordered his regiment to halt and threw himself into my arms, endeavouring to hug and kiss me. Rather staggered at this unexpected manifestation of affection, I gave him a squeeze in return for his hug, but raised my head above the reach of his lips, and asked who was his master? ‘Petrik,’ was the reply. ‘And where is Petherick now?’ ‘Oh, he is coming.’ ‘How is it that you have not got English colours, then?’ ‘The colours are Debono’s. ‘Who is Debono?’ ‘The same as Petrik.’

What this meant, Speke could only guess at, not knowing who Andrea De Bono was, and not yet realising that all these men belonged to the Maltese trader, rather than to Petherick.

Mohammed had no written orders, but said he was De Bono’s
wakil
(agent), and had been instructed by him to take the two explorers to Gondokoro and to collect ivory while waiting for them to appear. So where was John Petherick and why, if he had been unable to come himself, had he not sent
his
men to meet them in his place? Public money had been subscribed for Petherick or his men to be available to help the two officers. Could he have betrayed them? Until Mohammed had appeared, Speke had been certain that Petherick was in the camp. This was because Bombay – who had been sent to Gani by Kamrasi – had brought back news a month later that Petherick’s initials had been found cut into a tree not far from Faloro. So they were shocked to find that Mohammed knew nothing about Petherick having made any such journey. Indeed, he thought that ‘Petrik’ was at present at one of his trading stations twenty marches or more to the north.
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Speke was appalled to hear this, having abandoned his attempt to reach the Luta N’zige largely because he had been so eager to meet Petherick.

It was exasperating to reflect that whereas Petherick could have been expected to do everything in his power to help them reach Gondokoro, this task ranked very low on Mohammed’s list of priorities. For the moment, the trader’s most urgent need was to secure 600 Africans as carriers for the immense amount of ivory which he and his men had stolen from the Madi people. To compel locals to become porters, he threatened to kill their families, to burn their huts and steal their possessions. And to show he meant business, he
did
burn huts, and kill people (about a dozen on this occasion). He also stole a hundred cows, but needed many more.
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Further south Mohammed had enslaved 200 boys and women, and now would go nowhere until he had rustled enough cattle to feed these slaves and preserve their value. So for five and a half frustrating weeks the explorers had to kick their heels at Faloro, where even local marvels, such as rare butterflies and huge plums, gave them no pleasure. When Speke asked to be given guides to enable him and Grant to leave at once with their twenty men on an unassisted march through the Bari country, Mohammed refused to provide any, telling the explorers they would be murdered if they were foolish enough to travel ahead of the caravan.
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If they slept in the open, even for a night, he warned them that they would be speared to death. Such ‘revenge’ attacks, the explorers discovered, were directly due to the brutality of slave traders like Mohammed himself. Nowhere else in Africa had Speke seen the inhabitants of entire villages run away at the approach of a caravan.

At last, on 11 January 1863, they were on the move again, and two days later reached Appuddo (Nimule), which was unquestionably on the White Nile, as Mohammed confirmed. The Arab took Speke and Grant to the river, where it flowed between wooded islands, and showed them the initials cut into the trunk of a nearby tamarind tree. The carver, he said, had been a bearded white man, who in 1860 had followed the Nile upstream from Khartoum, without leaving it for a day. The bark had grown inwards into the letters, obscuring most of them, leaving only two clearly defined: MI. These plainly had nothing
to do with Petherick. The explorers would learn several months later that the traveller was Giovanni Miani, a Venetian trader and adventurer, who had struggled on a few miles further south from here before abandoning his attempt to reach the source of the Nile.
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When Mohammed’s thousand followers camped a few miles outside Gondokoro, the Bari beat their drums and set fire to the surrounding grass, announcing that they meant to annihilate their enemies in the morning.
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Fortunately for Speke and Grant this turned out to be bluster, and early next day they walked into Gondokoro without incident. Their first task was to find John Petherick and take possession of the goods and boats he had purchased for them. But when the two men called on a local trader, Khursid Agha, and asked where they might find the Welshman, ‘a mysterious silence ensued’. Speke and Grant wondered what the consul could possibly be doing that was more important than coming to congratulate them after one of the greatest African journeys ever made by Europeans? Both men still clung to the hope that they would find him here.

After walking past the vessels moored along the riverbank, Speke drew level with the deserted Austrian Mission house, and saw hurrying towards him a bearded white man. For a moment he thought that this was Petherick. But when the approaching man raised his hat, and held out a hand, Speke saw at once that he was someone else entirely.
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TWELVE

The Nile is Settled

The burly, bearded Englishman, hurrying towards the two explorers and intending to shower them with praise, was Samuel White Baker, the eldest son of a wealthy Devon family. Forty-two years old now, and uncomfortably aware of the fact, Baker was not content to have founded a thriving agricultural community in the wilds of Ceylon or even to have written two readable books about it. From the mid-1850s he had been unsuccessfully chasing the chimera of fame as an African adventurer. In 1858 he had failed to persuade Dr Livingstone that he could be of use to him on the Zambezi, and had been further mortified to hear at that time that John Speke – who, like himself, had been raised in England’s West Country – had just been chosen to accompany Richard Burton to the African lakes. A brief meeting with Speke on board ship between India and the Gulf in 1854 had first alerted Baker to the younger man’s interest in African exploration and had sharpened his own fiercely competitive interest in that field.
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