MacMillan's Reading Books Part 38

AFRICAN HOSPITALITY.

As we approached the town, I was fortunate enough to overtake the fugitive Kaartans to whose kindness I had been so much indebted in my journey through Bambarra. They readily agreed to introduce me to the King; and we rode together through some marshy ground where, as I was anxiously looking around for the river, one of them called out, _geo affili_ (see the water), and looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission--the long sought for majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly _to the eastward_. I hastened to the brink, and having drank of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having thus far crowned my endeavours with success.

The circ.u.mstance of the Niger's flowing towards the east, and its collateral points, did not, however, excite my surprise; for although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, and rather believed that it ran in the contrary direction, I had made such frequent inquiries during my progress concerning this river, and received from negroes of different nations such clear and decisive a.s.surance that its general course was _towards the rising sun_, as scarce left any doubt on my mind; and more especially as I knew that Major Houghton had collected similar information in the same manner.

I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of crossing the river; during which time, the people who had crossed carried information to Mansong, the King, that a white man was waiting for a pa.s.sage, and was coming to see him. He immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the King could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his country; and that I must not presume to cross the river without the King's permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night; and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village; where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable, for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain; and the wild beasts are so very numerous in the neighbourhood that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree, and resting among the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pa.s.s the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compa.s.sion, she took up my saddle and bridle and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish; which having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension), called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore; for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these:--"The winds roared and the rains fell. The white man, faint and weary, came and sat our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn." _Chorus_--"Let us pity the white man; no mother has he," etc., etc. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circ.u.mstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compa.s.sionate landlady with two of the four bra.s.s b.u.t.tons which remained on my waistcoat; the only recompense I could make her.

MUNGO PARK.

ACROSS THE DESERT OF NUBIA.

After a prayer of peace, we committed ourselves to the Desert. Our party consisted of Ismael the Turk, two Greek servants besides Georgis, who was almost blind and useless, two Barbarins, who took care of the camels, Idris, and a young man a relation of his; in all nine persons.

We were all well armed with blunderbusses, swords, pistols, and double-barrelled guns, except Idris and his lad, who had lances, the only arms they could use. Five or six naked wretches of the Turcorory joined us at the watering place, much against my will, for I knew that we should probably be reduced to the disagreeable alternative of either seeing them perish of thirst before our eyes, or, by a.s.sisting them, running a great risk of perishing along with them.

We left Gooz on the 9th of November, at noon, and halted at the little village of Ha.s.sa, where we filled our water-skins--an operation which occupied a whole day, as we had to take every means to secure them from leaking or evaporation. While the camels were loading, I bathed myself with infinite pleasure for a long half hour in the Nile, and thus took leave of my old acquaintance, very doubtful if we should ever meet again. We then turned to the north-east, leaving the Nile, and entering into a bare desert of fixed gravel, without trees, and of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white marble, like alabaster. Our camels, we found, were too heavily loaded; but we comforted ourselves with the reflection, that this fault would be remedied by the daily consumption of our provisions. We had been travelling only two days when our misfortunes began, from a circ.u.mstance we had not attended to. Our shoes, that had long needed repair, became at last absolutely useless, and our feet were much inflamed by the burning sand.

On the 13th, we saw, about a mile to the northwest of us, Hambily, a rock not considerable in size, but, from the plain country in which it is situated, having the appearance of a great tower or castle. South of it were too smaller hills, forming, along with it, landmarks of the utmost consequence to caravans, because they are too considerable in size to be at any time covered by the moving sands. We alighted on the following day among some acacia trees, after travelling about twenty miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight, surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at one time moving with great celerity, at another stalking on with majestic slowness. At intervals we thought they were coming to overwhelm us; and again they would retreat, so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon, they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us, about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S.E., leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger; and the full persuasion of this rivetted me to the spot where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much, that, in my state of lameness, it was with some difficulty I could overtake them.

The effect this stupendous sight had upon Idris was to set him to his prayers, or rather to his charms; for, except the names of G.o.d and Mahomet, all the rest of his words were mere gibberish and nonsense.

Ismael the Turk violently abused him for not praying in the words of the Koran, at the same time maintaining, with great apparent wisdom, that n.o.body had charms to stop these moving sands but the inhabitants of Arabia Deserta.

From this day subordination, though it did not entirely cease, rapidly declined; all was discontent, murmuring, and fear. Our water was greatly diminished, and that terrible death by thirst began to stare us in the face, owing, in a great measure, to our own imprudence. Ismael, who had been left sentinel over the skins of water, had slept so soundly, that a Turcorory had opened one of the skins that had not been touched, in order to serve himself out of it at his own discretion. I suppose that, hearing somebody stir, and fearing detection, the Turcorory had withdrawn himself as speedily as possible, without tying up the month of the girba, which we found in the morning with scarce a quart of water in it.

On the 16th, our men, if not gay, were in better spirits than I had seen them since we left Gooz. The rugged top of Chiggre was before us, and we knew that there we would solace ourselves with plenty of good water. As we were advancing, Idris suddenly cried out, "Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!" I saw from the southeast a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor or purple haze which I saw was indeed past, but the light air that still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation.

For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free from an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, nearly two years afterwards.

This phenomenon of the simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by Idris, caused us all to relapse into our former despondency. It still continued to blow, so as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a leaf from the ground. Towards evening it ceased; and a cooling breeze came from the north, blowing five or six minutes at a time, and then falling calm. We reached Chiggre that night, very much fatigued.

BRUCE'S TRAVELS.

[Note:_James Bruce_ (born 1730, died 1794), the African traveller; one of the early explorers of the Nile.]

A SHIPWRECK ON THE ARABIAN COAST.

Another hour of struggle! It was past midnight, or thereabout, and the storm, instead of abating, blew stronger and stronger. A pa.s.senger, one of the three on the beam astern, felt too numb and wearied out to retain his hold by the spar any longer; he left it, and swimming with a desperate effort up to the boat, begged in G.o.d's name to be taken in.

Some were for granting his request, others for denying; at last two sailors, moved with pity, laid hold of his arms where he clung to the boat's side, and helped him in. We were now thirteen together, and the boat rode lower down in the water and with more danger than ever: it was literally a hand's breadth between life and death. Soon after another, Ibraheem by name, and also a pa.s.senger, made a similar attempt to gain admittance. To comply would have been sheer madness; but the poor wretch clung to the gunwale, and struggled to clamber over, till the nearest of the crew, after vainly entreating him to quit hold and return to the beam, saying, "It is your only chance of life, you must keep to it,"

loosened his grasp by main force, and flung him back into the sea, where he disappeared for ever. "Has Ibraheem reached you?" called out the captain to the sailor now alone astride of the spar. "Ibraheem is drowned," came the answer across the waves. "Is drowned," all repeated in an undertone, adding, "and we too shall soon be drowned also." In fact, such seemed the only probable end of all our endeavours. For the storm redoubled in violence; the baling could no longer keep up with the rate at which the waves entered; the boat became waterlogged; the water poured in hissing on every side: she was sinking, and we were yet far out in the open sea.

"Plunge for it!" a second time shouted the captain. "Plunge who may, I will stay by the boat so long as the boat stays by me," thought I, and kept my place. Yoosef, fortunately for him, was lying like a corpse, past fear or motion; but four of our party, one a sailor and the other three pa.s.sengers, thinking that all hope of the boat was now over, and that nothing remained them but the spar, jumped into the sea. Their loss saved the remainder; the boat lightened and righted for a moment, the pilot and I baled away desperately; she rose clear once more of the water. Those in her were now nine in all--eight men and a boy, the captain's nephew.

Meanwhile the sea was running mountains; and during the paroxysm of struggle, while the boat pitched heavily, the cord attached from her stern to the beam snapped asunder. One man was on the spar. Yet a minute or so the moonlight showed us the heads of the five survivors as they tried to regain the boat; had they done it we were all lost; then a huge wave separated them from us. "May G.o.d have mercy on the poor drowning men!" exclaimed the captain: their bodies were washed ash.o.r.e three or four days later. We now remained sole survivors--if, indeed, we were to prove so.

Our men rowed hard, and the night wore on; at last the coast came in full view. Before us was a high black rock, jutting out into the foaming sea, whence it rose sheer like the wall of a fortress; at some distance on the left a peculiar glimmer and a long white line of breakers a.s.sured me of the existence of an even and sandy beach. The three sailors now at the oars, and the pa.s.senger who had taken the place of the fourth, grown reckless by long toil under the momentary expectation of death, and longing to see an end anyhow to this protracted misery, were for pushing the boat on the rocks, because the nearest land, and thus having it all over as soon as possible. This would have been certain destruction.

The captain and pilot, well nigh stupefied by what they had undergone, offered no opposition. I saw that a vigorous effort must be made; so I laid hold of them both, shook them to arouse their attention, and bade them take heed to what the rowers were about; adding that it was sheer suicide, and that our only hope of life was to bear up for the sandy creek, which I pointed out to them at a short distance.

Thus awakened from their lethargy, they started up, and joined with me in expostulating with the sailors. But the men doggedly answered that they could hold out no more; that wherever the land was nearest they would make for it, come what might; and with this they pulled on straight towards the cliff.

The captain hastily thrust the rudder into the pilot's hand, and springing on one of the sailors, pushed him from the bench and seized his oar, while I did the same to another on the opposite side; and we now got the boat's head round towards the bay. The refractory sailors, ashamed of their own faintheartedness, begged pardon, and promised to act henceforth according to our orders. We gave them back their oars, very glad to see a strife so dangerous, especially at such a moment, soon at an end; and the men pulled for left, though full half an hour's rowing yet remained between us and the breakers; and the course which we had to hold was more hazardous than before, because it laid the boat almost parallel with the sweep of the water: but half an hour! yet I thought we should never come opposite the desired spot.

At last we neared it, and then a new danger appeared. The first row of breakers, rolling like a cataract, was still far off sh.o.r.e, at least a hundred yards; and between it and the beach appeared a white yeast of raging waters, evidently ten or twelve feet deep, through which, weary as we all were, and benumbed with the night-chill and the unceasing splash of the spray over us, I felt it to be very doubtful whether we should have strength to struggle. But there was no avoiding it; and when we drew near the long white line which glittered like a watchfire in the night, I called out to Yoosef and the lad, both of whom lay plunged in deathlike stupor, to rise and get ready for the hard swim, now inevitable. They stood up, the sailors laid aside their oars, and a moment after the curling wave capsized the boat, and sent her down as though she had been struck by a cannon-shot, while we remained to fight for our lives in the sea.

Confident in my own swimming powers, but doubtful how far those of Yoosef might reach, I at once turned to look for him; and seeing him close by me in the water, I caught hold of him, telling him to hold fast on, and I would help him to land. But, with much presence of mind, he thrust back my grasp, exclaiming, "Save yourself! I am a good swimmer; never fear for me." The captain and the young sailor laid hold of the boy, the captain's nephew, one on either side, and struck out with him for the sh.o.r.e. It was a desperate effort; every wave overwhelmed us in its burst, and carried us back in its eddy, while I drank much more salt water than was at all desirable. At last, after some minutes, long as hours, I touched land, and scrambled up the sandy beach as though the avenger of blood had been behind me. One by one the rest came ash.o.r.e--some stark naked, having cast off or lost their remaining clothes in the whirling eddies; others yet retaining some part of their dress. Every one looked around to see whether his companions arrived; and when all nine stood together on the beach, all cast themselves prostrate on the sands, to thank Heaven for a new lease of life granted after much danger and so many comrades lost.

W.G. PALGRAVE.

AN ARABIAN TOWN.

Perhaps my readers will not think it loss of time to accompany us on a morning visit to the camp and market, to the village gardens and wells; such visits we often paid, not without interest and pleasure.

Warm though Raseem is, its mornings, at least at this time of year (the latter part of September), were delightful. In a pure and mistless sky, the sun rises over the measureless plain, while the early breeze is yet cool and invigorating, a privilege enjoyed almost invariably in Arabia, but wanting too often in Egypt in the west, and India in the east.

At this hour we would often thread the streets by which we had first entered the town, and go betimes to the Persian camp, where all was already alive and stirring. Here are arranged on the sand, baskets full of eggs and dates, flanked by piles of bread and little round cakes of white b.u.t.ter; bundles of fire-wood are heaped up close by, and pails of goat's or camel's milk abound; and amid all these sit rows of countrywomen, haggling with tall Persians, who in broken Arabic try to beat down the prices, and generally end by paying only double what they ought. The swaggering, broad-faced, Bagdad camel-drivers, and ill-looking, sallow youths stand idle everywhere, insulting those whom they dare, and cringing to their betters like slaves. Persian gentlemen, too, with grand hooked noses, high caps, and quaintly-cut dresses of gay patterns, saunter about, discussing their grievances, or quarrelling with each other, to pa.s.s the time, for, unlike an Arab, a Persian shows at once whatever ill-humour he may feel, and has no shame in giving it utterance before whomever may be present; nor does he, with the Arab, consider patience to be and essential point of politeness and dignity.