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Updated: June 18, 2025
I have always remarked that when the sky is clouded we suffer more from heat and oppression than when the day is clear; there is a weight in the atmosphere that would be interesting if tested by the barometer. The water is excessively bad throughout the White Nile, especially between the Shillook and the Kytch tribes; that of the Bahr Gazal is even worse.
Our lamented traveller, Livingstone, was completely in error when he conjectured that the large river Lualaba that he had discovered south-west of the Tanganyika lake was an affluent of the Bahr Gazal. The Lualaba is far to the west of the Nile Basin, and may possibly flow to the Congo.
I felt no triumph, but with a feeling of calm contentment and satisfaction we floated down the Nile. My great joy was in the meeting that I contemplated with Speke in England, as I had so thoroughly completed the task we had agreed upon. We had heard at Gondokoro of a remarkable obstruction in the White Nile a short distance below the junction of the Bahr el Gazal.
At the same time I found that the governor-general had just prepared a squadron of eleven vessels, with several companies of regular troops, for an expedition to the Bahr Gazal, where it was intended to form a settlement at the copper-mines on the frontier of Darfur. This expedition had been placed under the command of one of the most notorious ruffians and slave-hunters of the White Nile.
Gedge, my chief medical officer, to return to Khartoum, as his state of health required immediate change. Just as the diahbeeah was leaving the station, a vessel arrived from the Bahr Gazal, by which I received a letter from the German traveller, Dr. Schweinfurth.
Wood also returned, as his health required an immediate change to Egypt. On the 25th, four vessels arrived from the south, two belonging to Kutchuk Ali, one to Agad, and one to a trader named Assaballa, from the Bahr Gazal. The latter had thirty-five slaves on board.
My men wished to steal it, which of course I prevented; it was a simple dome palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, very neatly made, with only one barb. Both sides of the river from the Bahr el Gazal belong to the Nuehr tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of river endless; continual hauling.
This proves that the direct drainage of the Nile Basin is from the south-east to the north-west; it is therefore probable that, as the inclination of the country is towards the west, there may be some escape from the lake marshes of the Bahr Gazal in the same direction. The great river Nile was entirely lost, and had become a swamp, similar to the condition of the Bahr Giraffe.
During the rainy season the troops shall cultivate corn, and I shall explore the old White Nile in a steamer, and endeavour to discover a navigable channel via the original route by the Bahr Gazal. "I was obliged with a heavy heart to give the sad order to turn back; at 3 p.m. we arrived at the assembled fleet.
The clear water of the river from the Bahr el Gazal to this point, does not exceed a hundred and twenty yards in width. The stream runs at one and three-quarter miles per hour, bringing with it a quantity of floating vegetation.
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