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Updated: June 23, 2025
All these difficulties were to be endured for the sake of an object which they detested "the suppression of the slave trade." Our enemies were not confined to the land only: the crocodiles in the neighbourhood of Gondokoro were exceedingly ferocious.
For some days two or three of our men had been complaining of severe headache, giddiness, and violent pains in the spine and between the shoulders. I had been anxious when at Gondokoro concerning the vessel, as many persons had died on board of the plague during the voyage from Khartoum.
They have been so often defeated by the traders' parties in the immediate neighborhood of Gondokoro, that they are on their best behavior, while within half a mile of the station; but it is not at all uncommon to be asked for beads as a tax for the right of sitting under a shady tree, or for passing through the country.
I wished to secure this, to give to Speke on my return to England, as he had told me, when at Gondokoro, how he had been obliged to part with that and many other articles sorely against his will. I therefore offered to give him three common double-barrelled guns in exchange for the rifle. This he declined, as he was quite aware of the difference in quality.
These people had brought down a large quantity of ivory from the interior, and had therefore a number of porters who would return empty-handed; I accordingly arranged with Mahommed for fifty porters, who would much relieve the backs of my animals from Gondokoro to the station at Faloro, about twelve days' march.
On the march homewards, upon arrival at the foot of a mountain, I made an excursion inland, as this was a portion of the country that I had not yet visited, though only six miles from Gondokoro. The natives were very shy, but I at length succeeded in obtaining an interview with their sheik, a tall powerful fellow, named Meri. I explained that I required no corn, nor any supplies, except stone.
I requested that he would give Ibrahim a large quantity of ivory, and that on his return from Gondokoro he would bring him most valuable articles in exchange.
I begged him to procure me thirty good blacks at Khartoum, and to bring them with him to Gondokoro next season, where I arranged to meet him. This he agreed to, and I returned to my tent delighted at a chance of escaping complete failure, although I thus encountered a delay of twelve months before I could commence my legitimate voyage.
The descriptions most interesting to me were those connected with the west bank of the White Nile, as he had served some years with the trading party, and had penetrated through the Makkarika, a cannibal tribe, to about two hundred miles west of Gondokoro. Both he and many of Ibrahim's party had been frequent witnesses to acts of cannibalism, during their residence among the Makkarikas.
As Tewfikeeyah was nearly half way in actual distance from Khartoum to Gondokoro, I trusted that we should have time to accomplish the work of cutting through the marshes, and be enabled to pass the shallows before the river should begin to fall. I therefore sent Mr.
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