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Updated: June 23, 2025
We felt almost at home again, and marching until sunset, we bivouacked within three miles of Gondokoro. That night we were full of speculations. Would a boat be waiting for us with supplies and letters? The morning anxiously looked forward to at length arrived.
"Yes, he is married; and both he and his wife ride fore-and-aft on one animal at Khartum." "Well, then, where is the tree you told Bombay you would point out to us with Petherick's name on it?" "Oh, that is on the way to Gondokoro. It was not Petherick who wrote, but some one else, who told me to look out for your coming this way.
Speke and Grant were at this time making their way from Zanzibar, across untrodden ground, towards Gondokoro. An expedition under Petherick, the ivory-trader, sent to assist them, had met with misfortune and been greatly delayed, and Mr Baker therefore hoped to reach the equator, and perhaps to meet the Zanzibar explorers somewhere about the sources of the Nile.
I knew from native report that the Nile was navigable as far as the Madi country to about Miani's tree, which Speke had laid down by astronomical observation in lat. 3 "degrees" 34'. This would be only seven days' march from Gondokoro, and by such a direct course I should be sure to arrive in time for the boats to Khartoum.
The Baris are a most warlike tribe, and would make excellent troops; thus they were valuable allies of the slave-hunters, as the geographical position of Gondokoro rendered it the only spot that was adapted for an important station.
On 1st December, Lieutenant Baker shot a fine bull elephant, with very large tusks; this was within four miles of head-quarters. At this season they were very numerous in the neighbourhood of Gondokoro. During my absence to the south of Regiaf, there had been a curious nocturnal alarm in the station.
I thought you, at first, an emissary of the French Government, in the place of Lieutenant Le Saint, who died a few miles above Gondokoro.
There were "wheels within wheels." It was now reported that in the last year, immediately after the departure of Speke and Grant from Gondokoro, Debono's people had marched directly to Rionga, allied themselves to him, crossed the Nile with his people, and had attacked Kamrasi's country, killing about three hundred of his men, and capturing many slaves.
Steamers ascend from Khartoum to Gondokoro in latitude 4 degrees 55'. Seven days' march south from that station the navigable portion of the Nile is reached, where vessels can ascend direct to the Albert lake thus an enormous extent of country is opened to navigation, and Manchester goods and various other articles would find a ready market in exchange for ivory, at a prodigious profit, as in those newly-discovered regions ivory has a merely nominal value.
The poor students even receive their food from the rich endowments of the various riwaks to which they belong. This Michael had learned when he saved the old man's life at Gondokoro. He had discovered the fact that when once he was inside the gate of this gracious institution, he would be sheltered and fed and taught by the love of Islam.
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