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These were embarked on board a steamer, two dahabecyahs, and two ordinary Nile boats, which also carried four camels, thirty donkeys and mules, and the riding-horses aforesaid. Doctor Heughlin, who had started in advance as a kind of pioneer, passed, on the 31st of January, the Jebel Tefafan, a lofty mountain which rises at no great distance from the river.
This was too good an opportunity to be neglected: the boatmen immediately attacked the ill-fated animal, killed it, and cut it in pieces. On the 10th of March the ladies steamed into the port of Meschra-el-Rey, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and joined Dr. Heughlin. They were received with great enthusiasm flags flying and guns firing.
Heughlin succeeded in hiring an adequate number of porters, though at a heavy price, and returned to Meschra after an absence of six weeks. The ladies were suffering from fever; but a supply of provisions having arrived from Khartûm, they set out, undismayed, for Bongo.
Heughlin and Steudner set out; but the malarious climate was working its evil will upon them, and in a state of great prostration from fever and dysentery, they traversed a desert country, and crossing the river Djur on the 2nd of April, arrived the same evening at Wan. Here Dr. Steudner succumbed to his disease, and passed away, almost without pain, on the 10th.
Heughlin, a German naturalist, and the plans of the three adventurers were soon matured.
The fever continued its attacks after their arrival at Bongo, and, to the great sorrow of Alexina, carried off her mother. Dr. Heughlin and several of the men fell ill of it, and a general feeling of depression pervaded the encampment. Dr.
Heughlin, in the true scientific spirit, industriously explored the banks of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Alexina Tinné was preparing to join him, and was bringing all her energy to bear upon the difficulties that impeded her. When only a few miles from Khartûm, her captain came to tell her, with signs of the greatest alarm, that the steamer was leaking and must shortly sink.
Heughlin relates how, after the death of Madame Tinné, he went daily from the zeribah to Alexina's own residence, situated at a considerable distance, to inquire after her health, and console her in her affliction. To drag himself to and fro was all he could do; and frequently his strength failed him on the way, so that he had to sit down and rest.
Stark and rigid, like the stem of an old tree, the crocodile took his rest, sometimes with wide-open jaws: here and there the hippopotamus lifted his giant head from the troubled waters, now scattering them in showers of spray, now raising his fearful voice, which every echo of the distant shores repeated. At length Dr. Heughlin reached Lake Nû, on the Bahr-el-Ghazal.
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