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Like all her sisters she resembles the small Ohio River boats that I had seen in my boyhood at Louisville. All Congo steam craft must be stern-wheelers, first because they usually haul barges on either side, and secondly because there are so many sand-banks.
White Mountain, a spot where the Wild Goose Company has a storehouse, a depot for its mining claims above, is about half the way from Chenik to Council, and is the head of navigation for the several small, light-draft stern-wheelers which occasionally make the trip in the interest of the larger mine-owners.
On the 14th August these stern-wheelers, heavily laden with Wauchope's men, steamed at a fast rate past the Atbara camp, on their way south. These craft, the first of which took part in the 1896 Dongola Expedition, turned out to be really the most useful and dependable of the whole Nile flotilla. They steamed remarkably well, towed splendidly, and were, besides, good fighting craft.
But wood, as compared with coal, is bulky stuff to carry, and as the stowage capacity of these stern-wheelers is small, they have to make frequent calls to rebunker.
A little later in the season two very small and very light-draft stern-wheelers, referred to as "coal-oil Johnnies," plied intermittently between White Mountain and Council, as the condition of the streams allowed; but the usual and best-adapted means of transportation were long, shallow scows which a horse pulled up-stream freighted, and rode down upon empty.
They were well built, and formed nearly a straight line four on one bank and one on the other. Each fort had three embrasures, and might, when occupied, have been a formidable defence to the cataract. Threshing up against the current, the gunboats and stern-wheelers one after another entered the gorge. The Nile, which below is nearly a mile across, narrows to a bare 200 yards.
Stern-wheelers, canoes, and miscellaneous craft could, with care, creep up from Langley to Hope and Yale; and the fares charged afforded a good revenue to the Hudson's Bay Company. Even when prospectors struck above Yale, on up to Harrison Lake and across to Lillooet, or from the Okanagan to the Thompson, the difficulties of transportation were soon surmounted.
A narrow but deep slue runs up into the desert land, on the east side of the river's mouth, and provides a harbor of refuge for the flat-bottomed stern-wheelers which meet the ocean steamers at this point. Hurricanes are prevalent at this season in the Gulf of California, but we had been fortunate in not meeting with any on the voyage.
The steamers pick their way carefully; we do not give them as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes they turn are no longer savage but wakes, even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble; it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them.
The flotilla was becoming formidable; it comprised 13 vessels, stern-wheelers and screw-steamers, all armed with cannon and machine guns and protected by bullet-proof shields.
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