CHAPTER XI.

ARRIVED AT KASSALA—DESCRIPTION OF KASSALA—WE BUY CAMELS AND HORSES—THE MUDIR GIVES A DINNER—JULES’ DEATH AND BURIAL—HY?NAS—ARAB PATIENTS—MAHOOM’S HISTORY—DEMETRIUS MOSCONAS ON SLAVERY—MENAGERIE AT KASSALA.

We arrived at Kassala at 8 p.m., and found the camp pitched about a quarter of a mile, or less, from it, close to a garden full of fine trees of various kinds; in fact, between this garden and a very wide river bed. This river is here called the Gash, but nearer to Abyssinia it is called the Mareb. Jules’ exhaustion and pulseless condition was most alarming. I succeeded in obtaining some eggs and milk; these I mixed with brandy, and had this mixture administered to him every half-hour.

Whilst we were dining, at 9 p.m., we heard the peculiar cry of hy?nas, which literally swarm round[145] the camp at night and make an awful row. I daresay there would be 150 or 200 come round every night after dark, and when we retired to our tents, and the lights were put out, they would not only come close to, but actually into the camp; I can assure the reader that I am not, as it is called, drawing the long bow when I say that I have seen one poke his head in at my tent door more than once. We remained here many days, and sometimes the hy?nas would be so troublesome and noisy that it was a by no means uncommon thing for one of us to get up in the night, go to the edge of the camp in our night-shirt and discharge the contents of one or two barrels into the noisy crowd. This had a quieting effect, and we often found one or two dead hy?nas in the morning, the rest having scampered off.

We found Kassala a very warm place, for in the middle of January the thermometer registered 90° in the shade. It is situated about 1,900 feet above the level of the sea, is surrounded by a wall made of mud bricks baked in the sun, and plastered over with mud and the refuse of cows. The wall is loop-holed for musketry, and surrounded by a deep fosse. The exports of the Soudan are ivory, hides, gum arabic, senna, bees’ wax, and honey—the latter obtained chiefly from the Abyssinian border.

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The Kassala Mountain, which is just outside Kassala, is an enormous, almost perpendicular, mass of granite, several thousand feet in height, rising straight out of the plain, and can be seen for many miles in all directions. The population was in 1882, something like 25,000, without reckoning the garrison, which consisted of about 1,000 Nubian troops.

There are large numbers of cows, goats, sheep, and camels in the neighbourhood, and a great deal of camel-breeding is carried on here.

When I left England, the thought occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take out some knives, razors, beads, and so forth, both as presents and for barter. I, therefore, provided myself with some common knives, about a dozen of a better class, and half-dozen hunting-knives from Mr. T. B. Hague, of Sheffield; a couple of dozen of Mappin and Webb’s, and Heiffer’s shilling razors, which were much prized by the Arabs. These I found very useful at Kassala, as I bartered some of them for a dozen beautiful long ostrich feathers, and a handful of shorter ones. The natives were well pleased, and so was I.

January 8th.—We were now comfortably encamped, but, alas! too late for Jules, who was fearfully emaciated and prostrate. I visited his[147] tent twice in the night, at one and four o’clock, but could do very little more for him, and I fear he will soon go. All the camels that we hired at Souakin will have to return there with their drivers. One reason our friends preceded us to Kassala was to let it be known that we wanted to buy or hire camels. The result was not exactly what we anticipated, for they kept them back awhile. When at last they were brought for inspection, the most extravagant prices were demanded, whilst many of them were absolute screws. We also required a few little horses for hunting purposes; the dealers were as knowing as horse-dealers in England, and that is saying a great deal.

January 9th.—Jules is evidently sinking fast. I visited his tent five times in the night, but could do little for him beyond giving him drink twice. Mr. W. James and Mr. Aylmer had taken lessons in photography before leaving England, and were each provided with a good apparatus. With these they took many interesting views in different parts of the country. This day the Mudir (Governor) of Kassala sent his two little boys and ponies to be photographed. Whilst we were at breakfast to-day an Arab brought two playful little leopards, which he had stolen from their nest. I could have bought them for a couple of dollars each, and probably[148] should have done so had I been on my way home. The Mudir paid us a visit at noon, inviting us all to dine with him; but Mr. Phillipps and I could not go on account of Jules’s illness, which now will be of short duration. I understood afterwards from those who did go that the dinner consisted of 15 or 18 courses. About 5 p.m. I visited Jules, and found him asleep, but evidently sinking. Mahoom, who was my servant during the whole campaign—and a very good boy he was, too—attended well to him, and frequently sat up at nights with him. At 10 p.m. poor Jules breathed his last. The particulars of his illness, together with other curious and interesting medical notes, can be found in an article of mine in the British Medical Journal, September 23rd and 30th, 1882. As soon as he was dead I washed and laid him out. M. Demetrius Mosconas, a Greek living in Kassala, was good enough to at once see about some kind of coffin, covered with black cloth, shaped thus—
Sketch of a coffin shape

This was to be sent early in the morning.

January 10th.—At 10 a.m. the coffin was brought. Jules was put in it. On the corpse were laid sprays of green shrubs all round. At 11.30 he was carried to his last resting-place by natives, all of us following; the union Jack being placed on the coffin.[149] The weather was fearfully hot, and the roads very dusty. He was buried in a garden where three other Christians had been buried. Mr. F. L. James read the burial service, and we remained by the grave until it was filled up, which was very quickly done in the following manner: The earth had been thrown up each side of the grave, eight Arabs stood each side with their backs to the grave, and as soon as the word was given they, with their hands, pushed the earth between their legs, filling the grave within about ten minutes. A cross was afterwards made of ebony by Mr. Phillipps, and placed at the head of the grave. This concluded our last duty to poor Jules.

When we returned to camp, four horses and four camels were bought; after lunch Messrs. Colvin and A. James, with Suleiman and a few servants, started off for the Atbara in quest of camels, as these people were holding theirs back in the hopes of making a good thing by so doing. Korasi, on the Atbara, is considered one of the cheapest and best places to buy camels.

January 11th.—Soon after my arrival at Kassala it became known that there was a “Hakeem Ingelese,” as they called me, and I very soon found that my patients daily increased in number. Every morning after breakfast there was I, wearing my[150] pith helmet, in the broiling sun, with Mahoom as interpreter, for two hours or more attending to a large number of Arabs—men, women, and children—who squatted round my tent on their haunches in a semicircle. I frequently saw 60, 70, or 80 patients a day. I did not charge them anything; probably, had I done so I should have materially thinned out the applicants for medical and surgical relief. It is a strange thing, but human nature is (in some respects) pretty much the same in Central Africa as it is in England.

Ali Mahoom’s history, poor boy, was not, in early life, a very bright one, as he was stolen by the slave-dealers. He said—

“I remember very well, sir, when dey took me. My mother was out when a lot of mens come down and took all de little childrens dey see. Dey took me with dem to Khartoum, and dere my mother found me. Dey let her stop with me for a long time. She begged dem to let her have her little boy back, but dey say, ‘No, unless you steal two little children; den you shall have him back.’ Den I was sold to somebody else; after dat Gordon Pasha find me, and he take me and give me to Mr. Felkin, and he has been good to me ever since.” He gave me the name of the country he came from, but I forget it, adding, “It is the next country but one to the Niam-Niams.”

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I had heard they were cannibals, so I said to Mahoom—

“What do they eat, Mahoom?”

“Dey eat de flesh of beobles,” he replied.

“But,” I said, “why don’t they eat antelopes and other animals?”

“Dey say de flesh of beobles is much nicer,” he replied.

He, of course, was disgusted with them. I found also that if a relation dies they bury that relation in close relation to them, that is, at the entrance to the hut; and if a baby, they send it to the relatives they have most respect for, and these relatives, to show their respect for their friends, eat the baby—cooked, I presume, but that I am not sure of.

About noon M. Demetrius Mosconas (who spoke English fairly well, and is, in a certain sense, a brother) asked me to go and see his son, who was very ill. I did so, and found him suffering from acute rheumatism. Mosconas, it seems, was engaged by the Government in sinking wells in some outlying districts, and his son, who partly superintended this work, must have contracted this disease by sleeping out, as, although the days were very hot, the nights were often excessively cold, and I have often known the thermometer sink from 90° at 1.30 p.m. to 45° or lower by 11 p.m.

I had a talk with Mosconas about slavery, and[152] learnt very conclusively that it exists pretty openly in this part of the Soudan. He informed me that the woman (his servant) who had just brought us two small cups of coffee was a slave, one of a dozen owned by an Arab woman, and she realized a living by letting them out on hire. He paid three dollars per month for the hire of this slave. He also told me that Georgie Bey, an Arab Army doctor, who left Kassala for Khartoum the day before our arrival, sold two of his slaves before he went. This Georgie Bey was since killed with Hicks Pasha’s army near Souakin.

Another bit of information which Mosconas gave me was that some Arabs and Greeks breed from slave-women, who are kept for profit just as cattle are in England. The children born under these circumstances are sold by their fathers.

Having had a long chat with Mosconas, I next paid a visit to Herr Schumann’s collection of wild animals. I found a large building and yard occupied by them. Schumann himself was away some distance from Kassala, amongst the Beni-Amir tribe, where he had a zareeba. He collected animals there, and sent them on to his manager at Kassala. Just before the rainy season commenced, about May, he would go on himself, with quite an army of attendants, across the Nubian Desert to Souakin[153] with his collection; then take them to London, Liverpool, Hamburg, Vienna, and America, where they would be sold. Here he had four giraffes, four gazelles, three fine antelopes, as tame as lambs, a nice, amiable little baby elephant, five young lions, chained to rickety old posts, which rattled up, as they darted at a passer-by, in a very alarming manner, nine infant leopards, two or three young hy?nas, eight ostriches, some wild hogs, baboons, tiger-cats, and other animals.