Adolphe Belot

“ The Europeans assisted at an attack made after this fashion upon a magnificent male hippopotamus, and, from the boats which had brought them from the "Khedive," they had a capital view of every incident of the hunting or fishing, by whichever name it may be called. For more than an hour the animal struggled against death, dyeing the water of the Nile with his blood, and from time to time, coming up to the surface, he raised his enormous head, noisily inhaled the fresh air, and fixed his eyes on the tiny canoes surrounding, and gradually closing in upon him. ”

“ We might be asked whether our consciences would not reproach us for waging open warfare against our allies, by whose aid alone we have been enabled to surmount so many obstacles?
Our consciences! Why drag them into the discussion? Are we likely to give way to sentiment in our present position, face to face with an army of cannibals and a negro king who, only a few hours ago, proposed to send us the heads of his eighty wives on copper dishes? Why does he keep us prisoners in his kingdom, and interfere with our plans? Is it not he who is driving us to cunning and artifice? ”

“ When we see, in the boudoir of some fair dame, the ivory-bound prayer book, our imagination transports us at once to the heart of Africa, and there we behold long caravans of slaves bending under the weight of the elephants' tusks with which their oppressors have overloaded them. We see a hundred tribes ever fighting to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbours by means of ivory. ”

“ If civilization should ever penetrate into these territories, if the innumerable river-side tribes would unite together in one common interest, would obey one sole will, what tremendous power their ruler would possess, what weighty influence would be brought to bear upon the world by the African nation, now held in such contempt that even the most insignificant of European kingdoms would scorn to be named in the same breath with it! ”

“ A few yards from the steamer were numbers of hippopotami, who saluted the dawn by wallowing in the Nile; long lines of crocodiles basked in the first rays of the rising sun; herds of huge buffaloes, with outstretched necks and lowered heads, were drinking at the stream. In the distance, already lit up, forests of mimosas and flowering soonts were seen surrounding a village of the Baggara tribe, those hardy horsemen and bold bandits who give only a grudging allegiance to the Egyptian Government. ”

“ We are at this moment in the country of the Monbuttoos, at the court of King Munza, a man about thirty-five years of age, in the full bloom and vigour of manhood. He is tall, his figure is good, and his splendid features recall the fine old statues of the monarchs of ancient Ethiopia. He is not a negro—do not labour under that delusion—he is a dusky white man—a very handsome man, too, artistically dressed and with a majestic mien. Moreover, he is a man of intelligence, and a very powerful sovereign into the bargain. ”

“ The elephant, weakened by loss of blood, mortally wounded by the last shots fired at him, and, for some moments past, sustained merely by his angry rage, had fallen prone to the ground, at the very instant when his vengeance was on the point of being satisfied. For a moment Madame de Guéran, M. Périères, and M. de Morin remained almost in a state of stupefaction. Death had been so near to them that they doubted the fact of their own existence. It seemed impossible that they could have been saved so miraculously, and yet they were alive. ”

“ Is our love ever entirely free from vanity? Lastly, his great love moved me—how could it have been otherwise?
"Do not be hard upon your friend, nor reproach her with inconstancy. Spare me your reproaches, and do not ever mention the names of MM. de Morin, Périères, and Delange. I really did imagine myself in love with them one after the other, but, good heavens! what a mistake I made! I never felt for them as I feel now! And how far, how very far, are these more or less fair haired, blue-eyed, ordinary men, removed from—my Munza! ”

“ We were destined, when, questioning them, to make a further and more disgraceful discovery. The bearers of these tents are only paid accomplices, deluded wretches, and to reach the real culprit, we most raise our eyes higher and search our own ranks.
Alas! he belongs to the European colony, he is as white as we are, made almost after our own image. It is Joseph!
The bearers, when threatened with the whip, confessed that M. de Morin's servant had given them three pearl necklets and some iron rings, to seize upon the two girls, stifle their cries, swaddle them in a tent, and carry them off. ”

“ In the midst of this barren, parched, and arid plain we unexpectedly caught sight of a leafless tree, whose branches had been lopped off so completely, that nothing but a post was left. Bound closely to this tree, with his face to the sun, we perceived a human being. De Morin and Delange galloped off at once, and stopped short at the tree in astonishment at the sight which met their gaze.
A man, about twenty years of age and completely naked, was bound to the tree. ”

“ The heat beneath this dense foliage was excessive, resembling that of a hot-house, but the Europeans, lost in admiration of their surroundings, forgot to complain. For a short time they followed the course of a species of rivulet, clear as a spring, covered with a delicate net-work of creepers, and bordered by clumps of the amomum, with its scarlet fruit and yellow and white flower. The sun's rays flickered on the foliage and flowers, and sparkled in the rivulet. ”

“ But Munza alone is known, and science, we repeat, comes to a dead halt at the country of the Monbuttoos.
The journey we are about to undertake, if, indeed, what we hear about M. de Guéran leads us southwards, will land us in a blank space, about which, as far as we have gone, no one has been able to give us the slightest information. What news shall we gather about the stay of our fellow-countryman in the midst of this people, or about the route he took on quitting them? Is he, perchance, still here, kept prisoner by Munza? We are under one continual apprehension—a perpetual anxiety. ”

“ You are induced to think that you are on terra firma, in a vast plain watered by rivulets, and interspersed with pools and insignificant lakes. The sun finds a mirror in all these waters and lends additional splendour to massive stems, to flowers of every hue, to plants of every kind, revelling in a perpetual bath, to nenuphars red, white and blue, and to magnificent thickets of the papyrus, which raise their crowns twenty feet above the surrounding flood. ”

“ The bystanders, whose ears caught the strain at once, joined in the chant, and the whole of the voices formed one vast, reverberating chorus, in the midst of which, at intervals, could be heard the howling of a dog, the cackling of hens, the crowing of cocks, the roaring of a lion, or the shrill trumpeting of an elephant, serving as so many incentives to the concourse to give free scope to their talent for imitation. ”

“ My brother Parisians, when I think that, at the most moderate computation, nine-tenths of you picture Africa to yourselves as a vast desert, destitute of water and shade—wretched creatures that you are—there is not a country, perhaps, in the wide world that is watered by so many, and such great torrents and rivers, that is shaded by such gigantic trees, that is beautified by nature to such a luxuriant extent, as certain parts of central Africa. ”

“ On either side the throne, a large space was reserved for the royal wives, and behind, acting as a background, were large trophies of arms, made of gleaming copper and producing a most picturesque effect.
At last, the trumpets and ivory horns recommenced their deafening din, ringers marched about on all hands clanging their enormous bells, frenzied cries rent the air, and the royal cortége appeared on the scene.
Munza marched at its head. He is a man in the prime of life, handsome, tall, and with muscular limbs. ”

“ The noise made by an elephant in its angry rush is indescribable; the earth shakes and trembles beneath the tread of its huge feet. One might almost imagine that the ground was about to open and display to view some subterranean volcano, or that thunder was rumbling in the distance. Every obstacle in the way of this impetuous rush is broken, crushed, torn up by the roots; the sturdiest plants are destroyed, the thickets disappear, inequalities become smooth, enormous trees are sometimes uprooted, and the grain fields of a whole district ravaged. ”

“ We had never calculated, I confess, upon complications of this sort; we had reckoned on the natural difficulties of our route, on possible attacks by the natives, the desertion of our escort, fatigue, sickness, discouragement, hunger—we had admitted to ourselves that any or all these obstacles might, perhaps, stand in the way of our success; but it had never entered into our heads to suppose that the love of an African sovereign for our beloved Sultana would bar our onward progress. ”

“ How is it possible that a despot, surrounded by innumerable emissaries, should have failed to be warned of the arrival of a white man in his kingdom?
We summoned Nassar, and asked him if the silence of the King had not surprised him, if he did not expect Munza to mention M. de Guéran, whose visit to him was of later date than that of Schweinfurth? Our guide replied that he had quite expected the King to mention M. de Guéran, but he added that the negroes easily forget what is reported to them on the subject of any conversation, and remember facts alone. ”

“ This orchestra consisted of four young slave girls, furnished with rude instruments. One had in her hand a species of guitar; the second, an empty calabash covered with a very flexible skin, which she beat with a bamboo stick, and the other two confined their exertions to violently shaking large gourds filled with pebbles. With these instruments an accompaniment was played to a melancholy chant, and musical talent is developed to such an extent amongst these people that their concert, though wild and strange, did not strike us as being at all grotesque. ”

“ The Monbuttoo ladies, as the doctor had told us, were not asleep, and, as we drew near the shed, we heard a confused, continuous hum of many voices, as if they were complaining of the conduct of their royal spouse, whom they reproached with having treated them without due consideration.
"And we are actually slave-owners!" exclaimed de Morin, as we drew near.
"Delange is, my dear fellow," I replied. "The doctor has become a most inveterate trader, a regular nigger-driver. We shall have to give him up to the Egyptian authorities when we get back." ”

“ Suppose we go."
"My curiosity is satisfied, and I agree with you," said Miss Poles, in her most subdued voice. "But the noise we shall make in breaking through this tall grass on our way to the forest will attract the attention of the elephants. They will make for us, if only out of curiosity, and will trample us to death with the greatest ease."
"The same fate awaits us," replied M. Delange, "if we stay where we are. These animals are taking possession of the whole clearing by degrees, and in a very short time will reach us." ”

“ The Al-waj, like true artists, introduce a certain amount of refinement into the punishment they have thus devised, for lest it should not last long enough, or lest the prisoner should die too speedily from sun-stroke, they cover his head with leaves. The skull and forehead, the most vulnerable parts, are thus protected, but all the rest of the body burns to a cinder, and gradually dries up. The skin is not long before it peels off, and the sun darts his pitiless rays upon the quivering flesh. ”

“ These sailors, not nearly so well disciplined as the French, seemed desirous of arguing with their officer, and trying to make him understand that they would be all of them exposing themselves to certain death if they attacked the barricade in accordance with his orders. Indeed, their fears were reasonable, for the Mussulman reis and his men, more and more excited every moment, had just unheaded the powder barrels so that a spark alone was now needed to cause an explosion; and the staves and hoops of these barrels would be shattered to pieces, and would deal death on all around. ”

“ Imagine a collection of comical mud huts, looking like a large field of button mushrooms; round the majority of the huts a cordon of dried dung, set on fire at night by the natives, for the purpose of keeping the mosquitoes at a distance and frightening the hippopotami and the lions; in the centre of the village, a species of square with one shady spot, furnished by a solitary tree on which are hung the drums, beaten, in case of alarm, to summon the inhabitants to arms. ”