The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860. Various
At Old Dongola, my companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which I had picked up in scraps,—he, no German or English. I managed to overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week, before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me.
My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful occurring,—floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the river, flowing, ever flowing,—lurking in the cool shade of the dense mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing.
We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock, when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land, I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank, preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud, cheery voice exclaim in English,—"Hilloa! not so fast, if you please!"—and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a contented air that perplexed me exceedingly.
"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you"; and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the ground beside him.
"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir, you have the advantage."
Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage that you attribute to me is an error, as I do not have the honor of knowing your name, though you may know mine without further preface,—Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance, and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see you, I assure you."
With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the yacht.
"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you are very unceremonious."
"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,—you are not an American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!"
Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush, and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's furniture, and sprang in with the nonchalance of his master.
A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen, hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,—the mouth of good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,—never any cool recesses in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;—like them, it could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to me, again to be renewed and confirmed.
And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel.
I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and coolness, the nil-admirari and nil-agitari atmosphere which surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved it, from a sort of vis inertive of constitution. This impenetrability had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense