Albert, Lake (Congo and Uganda); Nile River; Sudan -- Description and travel
Another of my men, Yaseen, was ill; his uncle, my vakeel, came to me
with a report that "his nose was bleeding violently!" Several other men
fell ill; they lay helplessly about the deck in low muttering delirium,
their eyes as yellow as orange-peel. In two or three days the vessel was
so horribly offensive as to be unbearable. THE PLAGUE HAD BROKEN OUT! We
floated past the river Sobat junction; the wind was fair from the south,
thus fortunately we in the stern were to windward of the crew. Yaseen
died; he was one who had bled at the nose. We stopped to bury him. The
funeral hastily arranged, we again set sail. Mahommed died; he had bled
at the nose. Another burial. Once more we set sail and hurried down the
Nile. Several men were ill, but the dreaded symptom had not appeared. I
had given each man a strong dose of calomel at the commencement of the
disease; I could do nothing more, as my medicines were exhausted. All
night we could hear the sick muttering and raving in delirium, but from
years of association with disagreeables we had no fear of the infection.
One morning the boy Saat came to me with his head bound up, and
complained of severe pain in the back and limbs, with all the usual
symptoms of plague. In the afternoon I saw him leaning over the ship's
side; his nose was bleeding violently! At night he was delirious. On the
following morning he was raving, and on the vessel stopping to collect
firewood he threw himself into the river to cool the burning fever that
consumed him. His eyes were suffused with blood, which, blended with
a yellow as deep as the yolk of egg, gave a terrible appearance to his
face, that was already so drawn and changed as to be hardly recognized.
Poor Saat! the faithful boy that we had adopted, and who had formed so
bright an exception to the dark character of his race, was now a victim
to this horrible disease. He was a fine strong lad of nearly fifteen,
and he now lay helplessly on his mat, and cast wistful glances at the
face of his mistress as she gave him a cup of cold water mixed with a
few lumps of sugar that we had obtained from the traders at Gondokoro.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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