What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Horn of Africa -- Description and travel; Nile River; Tanganyika, Lake
Immediately on arriving, as we commenced to unload the camels, a
number of men who were occupying that district--the Urus Sagé section
of the Habr Gerhajis tribe--seized the camels by their heads, and
demanded their customary fees, at the same time boisterously
gesticulating that they would help themselves if their request was not
complied with. Farhan enjoyed the row in the boisterous characteristic
manner of a Seedi--began dancing frantically the negro war-dance,
cocking his gun, and pointing it at everybody by turns; whilst
Sumunter and the other Warsingali began thumping them with their
clubs, and swearing a fearful vengeance would be wrought upon them by
their tribe, who were living within an hour or two's call, should they
not desist. The fact was, my men knew their power here, and, guided
only by animal passions, enjoyed showing it. The poor discomfited Urus
Sagé now slunk off like defeated dogs, or schoolboys returning from a
fight, just wishing to know if they were only to be considered in the
light of women, who could not maintain their own right, and, snarling
and snapping, threatened they would return again in stronger force
before the morning.
We then unloaded, and lay-to for the night. Immediately on reaching
the top of this range, a most interesting and novel sight was
presented to our view. We stepped in one instant from constant
sunshine into constant clouds, and saw what accounted for the dense
verdure of the north, as well as the extreme barrenness of the south
side of the hills. For two months we had not seen the vestige of a
cloud, or felt a drop of rain, and now we were at once launched into
the middle of the "Dairti" or north-east monsoon, which had been
pouring for some time previously against the north face of the
mountain, and was arrested there by it. It reminded me at once of that
marked phenomenon with which all travellers in the Himalaya Mountains,
who spend their "hot-weather" season at Chini, on the banks of the
Sutlege river, to escape rain, must be acquainted, when the clouds of
the great Indian monsoon envelop all the mountain-range for months
together on the weather or south-west side, and hang suspended on the
top of a high hill in sight of that place, but never pass over,
looking as if the mountain was too high to be surmounted by them, when
trying to reach the dry plateaux of Tibet. The clouds were rolling in
thick successive volumes at our feet, and obscured the view below us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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