534 THE TROriCAL WORLD. 



neither planed nor covered with soft rags, it wears deep 

 wounds into tlie skin, and causes painful ulcers which last as 

 long as the journey, for the Scheba is not removed before the 

 place of destination is reached. More goaded and more brutally 

 treated than a herd of cattle, the miserable pilgrims now set 

 forth on their eternal separation from all that rendered life of 

 any value in their eyes. Before the burning village fades for 

 ever from their sight, the commander orders the caravan to 

 halt. Little cares he, if, under those smoking ruins some 

 wounded wretch unable to move, sees the flames advance nearer 

 and nearer to consume him ; if some infant left in a confla- 

 grated hut utters its piercing cries for help. 



This is the fate of more than one village until a sufficient 

 number of slaves has been collected, or the expedition is unable 

 any longer to withstand the climate, or the attacks of an exas- 

 perated foe. Burning, plundering, and destroying, the soldiers 

 return to Chartum. The caravan moves slowly. The men 

 wounded in battle or with necks chafed by the Scheba, the 

 poor women half-dead from thirst and hunger, the weak chil- 

 dren cannot possibly walk fast. Brehm witnessed the arrival 

 of a transport of Dinkh negroes at Chartum and was for weeks 

 after haunted by the dreadful sight, the horrors of which no 

 pen could describe, no words express. It was on January 12, 

 1848. Before the government house, about sixty men and 

 women sat in a circle on the ground. All the men were 

 shackled, the women free. Children were creeping on all fours 

 between them. The wretches lay exposed without the least 

 protection to the rays of the burning sun, too exhausted, too 

 dispirited to murmur or to complain, their dull glassy eyes 

 immovably fixed on one spot, and yet full of an indescribably 

 mournful expression. Blood and matter issued from the 

 wounds of the men, but no word of pity, no helping hand was 

 there to alleviate their sufferings. Involuntarily the eye of the 

 spectator sought out the most miserable objects of the miser- 

 able group, and found them in a mother worn down to a skele- 

 ton by despair, hunger, and fatigue, and vainly pressing her 

 famished infant to her dried up-breast. It seemed to him as 

 if he saw the Angel of Death hovering over the wretched pair, 

 as if he heard the rustling of his wings, and from the bottom 

 of his heart he prayed that God might soon send the deliverer 

 to release them from their sufferings 



