 |
Schuver in the Sudan (1881 - 1883) Schuver's last journey After the accusation of arms dealing had been withdrawn, the governor-general of the Sudan provided the reporter with the documents he needed for his journey of exploration. Schuver purchased six months' supplies, and recruited new travelling companions. They were Karlo Nagy, a rootless Hungarian of twenty-two who had been abandoned by a German baron, and could speak, read and write Arabic fluently; and a black servant from Darfur, named Zerzur. On 7 July 1883 Schuver sent to the Netherlands all the ethnographic objects he had collected up to that point. A week later he and his companions left Khartoum by steam ship, bound for Kawa. [42] The boat's passengers included seventy-five chained criminals bound for exile in the south of the country, and four hundred soldiers. The Dinka, a numerous people of the southern Sudan, had begun a rebellion and had slaughtered two Egyptian garrisons. The reasons for the rebellion were, first, the Egyptians' recruitment of 1,700 soldiers from among the local population within a period of six months; and second, the unpaid work as porters imposed on the Dinka by the Egyptian government. Although the situation must have been dangerous, the last thing Schuver had wanted was to remain in Khartoum. In Kawa he, together with his companions, transferred to another, smaller boat bound for Meshra el-Rek. From there the little party would travel to the capital of Bahr el-Ghazal Province before pursuing the route to the west of the country. The little town of Meshra, garrisoned by only seventy men, had meanwhile been besieged by the rebels for two months, being forced to live on plant seeds. Schuver had no desire to be trapped there for months after having already lost so much time in Khartoum. He wanted to travel on, so ignoring all the advice given him, he and his two fellow travellers left the boat. The garrison commander provided Schuver with five unarmed Zande soldiers and a Dinka interpreter. The explorer was fully aware of the risk he was taking, and probably knew perfectly well that he might be going to his death. In his last letter to his uncle he wrote that he was not driven by a lust for honour and fame, but rather by 'something nobler' that he could not express in words. On 21 August the little group of men, carrying the Netherlands national flag, reached the village of Tek, two days' journey from Meshra. In view of the fact that slave traders often made use of Zande soldiers on their forays, the local people viewed these unknown men with mistrust. When Schuver tried to recover a stolen hunting rifle, there was a skirmish, and this time his luck deserted him. The furious Dinkas speared Schuver, his two travelling companions, and the soldiers; only the Dinka interpreter, Anyar, survived the bloodbath. After being kept prisoner for a while, Anyar was set free by his fellow tribesmen. | |
