The journey from Meroe to Khartoum on the Ethiopian Nile, Mr. Taylor enjoyed very much, having little to do but amuse the sailors and be in turn amused with stories of Mohammed, of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the oriental wonders contained in songs and traditions. The climate gave him health, his genial good-nature brought him friends, and his experience would supply the necessities of life in after years. There were narrow escapes from animals, men, and treacherous rapids; but he had become accustomed to such things, and assumed enough of the Arab character to exclaim with them, at each escape, “It is the will of Allah.” The day before he arrived at Khartoum was Mr. Taylor’s twenty-seventh birthday.

Having letters to many of the officials of Khartoum, which was a military and trading station at the junction of the Blue and the White Nile, he received a cordial welcome, which made him feel at once that he was among friends. He was then at the extreme outskirts of civilization. All beyond was dark and unknown. Trading caravans consisting of Arabs and natives often visited the interior, and small boats frequently went farther up the Nile for purposes of traffic. But there was little known about the people, the topography of the country, or of the course of the Nile. There was a Catholic mission at Khartoum, where the missionaries treated Mr. Taylor with great consideration and kindness. Some of them had made exploring excursions into the wilds of Central Africa, and it was his hope that he could get into some expedition with them during that season. But in that he was disappointed. None of the missionaries were intending to visit the tribes to the south that season, and no other suitable opportunity presented itself. He did not give up the hope of seeing the unexplored regions of the interior, until he had exhausted every means in his power for procuring a fit escort. The unfortunate combination of circumstances, which prevented him from searching for the sources of the Nile, postponed the revelations which he would have made, until they were unfolded by another newspaper correspondent, H. M. Stanley.

So persistent was Mr. Taylor in his purpose to travel beyond the boundaries of the known, that he resolved to go up the White Nile alone, except a few servants. He had met Captain Peele, whose accounts of the curiosities to be found farther inland made him the more anxious to get a glimpse beyond. So he hired a boat, and amid the doubts of his servants and the misgivings of his new-found friends, he set sail up the White Nile. He could not hire the boatmen for a long voyage, as they feared the fierce cannibals of the interior, and as they were going beyond the protection of any military force. Trusting to his persuasive powers, he started with them, deciding to go just as far as he could get them to accompany him.

On a lone river, where no other sail was to be seen; in a wilderness, where even the human beings were as the lions and hyenas; with no friend of his own race near him, he sailed on, in confidence, never seeming to think that he might die there alone and never be heard of by his relatives again. Crocodiles, hippopotami, and giraffes flourished there, and man was the plaything of both elements and beasts. Through the wildest scenery, among the strangest birds and animals, he pursued his course, trembling night and day lest his crew should at any moment refuse to go farther.

At last they came to the country of the Shillooks. That wild tribe of negroes was known to the boatmen through nursery tales and traditional stories, wherein the savages were given very bad names; and when Mr. Taylor informed them that he purposed to visit the village of those horrid man-eaters, they regarded him with looks of the most profound astonishment. But with a hardihood that by its boldness secured acquiescence, he commanded them to row him to the banks of the Nile, where the long rows of primitive huts were to be seen. Through captives and merchants the kingdom of the Shillooks had become partially known, and a kind of jargon, like the pigeon-English of the Chinese, served the purposes of communication. One of Mr. Taylor’s company could talk with them slightly, and with him as an interpreter, and another servant for a protector, he walked boldly into the village of the savages, taking no weapons, lest he should create suspicion. But they received him coldly and with much show of suspicion and treachery. It was a most dangerous experiment, and it is a matter of wonder that he was allowed to depart. There were large numbers of armed men around him, brandishing spears and clubs, and demanding of him all sorts of impossible presents. But with a calmness and seeming confidence, Mr. Taylor smoked with the chief, and exchanged presents with the subordinate officials, until they became friendly and docile, laying down their weapons and conversing cheerfully through the interpreter. Yet they laid a plan for plundering the party, and would at the last perhaps have murdered the whole crew, had not Mr. Taylor most adroitly and coolly foiled them in their designs.

All attempts to persuade his men to go farther were useless. No urging, no promise of gifts, no threats would induce them to sail farther south, as they believed that it was but a little way to “the end of the world.” How eagerly he yearned for some chance to explore the country beyond, he often mentioned in after life. He was at the centre of a mighty continent. Locked and bolted it had been for all the ages, and it appeared as if the door was now open and he had only to walk in to discover its treasures. But alas! he could not go on alone. He could not swim the length of the river, nor find his way among the elephants and lions of the jungle. The boat turned back toward Khartoum, and he had no choice but to return with it.

However, he made the most of the trip, and frequently visited the shore and had some very pleasant and instructive interviews with the tribes who live in that region. At one place he visited a village of the Hassaniyehs, and contrary to the experience of many other travellers, he was cordially invited to their circle and treated with sincere hospitality. He mentioned in his book the dance of welcome which the young women of the village performed before him, and described with interesting detail their motions, features, forms, voices, and habits. Thus, with visits to savages, interviews with wild beasts, and exquisite views of the wildest scenery ever beheld by man, he floated back to the friends and dwellings of Khartoum.

His stay in Khartoum, on his return, was brief, because of the approaching sickly season; but every hour of his time, when awake, was occupied in visiting and being visited. Native chiefs, Arab merchants, holy men of the Moslem faith, Catholic priests, princesses, soldiers, consuls, boatmen, and tame lions, seemed equally at home in his presence; and his stay was a most delightful one for all concerned. His parting with his friends at Khartoum was akin to the separation of life-long friends, or the breaking of a family circle. To him the whole world was kin.

From Khartoum he travelled in a caravan of camels, chartered by him for an escort, leaving the Nile and striking into the desert. With camel-drivers hard to control, with a burning sun overhead, and sands nearly as hot beneath, he traversed the desert unharmed. Once he slept with a deadly snake under his blanket, unconscious of his fearful danger until he rolled up his blanket in the morning. The open air, the free sun, sleeping on the sand, and eating the coarse food of the natives, gave him a vigor and healthy delight which inconveniences and dangers could not overcome. Sometimes the heat was so intense that the skin of his face peeled off, and once or twice he felt the effects of “the desert intoxication,” resulting from the monotonous scene and terrible heat. It was a dizzy sensation, and is often thought to be a symptom of dangerous disease. Changing camels at intermediate stations, and visiting the ruins of ancient cities and fortresses, where he found them cropping out of the sand or adorning some rugged mountain, he travelled on to Abdom, Dongola and Wady-Halfa, where he embarked in a boat for Assouan. His parting with his old dromedary, and with his guides, at Wady-Halfa, is mentioned by him with the same regret that he experienced in leaving his other friends. But his farewell, in Cairo, to his trusted servant Achmet, who had been his faithful companion from Cairo up the Nile and back, drew tears from the eyes of both.

His voyage from Wady-Halfa to Cairo was so nearly like his trip up the Nile, that for the purposes of this work it is necessary only to say that he visited many scenes and many ruins which were omitted on his way up the river, and refreshed his memory by a second visit to the most celebrated localities. He met many travellers, and heard from civilization again, arriving in the capital of Egypt on the first day of April, 1852, in excellent spirits and in good health, save a troublesome soreness of the eyes, caused by the reflection of the sun on the water. The thin and frail body had assumed a fullness and strength surprising to note, and the broken heart had so accustomed itself to its load of grief that the weight seemed lighter than at first.

On the Nile he wrote a poem containing among others, these expressive lines:—