Kitabı oku: «Some Heroes of Travel, or, Chapters from the History of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise», sayfa 21
II
In the afternoon of the following day two officials arrived from the Khan, with an escort of six men on horseback and four on foot, to conduct the English officer to the palace. Mounting his horse, he rode forth, preceded by the six horsemen, and with an official on either side; the rear being brought up by Nazar, with some attendants on foot, who lashed out freely with their long whips when the staring crowd drew inconveniently near the cortége. Fresh sightseers arrived every moment, for the name of England exercises a charm and a power in Khiva, where people are never weary of talking of the nation which holds in fee the gorgeous Indian empire, and is regarded as the rival and inevitable foe of the White Czar. The very housetops were lined with curious eyes. Through the hum and din of voices the Englishman proceeded to the Khan’s residence; a large building, with pillars and domes reflecting the sun’s rays from their bright glazed tiles. At the gates stood a guard of thirty or forty men with flashing scimitars. The company passed into a small courtyard, from which a door opened into a low passage, and this led to some squalid corridors, terminating in a large square room, where was seated the treasurer, with three moullahs, busily engaged in counting up his money. He made a sign to the attendants, and a large wooden box was at once pushed forward, and offered to Major Burnaby as a seat. An interval of fifteen minutes, as the playwrights say, followed. Then a messenger entered the room, and announced that the Khan was at liberty to receive the stranger. Away through a long corridor, and across an inner courtyard, to the reception-hall – a large dome-shaped tent or kibitka. A curtain was drawn aside, and the Englishman found himself face to face with the celebrated Khan.
The portrait he draws of the Khivan potentate differs in some particulars from that drawn by Mr. MacGahan (see p. 283): – “He is taller than the average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built. His face is of a broad massive type; he has a low square forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose, with dilated nostrils, and a coal-black beard and moustache. An enormous mouth, with irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face, must complete the picture. He did not look more than eight and twenty, and had a pleasant genial smile, and a merry twinkle in his eye, very unusual amongst Orientals; in fact, a Spanish expression would describe him better than any English one I can think of. He is muy simpatico… The Khan was dressed in a similar sort of costume to that generally worn by his subjects, but it was made of much richer materials, and a jewelled sword was lying by his feet. His head was covered by a tall black Astrakhan hat, of a sugar-loaf shape.”
Tea having been served in a small porcelain cup, the Khan entered into conversation with his visitor, through the medium of Nazar, a Kirghiz interpreter, and a moullah. At first it turned upon the relations existing between England and Russia, the Crimean War, the Indian Government, and other branches of la haute politique; the Khan displaying a quick and clear intelligence. At last he said —
“You do not have a Khan at the head of affairs?”
“No,” replied Burnaby, “a Queen; and her Majesty is advised as to her policy by her ministers, who for the time being are supposed to represent the opinion of the country.”
“And does that opinion change?”
“Very frequently; and since your country was conquered we have had a fresh Government, whose policy is diametrically opposite to that held by the previous one; and in a few years’ time we shall have another change, for in our country, as the people advance in knowledge and wealth, they require fresh laws and privileges. The result of this is, they choose a different set of people to represent them;” and the Major entered on a brief exposition of constitutional principles, which to the Khan must surely have been unintelligible.
“Can your Queen have a subject’s head cut off?”
“No, not without a trial before our judges.”
“Then she never has their throats cut?” [the Khivan punishment for murder].
“No.”
“Hindostan is a very wonderful country,” continued the Khan; “the envoy I sent there a few years ago 18 has told me of your railroads and telegraphs; but the Russians have railroads, too.”
“Yes,” replied Burnaby; “we lent them money, and our engineers have helped to make them.”
“Do the Russians pay you for this?” he inquired.
“Yes; so far they have behaved very honourably.”
“Are there not Jews in your country like some of the Jews at Bokhara?”
“One of the richest men in England is a Jew.”
“The Russians do not take away the money from the Jews?”
“No.”
Here the Khan said a few words to his treasurer, and then remarked, in allusion to the tribute he pays to Russia annually: – “Why do they take money from me, then? The Russians love money very much.” As he said this, he shook his head sorrowfully at the treasurer; and the latter, assuming a dolorous expression, poured out with a pitiful accent the monosyllable “Hum!” which, in Khivan language, seems to convey as pregnant a meaning as Lord Burleigh’s shake of the head in “The Critic.”
With a low bow from the Khan, the interview terminated.
On the following day Major Burnaby visited the Khan’s gardens, which lie about three-quarters of a mile from the town. They are five in number, surrounded by high walls of sun-dried clay, and each from four to five acres in extent. Entering one of them, our traveller discovered that it was neatly laid out and trimly kept. The fruit trees, arranged in long avenues, were carefully cut and pruned; apple, pear, and cherry trees abounded. In the spring melons are grown on a large scale; and in the summer trellis-work arbours of vines, loaded with grapes, afford a delightful shelter from the sun’s fierce glare. In a small summer-palace here, the Khan holds his court in June and July, and on a raised stone daïs outside sits to administer justice.
Returning to Khiva, Burnaby visited the prison and the principal school – the invariable accompaniments of civilization, however imperfect. But may we not hope that, some day, the school will destroy the gaol, and relieve civilization from the reproach of barbarism that still attaches to it? Meanwhile, Nazar was preparing for the Major’s contemplated expedition to Bokhara, his tour to Merv and Meshed, and his journey from Persia into India, and so back to England. It was the 27th of January, and he had determined to spend only one more day in Khiva. But his plans were upset by an unexpected incident. On the morning of the 28th, just after his return from a ride through the market, he was “interviewed” by two strangers, who presented him with a letter from the commandant of Petro-Alexandrovsky, the Russian fort he had so determinedly avoided. It was to the effect that a telegram, which had been forwarded viâ Tashkent, awaited him at the fort, whither he must be pleased to repair to receive it. How or why any person should consider him of importance enough to despatch a telegram so many thousands of miles, and should go to the expense a sending it from Tashkent where the telegraph ends, to Khiva, a distance of nine hundred miles, by couriers with relays of horses, Burnaby could not understand. But there was no help for it. He must hasten to Petro-Alexandrovsky, where he did not want to go, and abandon his trip to Bokhara and Merv, where he very much wished to go. So he paid a visit to the bazar, and afterwards took leave of the Khan, who bestowed upon him the honourable gift of a khalat, or dressing-gown, and on the 29th bade adieu to Khiva.
He reached Petro-Alexandrovsky on the second day, and found that the important telegram which had travelled so far was one from the Duke of Cambridge, Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, requiring his immediate return to European Russia. He found also that the Russian Government had given orders for his return by the shortest route to Kasala. All hope of further exploration and adventure in Central Asia had to be abandoned. Before leaving Petro-Alexandrovsky, the disappointed traveller had an opportunity of accompanying a coursing party, and sharing in a day’s novel sport. There were horses and men of all kinds and shapes, Russians, Bokharans, Kirghiz, short-legged men on giant steeds, and long-legged men on short-legged horses. A short colonel, said to be well versed in the pastime, acted as master of the hunt. Behind him were led seven or eight greyhounds in couples; while a stalwart Khivan bore on his elbow a hooded falcon, graceful enough to have figured in Mr. Tennyson’s poetical little drama. Amid a storm of cries and shouts and yells, the hunters rode forward at a rattling pace, crossing a flat open country, intersected by a ditch or two; until, after an eight miles’ run, they arrived at the cover, a narrow tract of bush and bramble-covered ground stretching down to the bank of the frozen Oxus. Forming in a line, at a distance of twenty yards from one another, the horsemen rode through bush and bramble. A sharp yell from a Kirghiz, and after a startled hare, which had left its covert, dashed Russians, Bokharans, Englishman, and hounds. On they went, down the slippery river bank, across the shining ice, towards a dense bit of copse, where it looked as if poor puss might find an asylum from her pursuers. But at this moment the falcon was launched into the air. A swift swooping flight, and whir of wings, and in a second it was perched on its victim’s back, while around it gathered the well-trained dogs, with open mouths and lolling tongues, not daring to approach the quarry. The master galloped up, seized the prize, and in a few minutes more the hunt was resumed; nor did the horsemen turn their faces homeward until five hares had rewarded their chivalrous efforts.
In company with two Russian officers, and an escort of ten Cossacks, Major Burnaby, after a pleasant sojourn at Petro-Alexandrovsky, set out on his return to Kasala. As the weather was warmer, and the snow had begun to melt, the three officers travelled in a tarantass, drawn by six Kirghiz horses; the said tarantass closely resembling a hansom cab which, after its wheels have been removed, has been fastened in a brewer’s dray. It has no springs, and it runs upon small but solid wooden wheels. They had gone but a few miles before they came again into a land of snow; the horses had to be taken out, and a couple of camels substituted. At night they bivouacked, resuming their journey before daybreak. It was a picturesque sight: – “First, the Cossacks, the barrels of their carbines gleaming in the moonlight, the vashlik of a conical shape surmounting each man’s low cap, and giving a ghastly appearance to the riders. Their distorted shadows were reflected on the snow beneath, and appeared like a detachment of gigantic phantoms pursuing our little force. Then the tarantass, drawn by two large camels, which slowly ploughed their way through the heavy track, the driver nodding on his box but half awake, the two officers in the arms of Morpheus inside, and the heavy woodwork creaking at each stride of the enormous quadrupeds. In the wake of this vehicle strode the baggage camels. The officers’ servants were fast asleep on the backs of their animals, one man lying with his face to the tail, and snoring hard in spite of the continued movement; another fellow lay stretched across his saddle, apparently a good deal the worse for drink. He shouted out at intervals the strains of a Bacchanalian ditty. Nazar, who was always hungry, could be seen walking in the rear. He had kept back a bone from the evening meal, and was gnawing it like a dog, his strong jaws snapping as they closed on the fibrous mutton. I generally remained by our bivouac fire an hour or so after the rest of the party had marched, and seated by the side of the glowing embers, watched the caravan as it vanished slowly in the distance.”
At mid-day, on the 12th of February, Burnaby and his companions galloped across the frozen highway of the Syr-Daria, and into the streets of Kasala, having ridden three hundred and seventy one miles in exactly nine days and two hours. He remained at Kasala for a few days, endeavouring to obtain permission to return to European Russia viâ Western Siberia; but his application failed, and he was informed that the authorization he had received to travel in Russian Asia had been cancelled. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to complete the necessary preparations for his journey to Orenburg. A sleigh was hired, and amid a chorus of farewells from his Russian acquaintances, who showed themselves more friendly than their Government, he started on his homeward route, having undergone some novel experiences, and seen Khiva, but gathered no information of any value to geographers or men of science. In fact, the chief interest attaching to Major Burnaby’s expedition is personal: it shows that he was a man of much energy, resolution, and perseverance, and he may fairly be complimented on the good use he made of these qualities in his bold but unsuccessful Ride to Khiva. 19
SIR SAMUEL BAKER, AND THE SOURCES OF THE NILE
I
Of late years the Lake Regions of Central Africa have offered a fertile and attractive field to the explorer. The interest of the public in African discovery, which had for some time been dormant, was revived in 1849, by the achievements of Dr. Livingstone, who, starting from the south, crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and penetrated to the shores of Lake Ngami. In 1853 to 1856 the same great traveller traced the course of the river Leeambye or Zambési, and traversed the entire breadth of the “black continent” from Angola on the west coast to Zanzibar on the east. In 1865 he resumed his labours, striking into the very heart of Africa, with the view of tracing out the Sources of the Nile, and entering into a fertile country, the resources of which he found to be capable of immense development. For the first two or three years of his absence his letters and despatches reached England with some degree of regularity, but at length a veil of silence fell across his path, and it began to be feared that he, like other explorers, had fallen a victim to his enthusiasm. An expedition in search of the missing traveller was equipped by Mr. Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New York Herald, in 1871, and placed in charge of Mr. Henry M. Stanley, who had the good fortune to find Livingstone at Ujiji, near Unyanyembé, on the 10th of November. He remained with him until the 14th of March, 1872, when he returned to England with his diary and other documents. Dr. Livingstone at this time reported that, in his belief, the Nile springs up about six hundred miles to the south of the southernmost point of Lake Victoria Nyanza. In November, 1872, a relief or auxiliary expedition, under Lieutenant V. Lovett Cameron, started from Zanzibar; but in October, 1873, while at Unyanyembé, its leader received the intelligence of Livingstone’s death, which had taken place at Ujiji, and soon afterwards the corpse arrived in charge of his faithful followers. Cameron then took up the work of exploration, and in spite of immense difficulties, great mental and physical suffering, and obstacles of every kind, he made his way to Lake Tanganyika, thence to Nyangwé, and after identifying the Lualaba with the Kongo, struck to the southward, and passing through regions hitherto unexplored, struck the west coast at Benguela. As a result of his observations, Lieutenant Cameron thus sketches the river system of Africa: —
“The basin of the Nile is probably bounded on the south-west by the watershed reached by Dr. Schweinfurth; on the south of the Albert Nyanza, by the high lands between that lake and the Tanganyika, whence the watershed pursues a tortuous course to Unyanyembé (where, I believe, the basins of the Nile, Kongo, and Lufiji approach each other), and then follows a wave of high land running east till it turns up northwards along the landward slopes of the mountains dividing the littoral from the interior. Passing by Mounts Kilima Njaro and Kenia, it extends to the mountains of Abyssinia, where the sources of the Blue Nile were discovered by Bruce [1770], and so on to the parched plains bordering the Red Sea, where no rains ever fall. The western boundary of the Nile basin is, of course, the eastern portion of the desert.
“The basins of the Niger and the Ogowai cannot yet be defined with any degree of exactitude, and the northern boundary of the basin of the Kongo has still to be traced.
“The Zambési drains that portion of the continent south of the Kongo system, and north of the Kalahari desert and the Limpopo, the northern boundary of the Transvaal Republic; some of its affluents reaching to within two hundred and fifty miles of the west coast.
“The mighty Kongo, king of all the African rivers, and second only to the Amazon (and perhaps to the Yang-tse-Kiang) in the volume of its waters, occupies a belt of the continent lying on both sides of the equator, but most probably the larger area belongs to the southern hemisphere. Many of its affluents fork into those of the Zambési on a level tableland, where the watershed is so tortuous that it is hard to trace it, and where, during the rainy season, floods extend right across between the head-waters of the two streams.
“The Kelli, discovered by Dr. Schweinfurth, may possibly prove to be the Lowa, reported to me as a large affluent of the Lualaba [or Kongo] to the west of Nyangwé; or, if not an affluent of the Lualaba, it most probably flows either to the Ogowai or the Tchadda, an affluent of the Niger.”
In 1874 another expedition of discovery was fitted out, at the joint expense of the proprietors of the London Daily Telegraph and the New York Herald, and Mr. H. M. Stanley was appointed to the command. In 1875 he reached Lake Victoria Nyanza, and through the good offices of Mtesa, King of Uganda, obtained a flotilla of canoes, with which he circumnavigated the lake. It proved to be the largest basin of fresh water in the world, occupying the immense area of sixty thousand square miles. Mr. Stanley next pushed on to Lake Albert Nyanza; afterwards circumnavigated the northern half of Lake Tanganyika; struck westward to the Lualaba at Nyangwé (1876), and thence descended the Lualaba as far as the Isangila Falls (June, 1877), whence he crossed the country to Kalinda, on the west coast.
But we must now return to 1857, when Captains Burton and Speke, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society of London, started from Zanzibar to explore the inland lacustrine region; and discovered, to the south of the equator, Lake Tanganyika, which they partially explored in a couple of canoes. Captain Burton being taken ill, Speke pushed on to the north alone, and discovered the immense basin now known as the Victoria Nyanza, which he immediately conceived to be the great reservoir and head-waters of the Nile. To ascertain the truth of this supposition, he started again from the east coast in October, 1860, accompanied by Captain Grant; crossed the great equatorial table-land of the interior; reached the Victoria Nyanza; skirted its shores until they discovered its main outlet, which proved to be the Nile, and then traced the course of the famous river to Gondokoro, whence, by way of Assouan, Thebes, and Cairo, they proceeded to Alexandria. Their well-directed energy had to a great extent solved the geographical problem of ages, and dispelled the cloud-land in which the Nile springs had so long been hidden: —
“The mystery of old Nile was solved; brave men
Had through the lion-haunted inland past,
Dared all the perils of desert, gorge, and glen,
Found the far Source at last.”
With heroic patience they had accomplished on foot their journey of thirteen hundred miles, and shown that the parent stream of the Nile, even in its earliest course a considerable river, was fed by the vast reservoir of the “Victorian Sea.” What remained to be discovered was the feeders of this vast basin, and which among them was indeed the primary source of the Nile. Some fresher light was thrown on the subject by Sir Samuel Baker, 20 who, with his wife, underwent some remarkable experiences in Central Africa, and earned a right to be included among our Heroes of Travel. Let us now follow him “through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle and interminable morass; through difficulties, fatigues, and sickness,” until we stand with him on that high cliff where the great prize burst upon his view, and he saw before him one of the chief sources of the Nile in the Luta N’zige, or Albert Lake.
Accompanied by his courageous and devoted wife, who insisted upon sharing his labours and his perils, he sailed up the Nile from Cairo on the 15th of April, 1861. In twenty-six days they arrived at Kousko, whence they crossed the Nubian desert, so as to cut off the western bend of the river, touching it again at Aboù Hamed. Eight days more and they reached Berber, where they remained until the 11th of June. A year was spent in exploring the Abyssinian frontier and the Abyssinian tributaries of the Nile; and the travellers made their appearance at Khartûm on the 11th of June, 1862. Khartûm is a densely populated, unclean, and pestiferous town, in lat. 15° 29′, at the junction point of the White and Blue Nile; it is the capital of the Soudan, and the seat of a governor-general. Twenty years ago it was also the centre of a cruel and desolating slave-trade, but the exertions of Sir Samuel Baker and Colonel Gordon have done much to lessen its proportions.
Having engaged a Nile boat, or dahabeeyah, and two larger noggens or sailing barges, with an escort of forty armed men, and forty sailors, and accumulated four months’ supplies of provisions, Sir Samuel set sail from Khartûm on the 18th of December, 1862. On Christmas Day he was slowly ascending the river, the banks of which were fringed with immense forests. These trees are the soont (Acacia Arabica), which produce an excellent tannin; the fruit is used for that purpose, and yields a rich brown dye. The straight smooth trunks are thirty-five feet high, and about eighteen inches in diameter. When in full foliage they look well from a distance, but on a closer approach the forest is seen to be a desolate swamp, completely overflowed; “a mass of fallen dead trees protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary crane perched here and there upon the rotten boughs; floating water-plants massed together, and forming green swimming islands, hitched generally among the sunken trunks and branches; sometimes slowly descending with the sluggish stream, bearing, spectre-like, storks thus voyaging on nature’s rafts to freer lands unknown.” This kind of scenery – depressing enough, no doubt – continues for a considerable distance, and so long as it lasts deprives the Nile of that romance with which it has been invested by the imagination of poets. There is neither beauty nor interest in it; and one is surprised to see the low flat banks studded with populous villages. The flooded plains, however, afford abundant pasture for the herds of the Shillooks, who in their choice of a locality are governed by considerations of utility, and not by the principles of æstheticism.
The junction of the Sobat takes place in lat. 9° 21′. This tributary, at the point of confluence, is a hundred and twenty yards broad, and flows at the rate of two miles and a half per hour. Still the Nile valley presents the same characteristics – broad tracts of marsh and grasses; dull, monotonous levels, unrelieved by any vividness of colour. After receiving the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the White Nile turns abruptly to the south-east, and winds upward through a flat country, which, in the rainy season, is resolved into a system of extensive lakes. Its highway is half choked with floating vegetation, which nurtures innumerable clouds of mosquitoes. The people on its banks belong to the Nuehr tribe; the women pierce the upper lip, and wear an ornament about four inches long, of beads upon a iron wire, which projects like the horn of a rhinoceros. The men are both tall and robust, and armed with lances. They carry pipes that will hold nearly a quarter of a pound of tobacco; when the supply of “the weed” fails, they substitute charcoal.
The monotony of the voyage was broken one day by the appearance of a hippopotamus close to Sir Samuel’s boat. He was about half grown, and in an instant a score of men jumped into the water to seize him. The captain caught him by the hind-leg; and then the crowd rushed in, and, with ropes thrown from the vessel, slipped nooses over his head. A grand struggle ensued, but as it seemed likely to result in a victory for the hippopotamus, Sir Samuel slew him with a rifle ball. The Arab seamen, who have an extraordinary appetite, like the old school-men, for the most trivial arguments, observing that the animal had been “bullied” and scarred by some other and stronger hippopotamus, plunged into a fierce contention on the point whether he had been misused by his father or his mother. As they could not agree, they referred the question to the arbitration of Sir Samuel, who pacified both parties by the felicitous suggestion that perhaps it was his uncle! They set to work at once with willing vigour to cut up the ill-treated hippopotamus, which proved to be as fat as butter, and made most excellent soup.
Continuing their “up-river” course, the voyagers came to the country of the Kegtah tribe. Such savages as they saw were equally uncivilized and emaciated. The young women wore no clothing, except a small piece of dressed hide across the shoulders; the men, instead of the hide, assumed a leopard-skin. There was greater appearance of intelligence in the termites, or white ant, than in these poor half-starved wretches. The white-ant hills here rise like castle-towers above the water of the marshes. Their inmates build them ten feet high in the dry season, and when the rains come, live high and dry in the upper stories. Humanity, meanwhile, sickens in the stagnant swamp, and lingers out a miserable existence. The Bohr and Aliab tribes are a degree higher in the scale of civilization, but the Shir go beyond them. They are armed with well-made ebony clubs, two lances, a bow and arrows; they carry upon their backs a neatly made miniature stool, along with an immense pipe. The females are not absolutely naked; they wear small lappets of tanned leather as broad as the hand; at the back of the belt which supports this apron is a tail, depending to the lower portions of the thighs – a tail of finely cut strips of leather, which has probably given rise to the Arab report that a tribe in Central Africa had tails like horses. The huts here, and all along the Nile, are circular, with entrances so low that the inmates creep in and out on hands and knees. The men decorate their heads with tufts of cock’s feathers; their favourite attitude, when standing, is on one leg, while leaning on a spear, the uplifted leg reposing on the inside of the other knee.
All the White Nile tribes are quick to collect their harvest of the lotus, or water-lily, seed, which they grind into flour, and make into a kind of porridge. The seed-pod of the white lotus resembles an unblown artichoke, and contains a number of light red grains about the size of the mustard-seed, but in shape like those of the poppy, and like them in flavour. The ripe pods are strung upon reeds about four feet long, formed into large bundles, and carried from the river to the villages, to be dried in the sun, and stored away until wanted.
The 1st of February was a “white day” in the voyagers’ calendar, for on that day the scenery of the river underwent a welcome improvement. The marshes gave place to dry ground; the well-wooded banks rose four feet above the water level; the thickly populated country bloomed like an orchard. At Gondokoro the picture was fresh and pleasant, with a distant view of high mountains, and neat villages nestling under the shade of evergreen trees. Gondokoro is not a town, but merely a station of the ivory traders, and for ten months of the year is almost a solitude. Its climate is hot and unhealthy. Sir Samuel Baker did not meet with a friendly reception. The men who profited by the slave-trade regarded him with suspicion; they believed he had come to watch their doings, and report them to the world. Their hostility, however, did not disturb his composure, and he amused himself in riding about the neighbourhood, and studying the place and its inhabitants. He admired the exquisite cleanliness of the native dwellings, which almost rose to the standard of the famous village of Brock. Each house was enclosed by a hedge of the impenetrable euphorbia, and the area within was neatly plastered with a cement of ashes, cow-dung, and sand. Upon this well-kept surface stood one or more huts, surrounded by granaries of neat wicker-work, thatched, resting upon raised platforms. The huts are built with projecting roofs for the sake of shade, and the entrance is not more than two feet high. On the death of a member of the family, he is buried in the yard, his resting-place being indicated by a pole crowned by a bunch of cock’s feathers, and ornamented with a few ox-horns and skulls. Each man carries with him, wherever he goes, his weapons, pipe, and stool, the whole (except the stool) being held between his legs when he is standing. The Gondokoro natives belong to the Bari tribe: the men are well grown; the women are not prepossessing, with good features, and no sign of negro blood, except the woolly hair. They tattoo themselves on stomach, sides, and back, and anoint their persons with a peculiar red clay, abounding in oxide of iron. Their principal weapon is the bow and arrow; the arrow they steep in the juice of euphorbia and other poisonous plants.
