The Tragedy of the Korosko

The Tragedy of The Korosko, by
Arthur Conan

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Title: The Tragedy of The Korosko
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Release Date: June 8, 2004 [eBook #12555]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
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TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO***
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THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

CHAPTER I.
The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in
the papers of the fate of the passengers of the Korosko. In these days of
universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may
well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance
should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that there were very
valid reasons, both of a personal and of a political nature, for holding it
back. The facts were well known to a good number of people at the
time, and some version of them did actually appear in a provincial
paper, but was generally discredited. They have now been thrown into
narrative form, the incidents having been collated from the sworn
statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, of the Army and Navy Club,
and from the letters of Miss Adams, of Boston, Mass.
These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer, of
the Egyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret Government
inquiry at Cairo. Mr. James Stephens has refused to put his version of
the matter into writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him,
and no correction or deletion has been made in them, it may be
supposed that he has not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement
of fact, and that any objection which he may have to their publication
depends rather upon private and personal scruples.
The Korosko, a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler, with a
30-inch draught and the lines of a flat-iron, started upon the 13th of
February in the year 1895, from Shellal, at the head of the first cataract,
bound for Wady Halfa. I have a passenger card for the trip, which I
here reproduce:
S.W. "KOROSKO," FEBRUARY 13TH. PASSENGERS.
Colonel Cochrane Cochrane London. Mr. Cecil Brown London. John H.
Headingly Boston, U.S.A. Miss Adams Boston, U.S.A. Miss S. Adams
Worcester, Mass., U.S.A. Mons. Fardet Paris. Mr. and Mrs. Belmont
Dublin. James Stephens Manchester. Rev. John Stuart Birmingham.
Mrs. Shlesinger, nurse and child Florence.

This was the party as it started from Shellal, with the intention of
travelling up the two hundred miles of Nubian Nile which lie between
the first and the second cataract.
It is a singular country, this Nubia. Varying in breadth from a few miles
to as many yards (for the name is only applied to the narrow portion
which is capable of cultivation), it extends in a thin, green,
palm-fringed strip upon either side of the broad coffee-coloured river.
Beyond it there stretches on the Libyan bank a savage and illimitable
desert, extending to the whole breadth of Africa. On the other side an
equally desolate wilderness is bounded only by the distant Red Sea.
Between these two huge and barren expanses Nubia writhes like a
green sandworm along the course of the river. Here and there it
disappears altogether, and the Nile runs between black and sun-cracked
hills, with the orange drift-sand lying like glaciers in their valleys.
Everywhere one sees traces of vanished races and submerged
civilisations. Grotesque graves dot the hills or stand up against the
sky-line: pyramidal graves, tumulus graves, rock graves--everywhere,
graves. And, occasionally, as the boat rounds a rocky point, one sees a
deserted city up above--houses, walls, battlements, with the sun shining
through the empty window squares. Sometimes you learn that it has
been Roman, sometimes Egyptian, sometimes all record of its name or
origin has been absolutely lost. You ask yourself in amazement why
any race should build in so uncouth a solitude, and you find it difficult
to accept the theory that this has only been of value as a guard-house to
the richer country down below, and that these frequent cities have been
so many fortresses to hold off the wild and predatory men of the south.
But whatever be their explanation, be it a fierce neighbour, or be it a
climatic change, there they stand, these grim and silent cities, and up on
the hills you can see the graves of their people, like the port-holes of a
man-of-war. It is through this weird, dead country