THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THE EUPHRATES EXPEDITION.*
A BOOK of travels thirty years behind time has many chances against its finding a large circle of readers. In these days it would hardly be possible to name any part of the world in which one decade, not to speak of three, does not produce as many new records of travel as will largely supersede the old. The countries which were the scene of General Chesney's explorations are far from being an exception to the rule. They have been surveyed by travellers and antiquarians, botanists and geologists, time and again ; almost every route of General Chesney and his colleagues has been revisited, while the country has been traversed in numerous other directions, and various consular reports bring down to the latest date the political and commercial statistics of the region. In these circumstances General Chesney produces the personal narrative of his famous expedition at no little disadvantage, although intrinsically, if published at the time, hardly any work would have been more entitled to be the traveller's book of the season. As the record of an expedition on an unusually large scale, having an important bearing on the present interests of the Empire, and carried on through a wide country full of historical interest but then little explored, it must have been received with éclat, and continued for long years a standard book of travels. Now the cream has long since been taken off it, not merely by subsequent explorations, but by the gradual leakage of facts as to the personal narrative itself. Yet in spite of every disadvantage, it is a book amongst many. It is not an ephemeral book of travels, but a historical piece of permanent interest, marking one of the most important stages in the industrial reconquest of the East by the West. The problem it treats of again, the use of the Euphrates river or valley as the road to India, is still unsolved, so that the subject is full of present
interest.
The personal narrative begins in 1829. The principal expe dition was preceded by a survey which General Chesney accomplished with but little assistance, and the results of which were the basis of the Parliamentary vote for the larger expedition. The object was to take advantage of the new agency of steam, to reopen the old routes to India by Egypt and the Red Sea, and by Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. General Chesney says little here of his Egyptian exploration, though it paved the way for the existing overland route ; but he insists very properly now, when the event is apparently confirming his expectations, on the clear ness of his perception at the time of the practicability of a canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The outline of his Euphrates' explorations is given at more length, and is exceedingly interesting, supplying almost a full enough account of the river for popular apprehension. He first traversed, not with out some perilous adventures among the Arabs, a large part of Palestine and Syria, visiting Jerusalem, the Jordan, the Dead Sea, the Lebanon, Beirut, Tripoli, Damascus, Baalbek, and other towns and places ; and afterwards proceeded eastward by the Haouran and Decapolis towards the Euphrates. Finally, in December, 1830, he commenced a journey from Damascus across the Arabian desert to the river, which he touched at El Werdi—a place afterwards memorable in the story of the expedition for a tremendous hurricane, in which the smaller of the two steamers engaged was lost, and also remarkable in history for the loss of 1,100 vessels belonging to the great expedition of the Emperor Julian to Babylonia. Antiquarian recol lections like this last are of frequent recurrence in the volume ; the author writes with a feeling that he was rediscovering a region, and this has quite a different charm from anything which can be found in the record of travels through regions hitherto unknown to the civilized world. Arrived at Anna, 830 miles from the mouth of the river, he made arrangements to float down by means of a raft supported on inflated skins. Many of our readers will have read descriptions of such craft, but many will not, and General Chesney's vessel is historical :—
" Its base was a rectangular platform of 14 feet long by 13i feet wide, with a sort of well, or inlet, left open at the after extremity of the structure, which was rendered substantial by successive layers of branches, crossed at right angles to each other, till they were about 18 inches or two feet thick, which gave it sufficient stability. Rough planks were laid above the interlaced branches to support a platform, on which a kind of fireplace was fitted up within an enclosure of wet clay (for security from fire); and 40 inflated sheepskins were placed beneath the raft to give it the requisite buoyancy when floated."
The mode of navigation is thus described :— " An Arab, named Getgood, had been selected by the Skeikh, for his fidelity as well as for his knowledge of the river, to accompany me. Two other Arabs were to guide the raft by keeping it in midstream, each carrying for this purpose a rude oar with a kind of fan or blade at the extremity, made of the wood of the date tree. These individuals sat on each side of the well, or opening in the after part of the raft, with their feet in the water, so as to be quite ready to blow out any of the skins from which the air might have escaped. Halil (the dragoman) and his slave-boy completed our party. A pocket compass gave the bearing of the principal points, and a rough sketch was to be made as we followed the stream. But as any attempt to sound would have been sure to arouse suspicion which might have proved fatal to success, the very important object of the depth of the river was obtained approximately by letting down a ten-feet polo through the well of the raft, which, being forced upwards in case of touching the bottom, or meeting any obstruction, gave me the means of ascertaining the depth of water without attracting the observation that mast have resulted from any attempt to make regular soundings."
In this way General Chesney floated down the ancient river, passing a constant succession of watermills, aqueducts, and hamlets, and between well wooded banks and long islands of various dimensions, a picturesque and lively scene, resembling but excelling the scenery on the Nile, which he had also seen. At Hit the raft was exchanged for another peculiar craft, one of the pitch boats 'constructed by the self-taught shipwrights of that place, with no other materials than an axe and a saw, a ladle for pouring out the melted pitch, and a roller for smoothing it, and without docks, basins, or slips of any kind. The journey downwards was broken at Felujah, 87 miles below Hit, that the author "night visit Major Taylor, Consul at Bagdad, and receive information and assistance for his farther passage. This effected, the voyage was resumed and continued to Bushire with little adventure or difficulty. After an exploration of the Persian river Karma, which became so well known iii the Persian war of 1857, the author returned to the Mediterranean by Tabriz, Erzeroum, and Trebizonde, taking in between the latter place and Aleppo a survey of the country at the head of the Euphrates, and between it and the Mediterranean. His final work was to survey the bays of Antioch and Saanderoon, from which, by way of Aleppo, lay the most available route between the Mediterranean and the river.
Returning to England in 1332, General Chesney submitted a report of his protracted survey to Parliament. He succeeded in interesting King William IV. in the results; and to that monarch's personal influence the initiation of the great expedition was largely due. In 1833 again the Eastern question was in one of its crises, consequent on the Russo-Turkish war which ended in the peace of Adrianople; and the immediate apprehensions of Russian aggression stimulated public feeling on the question of speedy communication with India. It was not till 1834, however, that the House of Commons, after inquiring by a Select Committee, before which General Chesney was examined, voted 120,000 for his desired expedition by means of steamers to be carried in pieces overland from the Mediterranean, and put together on the upper course of the Euphrates. The reason for going down instead of up the river was the expediency of not alarming the Arabs with the notion of an invasion of the country, which they would have got by the arrival of the steamers from the sea. The determination was undoubtedly sound, and at least added to the romance of the adventure, not only the task of putting steamers and their machinery in pieces being then novel, but the construction of the steamers themselves. The steamers, the Euphrates and Tigris, were designed and built by Messrs. Laird, of Liverpool ; but General Chesney had the principal share in their design, and was mainly if not wholly responsible for the idea of transporting them overland. As the larger one was 108 feet long and 19 feet beam, the smaller one 68 feet long and 15 feet beam, and the distance they had to be carried under considerable difficulties of obtaining transport was 137 miles, it is impossible not to wonder even now at the happy audacity and spirit with which time work .was undertaken. Even after the vote of the Home of Commons the whole enterprise was at one moment in danger, partly in consequence of the opposition of the Porte, and partly through the desire of Lord Ellenborough to substitute Basrah instead of the coast of Syria as the point of departure. But every difficulty was at length got over, and General Chesney received his formal instructions from the Duke of IVelliugton in November, 1834. Although only Captain, he obtained the rank of Colonel for this particular service. The object of the expedition was stated to be the establishment of a communication with India, and such was the intention at the time—not a mere exploration.
The expedition landed at the mouth of the Orontes in April, 1835. Difficulties, diplomatic and physical, at once assailed it. The authorities on the spot had no sufficient instructions from the Porte as to the co-operation to be given, and even threatened to resist the operations by force ; but General Chesney persevered, trusting to the success of our agent with the Porte and with Mehemet Ali if a landing was actually made and the intention to persevere manifest. His calculation was sound, but he was nevertheless deprived of labourers and transport in the early stages ; and these had to be extemporized, mainly with the help of the Arab chiefs on the Euphrates. But for the preliminary survey, the difficulties would have been enormously increased. The landing of the material for the steamers, especially the boilers, on a semibarbarous coast was itself a hard task, but nothing to the work of transport. For days and weeks the members of the expedition were engaged in felling timber in the forests, constructing rough waggons and rollers, on which the heavy pieces might be moved, and in making a practicable road. No less than 840 camels, and 160 mules had likewise to he hired. Even with all these appliances, the transport very nearly broke down, the progress at the worst parts of the road being half a mile per diem. Th& waggons and sledges were continually breaking down and had to be repaired on the spot, one of the officers in charge on a certain occasion purchasing a native house for the sake of a large beam in it which there was no other means of procuring. Fever broke out while the work was progressing, and General Chesney himself was unconscious for some days. On September 26 the Euphrates was launched, but much time had still to be spent in getting the engines conveyed and fitted. The rains set in before the task was completed, and a great deal ha 1 actually to be done amid soft mud, which rendered the transport of heavy articles all but impossible. On December 9, exactly eight months after the landing at the Orontes, the last boiler was carried into Fort William, as the place of embarkation had been christened. The survey began in March following, before the Tigris was quite finiuhm, and was soon completed between Bir and Beles, the nearest point to Aleppo, a distance of 101 miles. After some delay in
painting, and repairing, and coaling, the two steamers proceeded from Beles in the beginning of May, 1836. The one incident
which marks the expedition after this point is the wreck of the Tigris in a hurricane which sprung up almost without any warning and drove the vessel on a sandbank, the Euphrates very narrowly escaping the same fate. A good many lives were lost, and the spirits of all were damped, but the work none the less went on. The navigability of the river was clearly demonstrated as well as the navigability of the Tigris to Bagdad, but the actual use of the line in transporting mails was hardly begun. The steamers from Bombay did not fit, and accidents in passing up and down the river incidental to the commencement of so novel a route also caused delays. Finally, on the 14th of May, 1837, General Chesney left Basrah to return homewards, meeting with a good many adventures in carrying the mails. Shortly after, the expedition was broken up, and the establishment of communication with India was for the time abandoned. First to last, the expedition cost £32,000, and for this sum not only was a knowledge of the route obtained and a germ of communication established, but a very thorough survey of the whole region had been effected. General Chesney ought not perhaps to complain of the excessive difficulty of obtaining funds in a popular government, but it cannot be said that his expedition was not worth the money. With the close of the expedition his adventures were not at an end. Manifold difficulties occurred in the publication of an account of his researches. General Chesney was detailed for service in China in 1843, soon after the printing of his first volume had been commenced, and naturally preferred service to staying at home and finishing his work on half-pay. Returning to London in 1849, he was robbed by a cabman who gave a false number at Paddington station, and drove away with his portmanteau. The portmanteau, besides £870 in money, contained the MSS. of two volumes which he had brought for publication. After this, the first and second volumes were completed, but the expense was considerable, and as General Chesney could not get it advanced from the Government, the task was dropped before the plan in the prospectus was completed. Thus it happens that, in 1867, there remains so much to be told of an expedition completed so many years ago.
General Chesney informs us that he has prepared the present volume at the request of the Government, as if if were intended to reopen the question once more. Thus, notwithstanding delays and disappointments, General Chesney may live to see the scheme for which he has laboured so much carried out, especially as the changes which have occurred since 1837 are in his favour. The utmost praise is beyond question due to him as the persevering promoter of the enterprise, and by this new volume composed in his old age he lays the public under new obligations. It completes worthily the literary monument of the expedition, and we trust will excite anew that popular interest which will be needed to accelerate the establishment of the long-desired communication.
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