A Desert Drama

A Desert Drama, by A. Conan
Doyle

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Title: A Desert Drama Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko"
Author: A. Conan Doyle
Illustrator: S. Paget
Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21768]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESERT
DRAMA ***

Produced by David Widger

A DESERT DRAMA
BEING

The Tragedy of the Korosko
BY
A. CONAN DOYLE
WITH THIRTY-TWO FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY S.
PAGET
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1898
[Illustration: Frontispiece p78]
[Illustration: Titlepage]
TO MY FRIEND JAMES PAYN IN TOKEN OF MY AFFECTION
AND ESTEEM

PREFACE
This book has been materially enlarged and altered since its appearance
in serial form
A. Conan Doyle
October 17, 1897

A DESERT DRAMA
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 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 Haifa. I have a passenger card for the trip, which I
hereby produce:
S. W. "Korosko," February 13TH.
PASSENGERS.
Colonel Cochrane Cochrane London
Mr. Cecil Brown London
John H. Headingly Boston, USA
Miss Adams Boston, USA
Miss S. Adams Worcester, Mass, USA

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