A valuable lesson may be drawn from the experiences of Gordon and Baker in the same country. Baker isolated himself in Unyoro, with no base and no line of communications. He was obliged to burn his baggage and retreat, with great courage and skill it is true, but with the absolute waste of his expedition. Gordon kept up fortnightly steamers to Khartoum, established his little garrisons step by step, and when he left the Provinces the power of the government was firmly fixed there.
The idea of the Roman Catholic mission is excellent so far as it goes. They have built comfortable houses at Khartoum and El Obeid; have established schools, gardens and hospitals; have a corps of people trained in Arabic and some of the negro dialects, and somewhat acclimated, and—there they stop and sit in their gardens. They are capital financiers, and their mission will not be apt to break up for want of money or recruits; but as a means of practical good in Africa, it is nearly worthless without a chief of heroic fibre.
The scheme that I should strongly advise is a sanitarium and school in the north, with your own steamer on the Nile; a mission near the Sobat; and if the White Nile is found to keep open, another at the head of navigation. In the course of years such a scheme would probably make a mark in the countries it reached; but to succeed it must have at its head a man of courage and brains, a man of sleepless energy, a man hungry and thirsty for work, and he must be a diplomat as well, for he will be terribly worried on all sides. I have suggested a point near the Sobat for a mission, because at that point relations could be established with some of the largest tribes—the Shillooks, Dinkas and Nouers—and because it is the last point at which a colony could be planted north of the great swamp basin. A colony south of that is liable to be cut off for months and even years, by the formation of the “sud” or grass barrier in the Nile. Undoubtedly the Sobat region is inferior in land and climate to the high lands south of Gondokoro; but, as I have pointed out, to isolate your mission so that it cannot be rapidly recruited and supplied will be fatal. Of this I am positive. When you find that the Soudan authorities are sure or even likely to keep communications open up the Nile, _then_ a mission should be sent up to Gondokoro or farther south. All the dangers in and obstacles to this noble work should be measured and faced, and the work so organized that a real retreat need never be made. True progress must be very slow, and you must not look for quick results. When you have done your best you must not be disappointed if you seem to have done very little. To plant a mission on a solid foundation, with the right chief at its head and the right material at his hand, will be a great work.