The Dutch Ladies Tinne in the Sudan
12 February, 2015Khartoum (Sudanow) It might be surprising, but it is true: Sudan's relation with European Royal families goes back to more than two centuries.
And it was not a horse-riding white male with hard-edge hats who were behind it. But young ladies from the water surrounded Netherlands who penetrated in an unprecedented adventure to the desert scorched villages of the then central Sudan.
Anna Maria Abushama-Rademaker relates in her 214-page book this adventure of two Dutch ladies, hailing from the highest social class and directly connected to the Dutch Royal family, who, two centuries ago, made it to the farthest point ever reached by any European lady: White Nile peripheries.
Bu who were those ladies??
The book tells us that they were Henrietta Marie Louise van Steengracht Capellen and her daughter, Alexandrina Petronella Francina (Alexine). Henrietta was Queen Sophia’s Lady in Waiting and Alexine was considered the richest heiress in the Netherlands.
And it wasn’t an easy ride, as one would imagine, but a tough trip, surrounded by numerous difficulties the two ladies had to confront during their travels from the cold of Europe winds, through the mild weather of the Mediterranean and right into the sun-burning and humidity saturated climate of central Africa.
And tragedies littered every inches they etched, as the author showed in the humane details surrounding the adventure of the two ladies.
The author thought- as you and I would think when told a royal family related people coming to Africa- everything would be easily arranged and facilitated for those born rich. It wasn't. They spent their fortune generously, to tame countless menaces and threats to their lives and well-being. The type of dangers you would expect from traveling at that time. It started way back in their home area, European cold peaks.
When they heard, for example, about the hardships in Scandinavia they felt challenged to prove that it was not for men only to travel on rough mountain roads and for long distances in carioles pulled by ponies. Spurred by their spirit of adventure, the two ladies reached the farthest spot in Sweden, a point no male adventurer in The Hague, had reached at the time.
Having satisfied their love of adventure in Europe, the two young ladies set their minds for a yet harder destination: Africa. And in Africa, they chose the Sudan. This was, for the Europeans at the time, a mysterious area that bordered the backyard of known civilization, southern Egypt. It was also the area where the two Niles converge to create the river Nile.
Now with other mystic stories being related in Europe about Africa, who would not be tempted to give it a try, especially if that person had an adventurous spirit?
The Tinnes visit to Sudan, the author said, was spurred by the very elements that made so many Europeans come to this region, braving malaria, wilderness, adverse climate and what else and what more: seeing the Nile and its origins.
This was irresistible as Alexine, like many others, read James Bruce’s “Travel to discover the source of the Nile in the years 1768-1773” almost daily.
And as stated above, it wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t success from the very start, notwithstanding, the generous spending.
Three times they tried to reach these areas. They first reached Cairo, Egypt. From there they started the journey southwards. It wasn’t a success. That was in 1857. In this attempt (1857) they reached Wadi Halfa, farthest northern Sudan point. The trip that today takes less than two hours by plane cost them almost two months of travel. But it wasn’t easy to sail and cross the Second Cataract. That needed, they realized, industrious preparations, which they did, given the size of the convoy engaged in the next trip.
They returned to Cairo. The next trip, five years later, took them to Khartoum. It started in January 1862, Henrietta’s Sister Adriana accompanied them. Their caravan that crossed the Nubian Desert was composed of 102 camels, 6 big tents, 6 guides, 30 camel-men, servants and other employees.
It was the first time in the life of the three ladies to suffer discomfort “to a degree not imagined before”. Nevertheless, they were enchanted by the colored hills and green valleys of the desert.
Now there are as many as you could imagine of some tiny, human interest details that you would find in this book. Details befitting an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It is a book recommended not only for those who want to see how life was in the Sudan during two centuries ago, but equally for those who love adventure and who would like to see human will in action.
The book is: the Dutch Ladies Tinne in the Sudan
Anna Maria Abushama-Rademaker
Trafford Publishing, 2010
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