The heart of Africa, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Georg August Schweinfurth

CHAPTER VI.

Laying out a garden à l’Européenne. Hunting adventure with a bastard Gems-bok. Death of Arslan. Physiognomy of the vegetation. Character of the soil. Geography of plants. Destruction of a Seriba by natives. Seriba law. Cattle-raids on the Dinka. Tour round Ghattas’s Seribas. Geography at Geer. Fish of the Tondy. Fear of ghosts in Koolongo. Caves of Gubbehee. Cental African jackal. Bamboos in blossom. Triumph of Nature over her traducers. Joint-stock distillery in Gurfala. Nubian love of drink. Petherick’s Mundo. Unsuccessful chase in the long grass. Two bush-antelopes. Cultivated plants of the district. Cereals. Large growth of sorghum. Leguminous fruits. Oily fruits. Tubers. Vegetables. Tobacco. Smoking in Africa.

I was again in Ghattas’s Seriba on the 13th of May. The arrival of an ivory caravan on its return journey had brought an unwonted animation. But for me very soon the ordinary routine of life came back, and one day passed on just like another in the closest intercourse with Nature. Except during some temporary excursions to the Bongo, this Seriba would be my residence for some months to come, and I set to work to make my quarters as comfortable as I could in a good-sized hut which had been vacated for me.

The first thing I did was to lay out a large vegetable garden, a task which engaged not only all my own people, but gave occupation to not a few of the black slaves of the place. I had not only brought with me a good supply of pickaxes and spades, but I had likewise a capital collection of seeds. Thus I hoped at once to provide for my own necessities, and to prove to the natives the productiveness of their soil. The plot of ground was nearly 200 paces square, and the next thing was to enclose it with a hedge of straw, and to lay it out with a series of parallel beds. The larger number of these beds I planted with the best sorts of maize, of which I had procured the original ears from New Jersey.

Seventy days after sowing I reaped the crop, and the ingathering did not simply answer ray highest expectations, but surpassed in quality the original stock; the kinds which seemed to succeed best being those which after they are dry are horny and transparent.

Tobacco from Maryland grew to an immense height, and I gathered several hundredweights of it. There was not altogether so much of a deficiency of tobacco in the country as of the larger leaves, of which use could be made for rolling into cigars. In Egypt the Virginian tobacco can be made to grow leaves as large as the palm of one’s hand, but in the negro districts the whole produce is quite diminutive. Negroes always sow tobacco under cover before they plant it out; the midday sun of Central Africa is too powerful for the seed, which infallibly perishes in a parched soil. I had always to guard against the same difficulty with all my European vegetables, especially in July, or at other times, when five or six days without a drop of rain would come in succession, and I only saved my young sprouts by having water brought twice a day by the women in their great pitchers. Worms did a vast amount of mischief amongst the germinating seeds, and no devastator was more destructive than the great millipede (Spirostreptus), which, as long and thick as my finger, penetrated the soil in every direction. The havoc made in this way amongst the beans before they were set was very considerable.

GARDEN VEGETABLES.

The hard, yet fertile soil, I feel certain, is quite suited for our cucumbers, cabbage, turnip-cabbage, and radishes. Of radishes, the European sort succeeds better than the Egyptian, which belongs to quite an anomalous variety. Melons and water-melons can only be ripened during the winter months, when they are artificially protected and supplied with moisture. Any attempt to grow them in the rainy season always results in failure; either the fruit is eaten by worms long before it is mature, or the leaves are devoured by grubs. Here, too, I trained some tomatoes and sunflowers, which ever since have been quite naturalised in this part of Africa. Had my sojourn been longer, I should have made an attempt at establishing the plantain, of which indeed I saw some isolated plants now and then in the Seriba. This is a natural production of the land of the Niam-niam; it would doubtless thrive here, but the indolence of the Nubians is so great, and their indifference towards all produce that must be gained by toil is so indomitable, that garden culture amongst them remains fitful and unprogressive.

When I had seen all the labours of the kitchen-garden complete, I was free to abandon myself to the full delights of the flora. Up with the sun, I used to take one or two of my people with me to carry my portfolios and my arms, and in the safe proximity of the Seriba I explored the woods for hours together, returning about noon with a whole treasury of floral wealth. My table at meals never failed to be well supplied, and I was treated as bountifully as in Africa I could be. I enjoyed sitting in the shade of some spreading tree, while I proceeded to analyse, to classify, and to register, the various novelties which I was perpetually finding. Later in the day I was in the habit of wandering out alone over the plains, whilst my servants at home busied themselves in renewing the paper for my hortus siccus, and in pressing out the plants afresh. This labour of the day was often carried on till quite late at night: it was repeated so often that my collection increased to a very considerable extent; roll was piled up after roll; everything most carefully stitched up in hides ready to go along with me on my farther journey, and to be carried across deserts and seas until they could finally be deposited in the magazines of science.

BASTARD GEMSBOK.

One of these rambles into the woods led to a singular hunting adventure, which could only occur in Central Africa. I had been sitting crouched up for half an hour or more under the shade of a butter-tree, in the midst of some tall grass, and, engaged in the dissection of my plants, I had quite forgotten where I was. My three attendants were enjoying, as they were accustomed, a peaceful doze; stillness reigned so supreme in the solitude that one could almost hear the tread of every emmet on the soil, as backwards and forwards it hurried to the laboratory within its hill. All at once a huge shadow came in sight, and looking up I saw, just within pistol-range, the great form of a buck antelope. I was struck as much with admiration as with surprise: the creature had seemed to come suddenly from the earth. My heart fluttered at the apparition, but I could not be otherwise than sensible of its beauty. It was a specimen of the bastard gems-bok (Antilope leucophæa). Except on the belly, which was white, its long hair was all of a brownish grey. It carried its head erect; its ears were long and pointed; its horns massive and very long; its black legs going off into white fetlocks. A stiff mane of bright brown crested its curved neck, and reached to its withers. It had a tail like the giraffe, with which it wisped off the flies—​a tuft of hair of about nine inches in length appended to a long slim stem. There it stood, majestically, I might say, like a stately buffalo when it surveys the region all around before it trusts itself to feed. There it stood, in an attitude at once commanding and defiant. Whenever it moved the grass crackled beneath its tread, and ere long it shifted its place again and turned its full face towards me. I cautiously reached out my hand for a rifle that was lying near me, pushed back the guard, and, at the next movement of the beast, hit it with a ball right upon the shoulder-blade from a distance of about twenty paces. The creature reared itself up, then paused an instant, staggered, and let its head sink down as if amazed. I was just about to get hold of a second rifle when there came a sudden crash, and, while I was still sitting, the animal had fallen just beyond the open portfolio which was lying outspread before me. Fortune had thus cast the noble prey right into my clutches.

Central African Bastard Gemsbok (Antilope leucophæa).

The sound of the rifle had hardly aroused my people, for this is a country where a stray shot does not attract attention for an instant; but my shout of surprise and delight brought them quickly to their feet. Some negroes were soon fetched from the neighbouring huts, who quickly completed the work of flaying and jointing the prey. Its head alone weighed 35 pounds. The natives informed me that the Mahnya (as the Bongo call this species of antelope) are among the rarest animals of the district, although they live as much in one quarter as another. They are ordinarily found singly and far separate from any other of their kindred race; and it is said that the largest of them will assail a huntsman, and are as furious when angry as a wild buffalo.

For a long time I was sorely depressed by the loss of my trusty Arslan, who had been with me ever since I left Berlin and had reached the remote wilderness. He had accompanied me through all the hardships of travel; and here I hoped that all dangers were passed, and now that the heat of the desert and the privations of water had been overcome, I had no fear of losing him; but he sank a victim to the treachery of the climate. My dog had seemed to me almost the last link that bound me to my home, and when I lost him I felt as though a bridge had been broken down which connected me with my native soil. It would have been a grief to me to lose my dog anywhere, but to lose him here was doubly sorrowful—​here, amongst circumstances where he more than ever replaced the lack of a friend.

Nature, pure and free, must ever be a great consoler amidst all the disappointments of life. The stillness and peace of the plant-world brought ease to my troubled mind. To that world, as I turned then, I may be permitted to return now.

Nothing could more completely witness to the great variety of vegetation in my immediate neighbourhood than the fact that during my residence of five months I made a collection of almost 700 flowering plants, which I duly classified. It would not be possible in Europe during a whole year to gather so large a number if one were limited to the environs of a single town. From my own experience I am satisfied that, notwithstanding all means of intercommunication, it would be beyond the power of a botanist to secure anything like 500 species in an entire season. This would arise very much from his having to change his position, and from the varying time at which plants come into bloom: but here, in the land of the Dyoor and the Bongo, Flora seems to delight in crowding all her profusion upon the earlier months of the rainy period: the autumn is left comparatively barren, and even at the height of the rains there is little to be found which was not already in perfection some time before.

WOODLANDS.

The land itself seems decidedly less varied than in the most uniform districts of Germany. Woods indeed there are, and steppes; there are low grassy pastures and shrubby thickets; there are fields and coppices; there are marshes and pools; there are bare rocky flats, and occasionally a rocky declivity; very rarely, and only in the dry, out-drained river-beds, are sands to be met with; and from these ordinary characteristics there is little or no deviation.

The features of the woodlands are, however, very diversified. There are trees which run up to a height varying from 30 to 40 feet, and these alternate with dwarf shrubs and compact underwood. Many of the fields are marked by single trees, which stand quite apart, and which have been intentionally preserved by the natives because of their edible fruit. In some places there are low-lying grassy flats, which in the rainy months are quite impassable, because the grass grows taller than a man; whilst in others the grass is stunted, because there is but a thin layer of soil to cover the rock below, and consequently vegetation is comparatively weak. As to the pasture-lands, they seem to be interrupted every here and there with bushy and impenetrable thickets, which are either grouped around some isolated trees or luxuriate about some high white ant-hill. In the shade of these are found the splendid bulbs of the Hæmanthus, Gloriosa, Clorophytum, together with Aroideæ, ground-orchids, and the wonderful Kosaria. Upon the drier spots within the forests, or where the clay-soil happens to be mixed with sand, weeds and herbaceous plants are found which recall the flora of the northern steppes. Amongst these are the Capparideæ, which (existing as they do in the south of Nubia) make good their claim to be a bond of union between the two zones. Pressing further into the thickets which are formed in the forests, we come across great trees so thickly bound by the wonderful foliage of the large creeper Carpodinus, that a ray of sunlight can never pass them. Here, too, are wild vines of many a kind, the festoons of which are further burdened as they hang by Dioscoriæ and Asclepiads.

Kosaria palmata.

Many are the comparisons that might be made by way of analogy between the numerous trees of this delightfully wooded district and those of our own home. Some of the trees at first sight have a considerable likeness to our common oaks: amongst these may be named both the Terminalia and the butter-tree (Bassia or Buterospermum). The fruit of the latter consists of a globular oily kernel, which looks something like a horse-chestnut, and which is as large as a good-sized apricot, and is enveloped in a green rind. This envelope can be kept till it is as enjoyable as a medlar, and is considered one of the chief fruits of the country. From the kernels of this widely-known tree an oil is expressed, which, under the name of “butter of Galam,” is a recognised article of commerce in Gambia; it has an unpleasant flavour, which makes it not at all a desirable adjunct to the table, and so, for us, it has but an insignificant value; its most valuable property is that, at a temperature of 68° Fahr., it becomes as solid as tallow. The tree itself is very handsome, having a bark which is regularly marked by polygonal rifts in its surface, and which permits it to be likened to an oak.

FRUCTIFEROUS TREES.

A very common tree, which bears a somewhat striking resemblance to our white beech, is the small-leaved Anogeissus. Nut-trees are here replaced by Kigelia and Odina. Far spread as are trees of the character of our oak, so too we may say are trees which have the look of a horse-chestnut. Of this kind is the Vitex Cienkowskii, with others of the species, of which the sweet olive-shaped fruit is gathered as assiduously by the natives as by the wart-hogs, who relish it exceedingly. Another favourite fruit is the produce of the Diospyros mespiliformis. The plane-tree may here be said to be represented, equally with respect to its bark, its foliage, and the pattern of its leaves, by the splendid Sterculia tomentosa, which has established itself pretty generally throughout Tropical Africa. In the place of willows Africa offers the Anaphrenium; and over and over again the traveller may fancy that he sees the graceful locust-tree. The Parkia is another of those imposing trees which are met with; the leaves of this are not unlike the Poinciana, which is known also as the Poincillade or Flamboyer: its flowers are a fiery red with long stamens, and hang in a tuft; when they die off they leave a whole bundle of pods, a foot in length, in which the seeds are found covered with a yellow dust. The Bongo, as indeed do the Peulhs of Footah Dyalon in West Africa, mix this mealy dust with their flour, and seem to enjoy it, but it needs an African palate to conquer the repulsiveness of this preparation.

Many types of vegetation, however, abound, to which we are altogether unaccustomed, and can exhibit nothing which appears to correspond. It is not only by the exuberance and dignity of their forms that these are marked, but still more by the novelty and grace with which Nature seems to have invested them. No European production in any way represents the Anona senegalensis, with its large blue-green leaf and its small fruit. This fruit contains an aromatic dark red pulp, and in a modest degree it displays something of that captivating quality which has exalted its kindred plant, the Cherimoyer of Peru, to its high repute as the queen of fruits. It must be owned, however, that it is difficult to secure a well-developed example of this fruit, for so keenly is it spied out and devoured by the birds that often for months together it may be sought in vain.

Much more singular is the magnificent candelabra-euphorbia, which follows the pattern of its prototype, the American cactus. Palms are not frequent enough to play any important part in the scenery, or to demand any particular specification. Groups of the Borassus are observed near the river-banks, and the Phœnix spinosa, the original of the date-palm, grows upon the marshes of the steppe. Next must be mentioned the varieties of fig-trees, with their leathery leaves, and, associated with them, those chief characteristics of African vegetation, the Combreta and the Rubiaceæ; tamarinds with their thick tubular corollas, and shrubby Gardeniæ, dwarf and contorted. It was the southern limit of the acacias of the White Nile; and only in isolated cases was the stem of the Balanites to be seen, lingering, as it were, on the steppes of Nubia. Even the tamarind had become scarce, and farther south I did not meet with it at all.

CONFORMATION OF THE LAND.

In its general character the flora of this district seems to conform very much to what has been discovered on the table-land of Western Africa, of which the lower terraces form a narrow belt along the shore, and are distinguished for the wild luxuriance with which the African primeval forest seeks to rival the splendour of Brazilian nature. In contrast to this, the bush-forests in the higher parts of Tropical Africa, broken by the steppes, present in uniformity perhaps the most extensive district that could be pointed out in the whole geography of vegetation. Extending, as it does, from Senegal to the Zambesi, and from Abyssinia to Benguela, Tropical Africa may be asserted to be without any perceptible alternation in character, but that which is offered by the double aspect of steppe and bush on the one hand, and by primeval forest in the American sense on the other. On the west this is illustrated by the marked difference between the table-lands and the low coast-terraces, whilst in the interior it is exhibited by the distinction between the woods on the river banks and the flats lying between the river courses. Here, in the country of the Bongo and Dyoor, this, which may be designated as a duality, almost completely fails, on account of the small supply of water in the rivers and brooks; but in the land of the Niam-niam it is again very striking.

Limited as have been the botanical collections of the few who have explored this immense region, they are still sufficient to justify us in estimating the relative abundance of species. When the collections from Java and Brazil are compared with those of Tropical Africa, it is certain that the plants of Africa are not altogether half so numerous.

It is not in the least below the most abundant tropical districts of the New World in producing timber trees. Trees and shrubs constitute quite a fifth of the entire production, and in the woods of the Bongo the variety of foliage is everywhere astonishing. Any tracts covered by a single species are altogether rare, and would exist only within the most limited range. This uniformity of Tropical Africa in comparison with the enormous space which it occupies, and the striking want of provinces in the geography of its plants which it displays, are the results of several agencies. On the one hand, it arises from the massive and compact form of the whole; and on the other hand, by an external girdle which keeps it shut up, so that it is not penetrated by foreign types of vegetation. This girdle is made by currents of the sea and long tracts of desert (the Sahara and Kalahari), and encircles it entirely. In the direction towards Arabia there is, as it were, a bridge into the regions of India, and, indeed, the Indian flora has a great share in the characteristics of its vegetation. The greater number of the African cultivated plants, as well as nearly all their associated weeds, have been, beyond a doubt, derived from India—​a conjecture, equivalent to a prophecy, which Rob. Brown had formed at a time when little was known of the vegetation of Central Africa.

Already have I expressed my happiness at having thus reached the object of my cherished hopes—​my satisfaction at thus finding life to be with me an idyll of African nature. My health was unimpaired, and never before had I been less hindered in prosecuting my pursuits. I felt alone in the temple of creation. The people around me were somewhat embarrassing. Their wickedness, with its attendant impurity, stood out in sad contrast to the purity of nature; but it did not much disturb the inner repose of this still life. In sickness everything is sad, and the craving for home is not to be suppressed; but whoever, in the robustness of health, can imbibe the fresh animation of the wilderness, will find that it stamps something of its unchanging verdure upon his memory; his imagination will elevate it to a paradise, and the days spent there will enrol themselves among the very happiest of his life.

AN ABANDONED SERIBA.

One day in June there came back to the Seriba a company which had been sent out by the agent to fetch the ivory which had been stored in one of the minor Seribas of Ghattas on the Rohl, 130 miles away to the south-west. The proper place of embarkation for the Seribas on the Rohl, which are under a separate agent, is the Meshera Aboo-kooka, on the Bahr-el-Gebel, which is nearer than the Gazelle; but during this year the natives were animated by such a hostile spirit, that the shorter route was impracticable, and thus it was necessary to proceed to the banks of the Gazelle. In April the chief Seriba in this territory had been abandoned by the few men who had been left, after nearly all their entire garrison of a hundred men had been killed during a raid against the Dinka tribe of the Agar. The remnant, who had been informed of the calamity by some friendly natives, found themselves in a great strait. They could see no prospect of defending themselves, and were compelled to surrender all their stores and ammunition, and to escape under cover of night to one of the dependent Seribas. The main body of the troops were still out on an expedition to the Niam-niam country, and it was only the fear of their sudden return which deterred the Agar from annihilating the very last of their foes. They plundered and burnt down the Seriba, which has never since been restored. It was formerly the property of the brothers Poncet, although they were never known to visit it. Petherick halted at it whilst he was on his desperate march to Gondokoro, and inserted it upon his map under the name of Adael. Bad tidings travel quickly, and so it chanced that the intelligence of this disaster reached Khartoom before my letters; the details were related very indistinctly, and my friends were for a while under some apprehension about my fate.

In another respect a star of ill-luck seemed this year to have risen over the enterprise of the company of Ghattas. The season had drawn near in which the agents usually commenced their annual depredations in the districts of the Dinka to replenish their stock of cattle. As the various associations were entering upon mutual competition, in order to prevent disagreements, there was laid down a kind of Seriba law, which was pretty well the same everywhere. First of all, the territories immediately dependent were distinctly designated. Then it provided that the approaches to a meshera should only be used by those who could establish a claim to it. Nearly every Seriba has its separate avenues, upon which it levies a toll, and an avenue without tolls is not a legitimate highway at all. If any extraordinary companies desire to make use of these roads, they must first come to terms with the Seriba agents, who have the supervision of the right of way. Even chieftains who supply provisions to those who are on their transit, would be sure to attack them as foes if they were not first conciliated by being appointed as guides and dragomen.

Very similar was the arrangement that regulated all the expeditions which were undertaken against the Niam-niam. Each separate company had its own route and its own train of captains, who purchased the ivory and procured a market. No new-comers were allowed to intrude themselves into an established market, or to infringe upon its trade. Fresh marts could only be established by pressing farther onwards into the interior. These new establishments in their turn were subject to monopoly, and were rigidly protected. Whereever any violation of this rule occurred, there would be very serious conflicts—​so much so, that amongst the Nubians the affray was very often fatal. This, however, would only happen while the contest was limited between one negro and another, for true Nubians at once renounce all allegiance to a leader who presumed to shoot a brother Nubian.

The Khartoom companies are most jealous of all their rights of cattle-plunder, alike in this region and in every other. The district over which the incursions of Ghattas ranged embraced the whole of the lower course of the river Tondy. During the previous year it was said that the total of the booty was no less than 800 oxen; but this year, although the aggressions were thrice renewed, the result was altogether a failure, and was quite a derision amongst the neighbours, being barely forty head of cattle. In vain had they explored the country west of the Tondy; to no purpose had they scoured the territories alike of the Rek and of the Lao; everywhere they were just too late. The Dinka had got intelligence betimes, and off they packed their herds and families to the inaccessible marshes. Their mere superiority in numbers here gave them the advantage, and they could hold their own against considerable troops of armed marauders. The whole Dinka tribe amongst them could hardly boast a single musket which could go off properly. Other companies, which had been more fortunate in plunder, were now ready to avail themselves of the opportunity to dispose of their superfluous cattle in barter for what the country afforded. Sometimes it might be for slaves, or for copper-rings, or sometimes (and this was a very favourite method) for bills of exchange upon Khartoom. Thus those who lived upon robbery were glad mutually to make a market of each other.

CATTLE-RAIDS ON THE DINKA.

The mode of carrying out these raids may be thus exemplified: On the last occasion 140 armed troops, accompanied by a recognised train of some hundred natives, followed again by a lot of people with a keen scent for cattle of any sort, had set out upon their enterprise. In this cavalcade they had proceeded exactly as though their intention was merely to reach some Seriba or other. Then, all of a sudden, when they saw that the chances were in their favour, just at nightfall (deviating to one side, or even retracing their steps), they marched on till, generally at break of day, they arrived at the devoted murah. Having surrounded it, they began to beat their gongs and to fire away vigorously. They were so alarmed at the likelihood of hitting each other in the legs (for that is the general result of their firing) that they merely discharged a lot of blank cartridges into the air. This, however, was quite sufficient to intimidate the natives, who lost no time in making their escape through the gaps which the invading party were careful to provide in their ranks. In a general way the Dinka have no larger number of servants with them at their cattle-farms than is absolutely necessary, and, as I have mentioned, they leave their wives and children in outlying huts, so that these are very rarely exposed to the rapine of the invaders.

By the help of the negroes which they bring with them, the invaders soon make themselves masters of all the herds, and hurry back covered by the protection of the soldiers. To supply the requirements of a year it is necessary that they should secure by their raid at least 2000 head of oxen. Of the plundered property two-thirds belong to the authorities, the remaining third being assigned to the soldiers, who hawk it about and dispose of it as they please. A portion, however, is first allotted to the leaders of the negroes, to the overseers of the districts, and to the chiefs, which is ever an excuse for great rejoicing. The scandalous accomplices, abettors, and receivers of this odious commerce are those professed slave-traders, the Gellahba, who have succeeded in finding snug quarters for themselves in every Seriba, where they manage, like idle drones, to enjoy the produce of the toil of the industrious. Their transactions extend to calicoes, soaps, and head-gear; they deal in firelocks, looking-glasses, and onions; they can sell a few slaves, old or young, male or female; they find a market for rings and beads; they do something in amulets and verses of the Koran; very often they have on hand some bullocks, sheep, or goats; indeed there is hardly anything which chance does not occasionally throw into their line of business. Thus it came to pass that this year they carried on a thriving cattle-trade in our settlement. From the other marauding companies, whose luck had been better, they had acquired a considerable store of cattle, and they did not miss the opportunity of turning it now to their own advantage.

When I consider the ravages that are made year after year on so large a scale upon the cattle of the Dinka, and the enormous consumption of the Nubians, I confess that it is quite an enigma to me how the supply is not exhausted. Although I am aware that they never kill their cattle, yet the murrain of flies every season decimates their herds; and, besides this, their cows very seldom ever calve more than once, and very frequently remain utterly barren. Observations of this kind somewhat assist us in forming an estimate of the vast numbers of the people, since for the mere oversight and custody of the myriads of cattle there must be multitudes of men corresponding to the hand-to-mouth population of our civilised communities.

EXCURSION TO SUBSIDIARY SERIBAS.

From the 21st of July until the 4th of August I made a tour, which gave me an opportunity of inspecting the subsidiary Seribas of Ghattas. My acquaintance with the country was thus materially enlarged. A march of about four leagues towards the south-west brought me again, by a road which I had not hitherto traversed, to Geer, where the fields of sesame were already in bloom. The sesame in this district all had white blossoms, while in the Nile country it as uniformly blooms with a pale rose-coloured flower, and this is by no means an uncommon feature in the flora of the region. I could exhibit a long list of plants which elsewhere are either red or blue, but here are invariably white; but I could not offer any satisfactory explanation of the circumstance.

Like all my other wanderings in the interior, this little excursion was made entirely on foot. To get along through the tall grass was anything but easy. The negroes tread down a sort of gutter, the width of their foot, and along these we made our way, as in a wheel-rut, as best we could. It was quite necessary to keep one’s steps verging inwards. Occasionally these gutters change their character and become water-courses, by means of which the adjacent steppes are drained. But the enjoyment of a luxuriant nature, with its perpetual change of scene, and the charms of novelty which presented themselves in the foliage, compensated richly for a little toil; and day by day practice made the trouble lighter.

This tour contributed in various ways to my stock of information. In Geer I met with the clerk from the Seriba destroyed by the Agar, who related to me the adventures which the sufferers had endured upon their flight. With a Faki from Darfoor, who had formerly visited Bornu and the Western Soudan, I had a long geographical dispute as to whether the great river of the Monbuttoo emptied itself into the Tsad, or flowed direct into the sea. The foreigner argued justly for the Shary, whilst I, on the other hand, was referring to the Benwe. I succeeded in stirring him and all the other interested listeners to a state of considerable amazement at my acquaintance with localities of which they had no knowledge except by report and which they hardly knew even by name. I told them about the whole series of states right away from Darfoor to the ocean. For about the hundredth time I had again to answer the inquiry why Europeans want so much ivory. The curiosity on their part is quite intelligible, as ivory is the unseen incentive which keeps alive the system of plunder practised by the Nubians, and I endeavoured to make them comprehend something about the handles of knives and sticks and parasols, the pianoforte keys, the billiard-balls, and the variety of other uses to which the material is applied.

From Geer, with its questions of geography, history, and political economy, I proceeded another league and a half, and came to Addai, where the whole armed force was employing itself most peaceably in the art of tailoring. In nearly all Mohammedan countries needlework is the business of the men. A short league brought me to Koolongo, past which there flows a copious stream, bordered by thick jungles 01 impenetrable bamboos, and which, not far from Addai, flows into the Tondy. The stream is singularly abundant in fish, and the Bongo were busy in securing their chief haul. They proceed very much in the European way of damming up the stream by weirs, and laying down wicker-pots of considerable size. The fishing, for the most part, is done twice in the year; first, at the commencement of the rainy season, and again when the waters begin to subside.

The Kilnoky.

KILNOKY AND GURR.

A large proportion of the fish captured in this stream is nearly the same as what is found in the Lower Nile and in Egypt; but some sorts are found which are peculiar; amongst which the fish-salamander (Lepidosiren) and some Siluridæ may be mentioned as representatives of the tropics in Africa. There is one kind of these called Kilnoky by the Bongo, and which is rather interesting. It reminds one of the species of the Auchenipterus or Synodontis, which are distinguished by their forked tail-fins. Another of the most frequent fish is that known as the “Besher” of the Nile, here called “Gurr” by the natives.[24] The elegant, large-scaled Heterotis niloticus, which the Bongo style the “Goggoh,” has a tender flesh and is of a good flavour. The river does not generally abound with fish which are desirable for food, but those which can be eaten generally belong to the section of the Characini; for example, the Hydrocyon Forskalii, which is here called “Kyalo.” This is a grey-streaked fish, glittering like pearl, in shape not unlike a salmon; it has red fins and a regular dog’s head, of which the lanky jaws, armed with conical teeth, amply justify the systematic name. Related to this is the “Raha” (Ichtyborus microlepis), which is noteworthy for its pike’s head, and the small-scaled Distichodus rostratus, or “Heeloo,” as it is termed. There is another sort which the Bongo call “Tonga.” Besides these there are the “Kalo” (Alestis) and the “Dologoh” (Citharinus). Of the perch, which plays so prominent a part in these waters, the silver-grey Lates niloticus, known as “Golo,” is very abundant, and perhaps still more so the “Warr” (Chromis), about the length of a finger, and of which there are several descriptions. The “Warr,” when first caught, is of a dark-green tint crossed obliquely by a number of broad dark stripes. The most common, however, of all the fish, and which seems never to fail in any of the marshes left by the retreating floods, are the sheath-fish, which belong to the Clarias species, the white flesh of which has a detestable flavour of the swamps; and the “Geegongoh,” which while they are alive are so like in colour to the brown slime in which they roll that they cannot be distinguished from it. A rare sort of the smaller fish is that known as the “Banghey,” and which belongs to the species of the Schilbe. Interesting, as being a representative in Africa of an Indian species, is the speckled grey and brown Ophiocephalus obscurus. It only remains to mention among the lesser sorts “Ndeer” (Ctenopoma Petherickii), the “Labyrinthi” of the Marango (Labeo Forskalii), and the “Möll” (Mormyrus cyprinoides).

Young Polypterus.

There are two methods which the Bongo employ to preserve the flesh of their fish. Table salt they cannot get, but they substitute what they obtain from ashes. They cut the fish through lengthways, simply expose it to be dried in the sun, and afterwards hang it up to be fumigated in the clouds of smoke which fill their huts. Another way is to cut the fish up and dry it, and then to pound it all up in mortars until it is reduced to a jelly, which is rolled into balls about the size of the fist. These, with their high flavour, form a favourite ingredient in soups and sauces, which are entirely wanting in all other aromatic condiments.

HAUNTED CAVE AT KOOLONGO.

In Kulongo so many ridiculous tales were dressed up for me about the wonders of the subterranean world, and of the abodes of evil spirits in the neighbouring caves, that I glowed with the desire to make their acquaintance. No one that I could find in the Seriba had ever ventured to visit the dreaded grottoes, and the alarm of the Governor was a great joke; after he had talked away for an hour, and declared he would accompany me, he ended by offering a handsome “backsheesh” to one of his subordinates to take his place; but his offer to go had been publicly made, and, as matter of honour, he was bound to attend me. We had to cross a stream ten feet in depth, and as, on account of an injury to his foot, he was riding an ass, the timid fellow found just the pretext he wanted to excuse his return; he could not allow his invaluable donkey to get a chill. In a party of eight, including myself, we set out towards the house of terror: three of my own servants, two of the soi-disant soldiers, and two of the natives who acted as guides. This company however, could not help considering themselves inadequate to face the peril, and as we approached the caves some extra negroes from the adjacent fields were pressed into the service.

Uphill for a while was our way from Kulongo, and on accomplishing the ascent we had before us a wide plain, and about a league away we could discern the spot, shrouded in a thick coppice, which was the object of our march. Reaching the entrance to the cavern, we found it blocked up through a considerable fall of earth, which apparently had been caused by the washing away of the surface soil by springs bubbling up from beneath; and the outside was so choked up by masses of underwood, that no one could suspect that there was a grotto in the rear.

When, fourteen or fifteen years previously, the first intruders made their way into this district, the story goes that hundreds of the natives, with their wives and children and all their goods and chattels, betook themselves to this inaccessible retreat; and that having died of starvation, their evil spirits survive and render their place of refuge a place of danger. Just as we had contrived to push a little way into the thicket, an idea struck one of my servants that he could be as cunning as his master. Finding that I persevered in my intention, he bethought himself of the bees on the White Nile, and so there rose the shout of “Bees, bees!” from more than one of the party. But they got some stings they hardly looked for: one good box on the ear, followed up by another and another, made their cheeks tingle again, and they were fain to proceed. I can still laugh as I picture to myself those nigger rascals resigning themselves to enter the shrubs, and I see them heaving a sigh, and looking as if they were ready to send their lances through the first devil they should happen to meet. I followed them on through the hazardous pathway, the darkness growing ever deeper. Stumbling on, we made our way over blocks of stone, descending for more than a hundred feet till we reached the entrance of the cave, which, after a low kind of porchway through the rifled rocks, arches itself into a spacious grotto, capable of sheltering some thousand men.

INVOKING THE SPIRITS.

In place of any heart-rending shrieks of wicked ghosts, there was nothing more to alarm us than the whizzing of countless bats (Phyllorhina caffra), and thus at once the whole veil of romance was torn asunder. We reclined for a time in the cool shade, and then I invited the whole party to take part in a scene of conjuration, for which they were quite prepared. With the full strength of my voice I cried, “Samiel, Samiel, Afreed!” invoking the spirits of evil to put in an appearance; thus all pretext of fear from that quarter was put to rest; and now belief in ghosts took another shape, and the men pretended that they were terrified, because the cave was a lurking-place of lions; but as a fine brown dust covered the floor of the grotto, leaving it as smooth as though it had just been raked over, I asked them to show me some traces of the lions. They could detect nothing, however, but the vestiges of some porcupines, of which a few quills made it clear that other creatures besides ghosts and bats made the cave their home. That brown dust was a vast mass of guano that had gradually accumulated; I brought away a sack of it with me, and it worked wonders in making my garden productive, resulting in some cabbages of giant growth.

The rocky walls of the cave, dripping as they were with moisture, were covered with thick clusters of moss, which took the most variegated forms, and were quite a surprise in this region of Central Africa, where mosses are very scarce. A regular network of foliage, with long creepers and thorny brambles, filled up the entire glen upon which the grotto opened, so that no ray of sunlight could ever penetrate.

The Bongo give the name of “Gubbehee” (or the subterranean) to this cavern. I tried to creep into some of the crevices, but was soon obliged to desist, sometimes because the fissures were too narrow, and sometimes because the multitudes of bats came flying out in my face, and sometimes because the reeking ammonia choked me, and made further progress impossible. By some shots, however, which I discharged, I convinced myself of the magnitude of these rifts, which, within a few inches, were full of guano.

Full of spirits, we retraced our steps to the Seriba, and had some sport with the Governor about his pretence of the susceptibility of his donkey. When I asked him to accept a bet of 100 dollars that he would pass a night by himself in the cave, he was quite as bumptious as on the day before; but I moderated his enthusiasm by suggesting that his donkey, perhaps, was worth more than the 100 dollars, and that I was sure that the donkey could not stand the damp. The result was, that he declined the engagement, and cried off the wager.

These details will answer the purpose of showing what kind of heroes these cattle-stealers and men-hunters are. To them most literally applies Dante’s verse, when he speaks of the saucy herds who, “behind the fugitives swell with rage, but let these show their teeth, or even stretch out their purse, and at once they are gentle as a lamb.” Against the poor faint-hearted negroes they were valiant and full of pluck; but all their courage vanished into nothing when they came in contact with the Shillooks and Bari.

In Kulongo were wide plains covered with earth-nuts, which attract multitudes of the jackals of the country, which scratch up the nuts, and crack them with their teeth. The jackal (the “bashohm” of the Nubians, Canis variegatus) is one of the most common animals in Bongo-land. It is about the size of an ordinary fox, in colour being like a wolf, with black back and tail. They are pretty sure to be seen in the early morning, squatting comfortably down, and composedly enjoying the nuts. I knocked over several of them with heavy shot, and took care of their skins, which gave me some beautiful fur. The bashohm is very destructive among the poultry of the villages, doing even more mischief than the wild cat, which does not care to venture so near the huts.

ANOTHER DESERTED SERIBA.

From Kulongo I returned to Geer, from which it is distant about as far as from Addai. Half a league on the way we came to a spot where a deserted Seriba of Ghattas’s exhibited its desolate remains. The sight here was very striking; after penetrating the tall masses of grass, we found some self-sown sorghum, the stalks of which reached the astonishing length of 20 feet, being beyond question the tallest cereal in the world. The extraordinary growth was probably to be attributed to the manuring substances which, year after year, collect upon and fertilise the soil. The palisades of the old Seriba were still partially standing, and were hardly higher than the surrounding grass, and the ruins were overgrown with wild gourds, calabashes, and cucumbers. The bare frameworks of the conical roofs had fallen to the ground, and lay like huge crinolines: they served as supports to the growing pumpkins, and formed in this condition a thick shady bower.

The extensive wilderness derived a weird aspect from the strange stillness that pervaded the deserted dwellings. There was not a song from a bird, there was hardly the humming of an insect; it seemed as if Nature were revelling in her undisputed sway, or as if the curse of a prophet had been wreaked upon the abodes of violence and of plunder.

By the end of July all the bamboos were in full blossom. The grains are not unlike rye, and are edible, and, in times of dearth, have been known to form a substitute for the exhausted corn. When the fruit is mature, the long, ramified panicles have a very remarkable appearance, and the ears, clustered together at their base, radiate like an ancient whirlbat. Very rarely, however, does the African bamboo bloom, so that it is not often that it supplies the place of ordinary corn.

At an equal distance of about a league and a half from Kulongo and from Geer lies the village of Gurfala. The way thither led through perpetual marshes and was so interrupted by deep masses of mud that I had repeatedly to change my clothes. When the naked skin is exposed to the filth of the bogs, it is not only annoyed by a number of insects, some of them harmless enough, many of them most disgusting, but it is terribly cut by the sharp edges of the grass. This not merely causes considerable pain, but the wounds inflicted in this way are often very troublesome and slow to heal; they not unfrequently result among the Nubians in serious sores, and have been known to entail the loss of a foot. At every Seriba there will be found some who are suffering from this cause, and Baker observed the recurrence of the same evil amongst his people. As the same consequences do not occur in Nubia itself they are probably to be attributed to the effect of the climate. The backs of the negroes are not available for transport over any long distances of this fenny land, because of the insecurity of the footing; and in another respect this mode of conveyance offers little attraction; to mount one of the negroes is almost as disastrous to one’s white summer garments as an actual tumble into the marsh. Soap is not a common article hereabout, and must be used economically, and the traveller has to put up with a general wash about once in two months.

All the minor Seribas are really established for the purpose of overlooking the Bongo, and the sub-agents are always in trepidation lest there should be a sudden disappearance of all their negroes. It has not unfrequently happened that whole communities of the Bongo, quite unawares, have taken up their baggage, started off from their state of subjection, and, escaping the hands of their masters, have established themselves amongst the neighbouring Dinka. If they wish to cultivate corn for themselves, who could venture to blame them?

AFRICAN DISTILLERY.

The Bongo name for Gurfala is Ngulfala, which indicates an earlier tribe of this race, which is no longer separated into various clans. Gurfala, I found, had its amusing associations. As in Kulongo it was the fear of ghosts for which the people had been conspicuous, so here it was the effect of a great brandy-distillery upon the inhabitants that entertained me. This distillery was kept by an old Egyptian, one of the few of his race who resided in the district of the Seribas. Out of an “ardeb,” or about five bushels of sorghum, he managed, with his rude apparatus, to extract about thirty bottles of watery alcohol. The sallow old Egyptian, whom the enjoyment of his vile liquors had tanned till his skin was as dry as parchment, was, as it were, director of a joint-stock company, of which the sub-agents and the soldiers in the Seriba were the shareholders, contributing their quota of corn to the concern. The apparatus for distilling consisted of a series of covered clay retorts, connected by tubes made of bamboo; the establishment for working was made up of a party of fat-bellied, swarthy women slaves, who had to pound away at the grain in a mortar; and as often as they paused for a moment to recover their breath, after their grinding exertions, they invariably panted till they reminded one of exhausted Cybeles. The chief material used was sorghum; the produce was a vile spirit. All the Nubians who settle here would abandon themselves very much to the use of brandy, if it could be more readily procured and if a continual superabundance were at their disposal; their fanaticism, however, is irreproachable; they rigorously follow the prescription of their law, and most scrupulously observe the Fast of Ramadan.

Together with the fresh relays arrived rows of spirit-flasks in their original packing (mostly made at Breslau), which are stored away in the magazines. These find their way from Alexandria and Khartoom to this remote corner of traffic. The agents drink their spirits neat, and cannot get it strong enough to please them; everybody else dilutes it with two-thirds water or mixes it with his merissa. In their drinking-bouts they used to besiege me with applications for some of the sharp radishes from my garden, which on these occasions they seemed especially to relish. What was most revolting to me about their intoxication was that they always preferred the early hours of the morning for their indulgence, and for the rest of the day became incapable of standing upright. After they were tipsy they were just as pugnacious as Europeans, but the excitability of the South would break out, so that manslaughter and death were not of unfrequent occurrence.

After a couple of days I took my departure from the huts of Gurfala, where a number of the Gellahba also have settled themselves, and I made my way over a short two leagues towards the west to Doomookoo, the fifth of the Ghattas Seribas. The route was over a firm soil, alternately bushwood and open steppe. The grass on the rocky level seemed to have a permanent character. All of one kind, and covering large tracts of country, it reminded me of the waving ears of our own cornfields. Although the region seems to be destitute of any continuance of trees, it far surpasses the European plains and meadow lands in the variety of its permanent grasses.

About half-way there was a pond made by rain on the rocky ground, which was covered with the large red-headed geese of the Gambia and a number of widow-buntings. Only during the rainy season do these birds quit the waters of the great Nile and find their way to the interior.

MUNDO.

At Doomookoo I found the negroes all astir; an equipment was being made for an expedition to Gebel Higgoo, and, with the co-operation of Aboo Guroon, was to consist of a hundred armed men. Mukhtar, the captain of the troop, repeatedly assured me that he could reach his destination in about five days, and I was much disposed to accompany him. But there was in my way this obstacle, that I was obliged to get my correspondence off-hand; I had to write my letters for a whole year. The mountains Higgoo and Shetatah have been so denominated for some cause by the Nubians; Higgoo signifying a bandbox, and Shetatah being their name for cayenne pepper. They lie in a southerly direction from where we were, only a few leagues distant from that Mundo which is so often mentioned by Petherick; a spot which on every map is notoriously always pushed either backwards or forwards for several degrees, and originally, by those who professed to have visited it, was said to be situated on the Equator. The fact is, that Mundo is the name ordinarily given by the Bongo to a small tribe calling itself Babuckur, which has contrived to wedge in its position between the borders of the Bongo and the Niam-niam. On the eastern limit the Bongo denote the Niam-niam themselves by this name of Mundo. To the isolated hills of this border-land, such of the Bongo as could maintain their independence made good their retreat, and only in consequence of the contemplated expedition of the Khartoomers were they laid under tribute. During the present year the trading companies had established a number of settlements here amongst them, these advanced colonies being necessary for the security of the highways for traffic into the Niam-niam territory. Hitherto all the avenues for transit had been found liable to attack from the uncontrolled Bongo and from the Babuckur; but now the entire region was sequestered, and made a kind of preserve, on which the two companies could meet and monopolise their slave-plunder.

In one of the more extended low-lying steppes, overgrown with its mass of vegetation, I lost a whole day in vain endeavours to secure an antelope of that large breed which is found here, but which seems to elude all pursuit, in the course of the chase learning to discriminate a considerable number of species. Fate was here unpropitious. Manœuvre as I would, I could not sneak up close enough to get a shot. More than once I saw large herds of Leucotis, grazing apparently in entire repose; but every movement of mine was so dependent upon the formation of the ground, and every disturbance of the tall grass resulted in such a crackling, that to meditate a surprise was out of the question. If ever I flattered myself that I was gaining some advantage, and was getting close to the herd under cover of a detached bush, I was sure to be betrayed by the keen vision and disquietude of some stray beast that was hanging on the flank. Still greater were the obstacles that occurred if pursuit were tried in the drier tracts by the border of the lowlands. Here were seen whole troops of the Aboo Maaref (A. nigra), like great goats, with their sharp horns and their flowing manes, proudly strutting on the plain; but, times without number, on the first alarm they bounded off. No avail that their black wrinkled horns were right before us, rising and sinking in the grass, offering a mark indeed somewhat indefinite; no good that we crept on, three at a time, one taking the wilderness, another the thicket, and the third, step by step, getting through the marshy hollows—​everything was ineffectual: just as we thought we were getting an advantage, either some one would fall into a hole, or would shake a bough that hung over his head, or would disturb the crackling stalks in the bushes, and all hope was gone; the signal of danger was circulated, and the herd were out of reach. These details will furnish an idea of the endless artifices by means of which the chase in the rainy seasons has to be practised to insure success. Wet through, and with clothes saturated with the mire of the marshes, extremely weary, and having only succeeded in sending one poor Aboo Maaref hopping on three legs after its companions, we returned at the close of our day of unsuccessful exploit.

The return to my headquarters from Doomookoo was a journey of about four and a half leagues. I found the way entertaining enough. Elevated dry flats of rocks came in turns with inundated lowlands; and after passing through pleasant woodlands the road would wind through open steppes. Game was everywhere most abundant. It was only necessary to withdraw for an hour from a settlement to get an impression that the whole of the animal creation had ceased to give itself any concern about the proceedings of man. Not one of the soldiers, whose lives are lavished by their employers in a hundred useless ways, finds the least enjoyment in the noble pleasures of the chase. They all shirk the trouble, and, even if they could get up the necessary perseverance, they are such bad shots that they could hardly recompense themselves for their exertion. Besides this they prefer the very rankest of their goats’ flesh to the choicest venison; partly it may be from the general uniformity of their diet, or partly perhaps from their religious aversion to eat of meat slaughtered in a manner that is not prescribed in their law; certainly it is very rare for them, in their wanderings, to partake of any game which they have captured.

THE HEGOLEH AND THE DELOO.

There are two little antelopes which are here very common, and which roam about the country in pairs. One of these is the Hegoleh (A. madoqua) which appears to be found right through from Abyssinia to the Gambia; the other is the Deloo (A. grimmia), which is known also in the south. They are both pretty and lively bright-eyed creatures, of which the entire length is but little over three feet; they correspond very nearly to a small roe, or the fawn of a fallow deer.

The Hegoleh is all of one colour—​a light tawny with a greyish throat, not so foxy as the Leucotis. The Deloo is of a fawn colour on its back, with a tinge of yellow in front; its flanks are nearly white, whilst its ankles are black. Its head is very expressive; a black stripe runs along it and terminates in a dark brown tuft; this gives to the female, which has no horns, rather a comical look, running up as it does into a stiff peak of about five inches long: in the males this growth is concealed by the short horns. Both kinds are distinguished by the glands of the lacrymal ducts.[25] The Madoqua has two pair of these, one pair set under the roots of the ear, making a triangle of an area of half a square inch; the other pair in the tear-pits composing a sort of pouch, about an inch long, which consists of a deep fold of skin, and from which is discharged a viscous and colourless matter. Above the tear-glands, towards the nasal bone, there projects on each side from the frontlet a thick pad about three inches long, which seems to have an adenoid texture, almost like a tumour. In the same way as with the Cervicapra, these tear-glands during any excitement open themselves like the nostrils of a snorting horse. The Deloo has only one pair of these glands, which lie horizontally in a narrow streak across the hollow of the eyes. Both kinds are alike in never venturing into the low grounds exposed to floods, and in preferring the rocky lands which are covered with bushwood. They often get into the middle of a thicket, and startle the huntsman by suddenly springing out, in the same way as the Ben-Israel or Om-digdig of Abyssinia (A. Hemprichiana). The flesh of both these antelopes is very indifferent for eating as compared with the larger kinds; that of the Deloo when roasted having a singular acrid flavour, which seems to suggest the unpleasantness of the glands.

The Madoqua.

CULTIVATION OF SORGHUM.

Towards the end of August the sorghum-harvest commenced with the pulling of the light crop of the four-monthly sort, which had been sown in the latter part of April. But the general ingathering of the heavier varieties, which contribute chiefly to the supply of corn, did not take place until the beginning of December, after the rainy season was over. In Sennaar and Taka, sorghum requires five or six months to come to maturity, but in this district it rarely takes less than eight months. Both the early and late sorts commonly attain a height of nearly fifteen feet; the stalks of the former remain quite green, but the reedy stems of the latter become so strong and woody, that they are used for fences to divide one enclosure from another. Some of the varieties are scarcely inferior to the regular sugar millet (Sorghum saccharatum) in producing an abundance of saccharine matter; these are known to the negroes as well as to the Arabians of the Soudan, who chew the straw and so express the juice. The Bongo and the Dyoor express the pulp by means of wooden mortars, and boil it till it has the consistency of syrup. From this concoction I was able to procure a spirit which was far more palatable than what I should have obtained by distilling the sorghum itself.

The Deloo.

Both varieties of the common sorghum,[26] which here abound in all their minor differences of colour, shape, and size of grain, yield well-nigh a dozen different descriptions for the market at Khartoom. The standard value is fixed by the Fatareetah, a pure white thin-skinned grain, which also is grown by the negroes in the Seriba.

All negro races that depend upon agriculture for their subsistence consider the cultivation of sorghum most important. Of the people among which I travelled, the Bongo, the Dyoor, and the Mittoo, were examples of this. On the other hand, among the southern Niam-niam and the Monbuttoo this cereal is quite unknown.

LIMITATION OF GRAIN PRODUCE.

I could not help being astonished at the length of time which most of the kinds take to ripen. In some fields a portion of the stubble is left intentionally ungrubbed until the next season; this will die down, but, after the first rain, it sprouts again from the root, and so a second gathering is made from the same stem. No loosening of the soil is ever made, and this perhaps accounts in a degree for the tardiness of the growth. With the small spades, of which I have already spoken, shallow holes are sunk in the ground at intervals of about a yard: into these is dropped the corn, which then is trodden down by the foot. It is only during the first few months that any labour at all is given to the fields, just to remove from the surface of the soil the multitudes of weeds which will spring up. These weeds are gathered into heaps, and form the only manure which is employed in this lavish laboratory of nature. Never more than once is this weeding repeated; it is done by the women and children; and the corn is then left entirely to take its chance until it is time to gather it. On account alike of its tall growth and of its luxuriant habit, the men are careful not to plant it too thickly. The country does not offer many materials for manuring the land; if, therefore, greater application of labour or of skill should succeed in doubling the yield of every stem, there would ultimately be no gain. The soil, which already in many places fails after the second year, would only be exhausted so much the sooner. Such being the case, every project of ameliorating the condition of this people by enlarging their crop is quite an illusion; the land could not sustain a larger number than that which already resides upon it.

In my garden I made several attempts to sow wheat, but without much success. Probably I should have prospered better if I could have obtained some European seed: mine was from Khartoom, and it is very likely that the conditions under which it had been grown, amidst the flooded fields of the Nile Valley, on a soil far more soddened than that of this district, had been very injurious to the grain.

Very unwisely, not one of the Seriba governors has ever made an attempt to introduce into the district the culture of rice, for which the low marshy fields, otherwise useless, seem, very admirably adapted; but the people are not to be taught; vain the endeavour to initiate them even into a rational system of burning charcoal; and as to the culture of rice, nothing throughout the whole of Nubia was known about it. On the contrary, the expeditions which have set out from Zanzibar, and which have explored districts where the climate is not dissimilar to that of which we speak, have introduced the cultivation of rice over a very considerable area. The finger of nature itself seems to point out the propriety of not neglecting this product; in the whole district south of the Gazelle the wild rice of Senegal grows quite freely, and this I always found of a better quality than the best kinds of Damietta. During the rains the wild rice (Oryza punctata) environs many a pool with its garland of reddish ears, and seems to thrive exceedingly, but it never occurs to the sluggish natives to gather the produce that is lost in the water; and it is only because the Baggara and some of the inhabitants of Darfoor had saved some quantity, that I contrived to get my small supply.

There yet remain three kinds of corn to which a passing reference should be made in order to complete a general survey of the agriculture of this district.

Next to the sorghum stands the penicillaria, or Arabian “dokhn,” to which much attention is devoted, and which is cultivated here much more freely than in the northern Soudan. Sown somewhat later than the sorghum, somewhat later it comes to maturity.

A second substitute on the land for sorghum is a meagre grain, the Eleusine coracana. By the Arabians it is called telaboon, and by the Abyssinians tocusso; it is only grown on the poorest soils and where the ground is too wet to admit of any better crop. The grain of this is very small and generally black, and is protected by a hard thick skin; it has a disagreeable taste, and makes only a wretched sort of pap. It yields a yeast that is more fit for brewing than for baking; in fact, not only do the Niam-niam, who are the principal growers of the Eleusine, but the Abyssinians as well, make a regular beer by means of it.

Midway between the sorghum and the penicillaria must be reckoned the maize of the country, which only grows in moderate quantity, and is here generally cultivated as a garden vegetable in the immediate proximity of the huts. The Madi tribe of the Mittoo are the only people who seem to cultivate it to any great extent.

AFRICAN WHEATS.

There is one quality which pertains equally to all these varieties of grain which are grown in these torrid regions; it is not possible from the flour which they provide to make bread in the way to which we are accustomed. All that can be made from the fermented dough is the Arabian bread, “kissere,” as it is called—​tough, leathery slices, cooked like pancakes on a frying-pan. If the fermentation has gone on far enough to make the dough rise for a good spongy loaf, when it is put into the oven it all crumples up, and its particles will not hold together; if, on the other hand, the fermentation has not proceeded sufficiently, the result is a heavy lump, and this is the ordinary daily achievement of the natives, who pack up their dough in leaves and bake it in the ashes. The wheats of the Upper Nile Valley, and even large Abyssinian kinds, have the same property, which may arise from the small proportion of soluble starch which exists in all corn of the tropics, however large the entire quantity of the starch may be. The presence or absence of gluten in the grain is irrelevant, and cannot be an adequate explanation with regard to sorghum, of which the better kinds are richer in gluten than our wheat.

Next, after the various sorts of corn, the leguminous plants play an important part amongst this agricultural population. Cultivated frequently alike by the Dinka and Dyoor is the catyang (Vigna sinensis), which is grown by the Shillooks more plentifully than by either; but the Bongo have a great preference for the mungo-bean (Phaseolus mungo), which they call “bokwa.” The pods of these contain a little hard kernel, not unlike black pepper; in comparison with the catyang they are very poor eating. Wild representatives of both these classes of beans are almost universal throughout Africa, and demonstrate that they are indigenous to the soil. The best of all the beans is the Phaseolus lunatus, which is found of various colours, white, or brown, or yellow, and which in shape is like our own, although the legume is very short, and rarely contains more than two seeds. This is grown very freely by the Mittoo and the Madi, but the Bongo and the Dinka also give it their attention.

There are two kinds of these leguminous plants which are cultivated very extensively, and which fructify below the soil, that is, as the pods ripen the peduncles bend down and sink beneath the ground. These are the speckled pea-shaped voandzeia and the arachis, or earth-nut. Dispersed now everywhere over the tropics, the proper home of these is in Africa. The first is cultivated most of all by the Bongo; the single seed which its pod contains is mealy, but cooking does not soften it, and it is consequently very indigestible.

The earth-nut, on the contrary, is of an oily nature. It is seldom wanting amongst any of the tribes; in value it is almost a rival of the sesame, to the culture of which the Bongo give their care next to their sorghum.

Another oily vegetable product of the country is the Hyptis spicigera, which the Bongo named “kendee.” Once sown among cultivated plants it becomes a sort of half-wild growth, and establishes itself as an important shrub between the stubble. The Bongo and Niam-niam especially store large quantities of it. The tiny seeds, like those of a poppy-head, are brayed to a jelly, and are used by the natives as an adjunct to their stews and gravies, the taste and appearance being very similar to the hemp-pap of the Lithuanians. Just as poppy and hemp to the people of the North, so here to the natives the sesame and the hyptis appear a natural product so enjoyable that, without any preparation whatever, it can be oaten from the hollow of the hand, according to Boccaccio’s expression, “more avium.”

AFRICAN TUBERS.

A very subordinate place is occupied in the cultural pursuits of these people by any of the tuberous vegetables. Various kinds of yams (Dioscorea alata, and D. or Helmia bulbifera) are found in the enclosures of the Bongo and of the Dinka, and are here and there cultivated in some measure like the maize, under the eye of the proprietor. The Niam-niam and the Monbutto, who devote more attention to the growth of tubers than of cereals, have a greater preference for the sweet potato (Batatas), the manioc, and the colocasia, and other bulbs, which to the northern people are quite unknown. All the yams in these parts seem to exhibit the same form, which is reckoned the most perfect in this production, lavished by bountiful Nature on man with so little labour on his part. The tubers of the Central African species are very long; at their lower extremity they have a number of thick protuberances; they are similar to a human foot, or rather (taking their size into account) to the great foot of an elephant. Some were brought to me which varied in weight from 50 to 80 lbs. The substance of the tuber, which is easily cooked, is light, mealy, and somewhat granulated; it is more loose in texture than our tenderest potatoes, and decidedly preferable to them in flavour.

Central African Yam.

The Nyitti.

The Nyitti (Helmia bulbifera), which are protruded from the axils of every leaf on the climbing sprouts, are in shape like a great Brazil-nut—​a section of a sphere with a sharp edge. In their properties they correspond much with our potato, particularly as regards their taste and their bulk; but they never develop themselves into such mealy masses as the ordinary yams. Their skin is remarkably like potato-peel, and altogether their colour, sometimes yellow, sometimes a thoroughly purple-brown, adds to the resemblance. Very frequently these plants grow wild, but in that condition the tubers are quite small, and have a taste so pungent that they are said by the natives to be full of a dangerous poison. To a kindred species which is found wild, and which produces a horn-shaped tuber, we shall have to allude hereafter.

Just before the sorghum-harvest commenced the gourds were ripening, and came on as a welcome boon to the natives, who at this season were suffering from the usual scarcity. They devoured incredible quantities of them, and I saw whole caravans of bearers literally fed upon them. Of the ordinary gourds (Cucurbita maxima) there are two kinds, the yellow and white, which succeed excellently and attain a prodigious size. There is a kind of melon with a hard woody rind, which the Dyoor and the Dinka cultivate: when half-ripe, they cook and enjoy it as a palatable vegetable; it is generally of a cylindrical form, and about a foot in length. As it grows it assumes the diverse shape of the Cucumis chate, the cooking-cucumber of the Egyptians, which they call “adyoor” and “abdalowy;” by its wild shapes it seems to reveal an African origin. The leaves of the gourds are boiled just like cabbages, and are used for a vegetable. The bottle-gourds do not grow anywhere here actually without cultivation, but in a sort of semi-cultivation they are found close to all the huts. From the edible kinds are made vessels, which are quite secure.

AFRICAN VEGETABLES.

As actual vegetables the Bongo cultivate only the bamia or waka of the Arabians (Hibiscus esculentus) and the sabdariffa. The calyx of the latter is very large, varying in colour from a pale flesh to a dark purple, and is used as a substitute for vinegar at meals. The bamia here is a larger variety of the Oriental vegetable; its seed-vessels before they are ripe are gathered and boiled.

Altogether unknown throughout the population of pagan negroes is the onion, which appears to have its southern limit in Kordofan and Darfoor. The equatorial climate seems to render its growth very difficult, and do what the Nubians will, they are unable successfully to introduce this serviceable vegetable into the districts of their Seribas. The tomato may well be considered as a cosmopolite, making itself at home in all warmer latitudes, but previously to my arrival it had not found its way into this region.

Calyx of the Hibiscus esculentus.

For the sake of its fibres the Hibiscus cannabinus is very generally cultivated here, as it is in the Nile Valley; but I observed that the Bongo have another plant, the crotalaria, an improvement upon the wild sort (C. intermedia), from which they make excellent string.

Compared with Africa in general, this district seemed very deficient in the growth of those spices which serve as stimulants to give a relish and variety to dishes at meals. Red cayenne pepper, for instance, is swallowed by Abyssinians and Nubians in incredible quantities in their soups, but the Bongo regard it as little better than absolute poison. Although the first-comers found the indigenous pimento growing in all the enclosures, yet the Bongo reckoned it as so dangerous that they carefully kept it in guarded spots, so that their children might not be victims to the deleterious effects of its bright red berries. The natives had been accustomed to poison their arrows with pimento, and I may mention this as one of the numerous proofs which might be alleged that much of the arrow-poisoning of Africa is quite a matter of imagination. When the natives witnessed the Nubians come and gather up the suspected berries and throw them into their food, their astonishment was unbounded; they came at once to the conclusion that it was utterly useless to contend with a people that could gulp down poison by the spoonful, and accordingly they submitted unconditionally to the intruders.

Of all the plants which are cultivated by these wild people, none raises a greater interest than tobacco, none exhibits a more curious conformity of habit amongst peoples far remote. The same two kinds which are cultivated amongst ourselves have become most generally recognised. These kinds are the Virginian tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and the common tobacco (N. rustica). It is little short of a certainty that the Virginian tobacco has only made its way into the Old World within the few centuries since the discovery of America. No production more than this has trampled over every obstacle to its propagation, so that it has been kept to no limits; and it must be matter of surprise that even Africa (notorious as it has ever been for excluding every sort of novelty in the way of cultivation) should have allowed the Virginian tobacco to penetrate to its very centre.

TOBACCO.

It is a great indication of the foreign origin of this plant that there is not a tribe from the Niger to the Nile which has a native word of their own to denote it. Throughout all the districts over which I travelled, the Niam-niam formed the solitary exception to this by naming the Virginian tobacco “gundeh;” but the Monbuttoo, who grow only this one kind and are as little familiar with N. rustica as the Niam-niam, call it “Eh-tobboo.” The rest of the people ring every kind of change upon the root word, and call it “tab, tabba, tabdeet,” or “tom.” The plant is remarkable here for only attaining a height of about eighteen inches, for its leaves being nearly as long as one could span, and for its blossoms being invariably white.

Quite an open question I think it is, whether the N. rustica is of American origin. Several of the tribes had their own names for it. Here amongst the Bongo, in distinction from the “tabba,” it was known as “masheer.” The growth it makes is less than in Europe, but it is distinguished by the extreme strength and by the intense narcotic qualities which it possesses. It is different in this respect from what is grown in Persia, where it is used for the narghileh or water-pipes, and whence there is a large export of it, because of its mildness and aromatic qualities. Barth[27] has given his opinion that the tobacco is a native of Logane (Mosgoo). At all events, the people of Africa have far surpassed every other people in inventing various contrivances for smoking, rising from the very simplest apparatus to the most elaborate; and thus the conjecture is tenable, that they probably favoured the propagation of the foreign growth, because smoking, either of the common tobacco (N. rustica) or of some other aromatic weed, had in some way already been a practice amongst them. To such a hypothesis might be opposed the important fact that on all the monuments of the ancient Egyptians that afford us so clear an insight into the details of their domestic life, there has never been found a written inscription or pictorial representation that could possibly afford a proof that such a custom was known to exist. In conclusion, it deserves to be mentioned that the pagan negroes, as far as they have remained uninfluenced by Islamism, smoke the tobacco whilst those who have embraced Mohammedanism prefer the chewing of the leaf to the enjoyment of a pipe.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] The illustration on the following page represents a young fish, about nine inches long, and is remarkable for the long, thread-like spikes of skin on the lids of the gills. This peculiarity has been observed in Senegal, and probably is only seen whilst the fish is young.

[25] The head of the Madoqua is represented as accurately as possible in the accompanying illustration.

[26] In all descriptions of sorghum, as given by travellers, there seems to be a considerable confusion with respect to the distinctive names of this ordinary cereal. It is called promiscuously “Kaffir-corn,” “negro-cane,” “bushel-maize,” “Moorish-mille,” or sometimes “durra.” Durra is an Arabic definition, which can be traced in literature as far as the tenth century. The etymology of the Italian word sorgho is altogether uncertain. Peter de Crescentiis, about the year 1300, is the first author who definitely alludes to corn under this name; whether Pliny meant to refer to it is very doubtful. The Germans in the South Tyrol, who are very limited in their acquaintance with cultivated cereals, call it, in their Germanised way, “Sirch,” whilst the Sclavonians corrupt it further into “Sirek.” In Egypt this sorghum is called Durra belladi, “durra of the country,” to distinguish it from maize, which is known as Durra Shahmi, or “Syrian durra.” In Syria itself, where the sorghum is little known, because rarely cultivated, it is simply called “durra.” Throughout the Soudan it has exclusively the appellation of Aish, i.e. “bread.”

[27] Vol. iii., p. 215.

CHAPTER VII.

The Bongo: Area, boundaries, and population of Bongoland. Subjection of the Bongo to the Khartoomers. Decrease of population by slave-trading. Red tinge of the skin. Width of the skull. Small growth of hair. No aridity in climate. Wild tubers as food. Races of goats and dogs. Hunting-weapons. Villages and huts. Smelting furnaces. Money of the Bongo. Weapons for display. Wood-carving. Penates of the Bongo. Musical instruments. Character of Bongo music. Corpulence of the women. Hottentot Venus. Mutilation of the teeth. Disfigurement of the lips. Arrow-poisoning. National games. Marriage premiums. Natural morality. Disposing of the dead. Memorial erections. Mistrust of spirits. Loma, good and ill-luck. Fear of ghosts. Belief in witches. Peculiarities of language. Unity of the people of Central Africa. Extermination of the race.

I purpose in this chapter to describe a people which, though visibly on the decline, may still by its peculiarity and striking independence in nationality, language, and customs, be selected from amid the circle of its neighbours as a genuine type of African life. Belonging to the past as much as to the present, without constitution, history, or definite traditions, it is passing away, like deeds forgotten in the lapse of time, and is becoming as a drop in the vast sea of the Central African races. But just as a biographer, by depicting the passions, failings, and virtues of a few individuals, may exhibit a representation of an entire epoch in history, so we may turn with interest to scenes which have been enacted in this limited district of the great and mysterious continent, sure of finding much edifying matter in the course of our investigations. Like the rain-drop which feeds the flowing river and goes its way to replenish the mighty ocean, every separate people, however small, has its share in the changes which supervene in the progress of nations; there is not one which is without an abstract bearing on the condition of primitive Africa, and which may not aid us in an intelligent survey of any perspective that may be opened into its still dark interior.

To the antiquary, within whose province the description may lie in a degree, the material that is offered must be in a measure attractive. A people, as long as they are on the lowest step of their development, are far better characterised by their industrial products than they are either by their habits, which may be purely local, or by their own representations, which (rendered in their rude and unformed language) are often incorrectly interpreted by ourselves. If we possessed more of these tokens, we should be in a position to comprehend better than we do the primitive condition of many a nation that has now reached a high degree of culture.

COUNTRY OF THE BONGO.

Of all the natives with whom I had intercourse in my wanderings, the majority of those who acted as my bearers, and amongst whom I most frequently sojourned, were the Bongo. It was in their territory that I spent the greater part of my time in the interior; and thus it happened that I became intimate with many particulars of their life, was initiated into all their habits, and even to a certain extent mastered their dialect.[28]

The present country of the Bongo lies between lat. 6° and 8° N. on the south-western boundary of the depression of the Bahr-el-Ghazal basin, and on the lowest of the terraces where the southern slopes appear to make a transition from the elevated ferruginous crust to the unfathomed alluvial flats which are traversed by all the affluents of the river. In the extent of its area the land covers about the same surface as Belgium, but with regard to population, it might be more aptly compared to the plains of Siberia or the northern parts of Norway and Sweden; it is a deserted wilderness, averaging only 11 or 12 people to the square mile. The country extends from the Roah to the Pango, and embraces the middle course of nearly all the affluents of the Gazelle; it is 175 miles long by 50 miles broad, but towards the north-west the breadth diminishes to about 40 miles. On the north it is only divided by the small Dyoor country from that of the Dinka, which, however, it directly joins upon the north-east. The south-east boundary is the Mittoo territory on the Roah; and that on the west is the country of the Golo and Sehre on the Pango. The eastern branch of the extensive Niam-niam lands joins the Bongo on the south; whilst, wedged between and straitly pressed, the Bellanda and the Babuckur have their settlements.

When, eighteen years ago, the Khartoomers first set foot in Bongoland, they found the entire country divided into a number of independent districts, all in the usual anarchy of petty African communities; there was nothing anywhere like an organised commonwealth such as may be found amongst the Dinka, where entire districts unite and form an imposing warlike tribe. Every village simply had its chief, who, in virtue of superior wealth, exercised a certain authority over the rest of the inhabitants, and who, in some cases, had an additional prestige from his skill in the art of magic. The Nubians, consequently, never had to contend against the unanimous hostility of a powerful or well-disciplined people, and only in a few isolated places had to encounter much resolute opposition. Their soldiers, not merely by the tenor of their religion, conceived themselves justified in perpetrating every sort of outrage upon heathen unbelievers, but they were taught to consider their acts of violence as meritorious in the sight of God: it was, therefore, an easy matter for them to fall upon the weak authorities of the country, and in the space of a few years to apportion the entire territory amongst the few ivory merchants in Khartoom, whose spirit of enterprise, suddenly kindled by the exaggerated reports of the profits secured on the Upper Nile by Europeans, the first explorers, had developed itself into a remarkable activity.

VASSALAGE.

The natives were without difficulty reduced to a condition of vassalage, and, in order that they might be under the close supervision and at the service of their oppressors, they were compelled to quit their homes, and to reside near the Seribas that were established in various parts of the land. By the application of this sort of feudal system, the trading companies brought about the realisation of their project for a permanent occupation of the country. Shut in by the Niam-niam on the south and by the Dinka on the north, Bongoland offered a twofold advantage for the establishment of headquarters for the expeditions: in the first place, it was in close proximity to the Mesheras, or landing-places; and, secondly, by its advanced position towards the interior, it afforded most ample opportunities for setting in operation the contemplated excursions to the prolific ivory districts of the south. The Dinka, hostile and intractable from the first, had never given the intruders the smallest chance of settling amongst them; while the Bongo, docile and yielding, and addicted almost exclusively to agriculture, had, on the other hand, contributed in no slight measure to maintain the Seribas. If ever, now and again, they had been roused to offer anything like a warlike opposition, they had only too soon succumbed to the motto of the conquerors, “Divide, et impera.”

The Dyoor, the Golo, the Mittoo, and other smaller tribes, shared the fate of the Bongo, and in the short space of ten years a series of more than eighty Seribas had arisen between the Rohl and the Beery. Scarcely half the population escaped slavery, and that only by emigrating; a portion took refuge amongst the Dinka on the north, and others withdrew southwards to the Niam-niam frontiers, where the isolated mountains enabled them to hold out for a while. The Khartoomers, however, were not long in pursuing them, and gradually displaced them even from this position.

During the early years of their occupation, the Nubians beyond a question treated the country most shamefully; there are traces still existing which demonstrate that large villages and extensive plots of cultivated land formerly occupied the scene where now all is desolation. Boys and girls were carried off by thousands as slaves to distant lands; and the Nubians, like the parvenu who looks upon his newly-acquired wealth as inexhaustible, regarded the territory as being permanently productive; they revelled like monkeys in the durra-fields of Taka and Gedaref. In course of time they came to know that the enduring value of the possessions which they had gained depended mainly on the physical force at their disposal; they began to understand how they must look to the hands of the natives for the cultivation of their corn, and to their legs for the transport of their merchandise. Meanwhile, altogether, the population must have diminished by at least two-thirds. According to a careful estimate that I made of the numbers of huts in the villages around the Seribas and the numbers of bearers levied in the several districts, I found that the population could not at most be reckoned at more than 100,000, scattered over an area of nearly 9000 square miles.

On first landing from the rivers, the Khartoomers opened up an intercourse with the Dinka, who did not refuse to furnish them with bearers and interpreters for their further progress into the interior, and it was from them that they learnt the names of the different tribes. In Central Africa every nation has a different designation for its neighbours than that by which they are known among themselves; and it is the same with the rivers, which have as many names as the nations through whose territory they flow. In this way the Nubians have adopted the Dinka appellations of Dyoor for Lwoh, Niam-niam for Zandey, and Dohr for Bongo. This last people always style themselves Bongo, and the Khartoomers, since they have made their headquarters in their territory, have discarded the Dinka name of Dohr, and now always use the native term Bongo. According to the Arabic form of expression, the plural of Dohr is Derahn, and of Niam-niam it is Niamahniam.

COMPLEXION OF THE BONGO.

The complexion of the Bongo in colour is not dissimilar to the red-brown soil upon which they reside; the Dinka, on the other hand, are black as their own native alluvium. The circumstance is suggestive of Darwin’s theory of “protective resemblance” among animals; and although in this instance it may be purely accidental, yet it appears to be worthy of notice. Any traveller who has followed the course of the main sources of the White Nile into the heathen negro countries, and who has hitherto made acquaintance only with Shillooks, Nueir, and Dinka, will, on coming amongst the Bongo, at once recognise the commencement of a new series of races extending far onwards to the south. As trees and plants are the children of the soil from which they spring, so here does the human species appear to adapt itself in external aspect to the red ferruginous rock which prevails around. The jet-black Shillooks, Nueir, and Dinka, natives of the dark alluvial flats, stand out in marked distinction to the dwellers upon the iron-red rocks, who (notwithstanding their diversity in dialect, in habit, or in mode of life) present the characteristics of a connected whole. Of this series the tribes which must be accounted the most important are the Bongo, the Mittoo, the Niam-niam, and the Kredy, all of which are equally remarkable for their entire indifference to cattle-breeding. The whole of these, especially the women, are distinguished for the reddish hue of their skin, which in many cases is almost copper-coloured. It cannot be denied that this red-brown complexion is never entirely wanting, even amongst the darkest skins that are found in the lowlands; but the difference between their complexion and what is ordinarily observed among the Bongo is only to be illustrated by the contrast in colour between a camellia leaf in its natural condition and after its epidermis has been removed.

Although amongst every race the tint of the complexion is sure to deviate into considerable varieties of shade, yet, from a broad estimate, it may be asserted that the general tint remains unaltered, and that what may be denominated the “ground tint” constitutes a distinctive mark separating between race and race. Gustav Fritsch, in his work upon the people of Southern Africa, has bestowed great attention upon this subject, and by means of an ingenious table, arranged according to the intensity of various shades of colour, has very perspicuously explained the characteristics of the Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Bochjesmen. As matter of fact, among the Bongo may be seen individuals with their skin as black as ebony; but yet this does not prevent the true ground tint of their complexions being something essentially distinct from any example that could occur among the true Ethiopians, whether these might be light or dark. The evidence of the distinction of which I speak, I have no doubt is altogether very conclusive; and I have had many opportunities of testing its reality in my observations at the various Seribas, where half-castes are very numerous, being the offspring of Nubians (including Bedouins in that category) and Bongo.

In taking a coloured likeness of a Bongo it is necessary to use the deep red pigment known as Pompeian red very freely. I was once in the studio of an artist at Rome who was painting in oil the likeness of a Bongo whom I had brought to Europe. I could not help observing that he made the ground-tint of the flesh quite of a liver colour (hepatic) hue, whilst when he was portraying natives, either of Dongola or of Berber, or even when he was depicting the true Arabs, although their skins were equally dark, he did not make use of red at all, but employed a kind of yellow for the basis of the shades to follow. His proceeding appeared to me an involuntary attestation to the distinction which really exists.

STATURE OF THE BONGO.

Like the Niam-niam, Mittoo, and Kredy, the Bongo rarely exceed a medium height. They differ, however, in several respects from the Dinka and other people of the lowland plains. Their prominent characteristics appeared to me to consist in a more compact form of limb, a sharper development of muscle, a wider formation of the skull, and generally a preponderating mass in the upper part of the body. Of 83 men that I measured I did not find one who had attained a height of 6 ft. 1 in., whilst the average height did not appear to me to be more than 5 ft. 7 in. Dinka and Bongo alike afforded very striking samples of the two great series of races which they severally represented, and each displayed the principal characteristics of their particular race in their stature, their complexion, and their form of skull. I cannot recall a single instance among the Bongo where the skull was of the long but narrow shape that is all but universal among the Dinka. Of many of these Bongo that I measured, I should pronounce that they would require to be classified as hardly removed from the lowest grade of the Brachycephaly. They appear themselves to be aware of this characteristic. I remember a discussion that once arose about a little boy, too young to speak, as to whether he was a Dinka or a Bongo. One of the interpreters, after minute examination of the proportions of the child’s head, came to an immediate, but decided, opinion that the boy was a Bongo, and in answer to my inquiry as to the grounds on which he so confidently based his decision, he explained that he judged from the fact that the head was broad; he went on, moreover, accompanying his words by corresponding gestures, to say that the Bongo women, as soon as an infant is born, press its head downwards, but the Dinka mothers, on the contrary, compress the heads of their babies from the sides. Now, although it is hardly credible that this manipulation on the part of the mothers would have any permanent influence on the conformation of the skulls of an entire nation, yet we may accept the statement as a significant proof of the high estimation in which the natives hold this attribute and token of their race. It has been proved by experience that in the most diverse nations of the earth, mothers will always be ready to use external means to promote as far as they can any signs of nationality in their offspring, ignorant of the certainty that these signs would of themselves, without assistance, be manifested eventually. In order to effect an actual alteration in the shape of the skull, such as may be observed amongst the Mongolian and American Indian tribes, it is necessary to employ continuous and forcible pressure, and to bind the head with straps and bandages from the earliest infancy.

The hair of the Bongo offers no peculiarity, either with regard to its culture or its growth, that can be deemed of any special interest; it is short and curly; moreover, it is of that woolly nature at which, in default of anything better, the theorist who propounds the doctrine of the independent and yet of the mutual connection of the heathen races eagerly clutches. Corresponding to the numerous gradations in complexion and formation of the skull are the varieties in growth of the hair which are exhibited. Hair which is thick and frizzly is common amongst every race that has hitherto been discovered on African soil, and although there are a few unimportant exceptions among the Arab tribes (the Sheigieh) who have settled in Nubia, and notwithstanding that the hair of the Ethiopians, as well as that of the North African people may be termed curly more appropriately than woolly, yet straight hair is nowhere to be found. The real distinctions, therefore, in the growth of the hair in the nations of Central Africa consist in the colour and length, which vary considerably in the different races; beards predominate with some, whilst with others they fail entirely. In common with most other people of the red soil, the Bongo have hair which is perfectly black, but in its length it is very different from that of the Niam-niam. On the Niam-niam frontiers the Bongo have often tried to imitate their neighbours by twisting and plaiting their hair, but their attempts have been always a failure. Whiskers, beards, and moustaches are cultivated in very rare cases, but the hair never grows to a length much exceeding half-an-inch.

SUPPLY OF WATER.

Bongoland is traversed from south to north by five important tributaries of the Gazelle. With these are associated a number of smaller rivulets which are not permanent streams; nevertheless, from the pools which remain in their beds throughout the dry season, they furnish a sufficient supply of moisture to maintain the vegetation of the country. Water for drinking never fails, although from November to the end of March a fall of rain is quite exceptional. In cases of necessity water can always be procured without much time or trouble from those pools which survive the periodical water-courses in the marshes. Dearth as a consequence of prolonged drought appears to be a condition quite unknown; certainly it has not occurred for the last ten years. The crops are far more frequently injured by superabundant moisture than by drought, and the continuance of wide inundations has been followed by famine. Everything seems to suggest the thought how easily rice might be cultivated in the country.

The Bongo are essentially an agricultural people. With the exception of some occasional hunting and some intermittent periods devoted to fishing, they depend entirely upon the produce of the soil for their subsistence. Their cultivated plants have already been noticed in a previous chapter. To agriculture men and women alike apply themselves, devoting their greatest attention to the culture of their sorghum. The amount of labour they bestow upon this cereal is very large. The seed is lavishly broadcast into trenches which have been carefully prepared for its reception, and when it has germinated and made its appearance above the ground, two or three weeks are spent in thinning the shoots and in transplanting them away from the spots where they are too thick; a system which experience has shown can very advantageously be applied to maize. Very few vegetables are cultivated, but for these the people find a variety of substitutes in the wild plants and tubers which abound. Everywhere throughout the tropics the Gynandropsis, the Corchorus, and the Gieseckia grow close upon the confines of the abodes of men, and the leaves of these, like the leaves of the gourd, are frequently used as an ingredient in soup. The fleshy leaves of the Talinum roseum are served up in the same way as our spinach; and the tough foliage of the Tirna-tree (Pterocarpus), as it becomes soft in the process of boiling, is employed as a vegetable, and is really sweet and tender. The fruit of the Hymenocardia, not unlike that of the maple, has an acid flavour far from unpleasant, and serves a similar purpose.

FUNGUSES.

During the rainy season the country is very prolific in many varieties of funguses. The Bongo have a great fancy for them; they keep them till they are on the verge of decay, and then dry and pound them. They use them for the purpose of flavouring their sauces, which in consequence are enriched by a haut goût, which without depreciation may perhaps be compared to rotten fish. Throughout the country I never saw any funguses but what were perfectly edible, and some of them I must confess were very palatable. The natives call them all “Kahoo,” while to the larger species they give the special name of “hegba-mboddoh,” which is synonymous with the Low German “poggen staul,” or with the English “toad-stool.” “Hegba” is the name which the Bongo give to their little carved stools, and “mboddoh” is the generic term for all frogs and toads, and the proper designation for the Bufo pandarinus in particular. This “hegba-mboddoh,” which has thus suggested the same idea in very remote parts of the world, is here a gigantic Polyporus; not unfrequently specimens may be found of it which grow to a height of nine inches, are a foot in diameter and weigh nearly fifty pounds. In form, size, and colour they are not unlike the grey clay edifices of the Termes mordax, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The funguses which are most common, and which moreover are the most preferred, are the different species of Coprinus, Marasmius, Rhodosporus, and the tough but aromatic Lentinus.

I have already mentioned the great abundance of edible, if not always palatable, fruit which is produced by the common trees of the country. In clearing the woods for their tillage the Bongo are always careful to leave as many of these trees as they can, and by thus sparing them they preserve many a noble ornament to their fields, which would otherwise be as monotonous as they are flat. The Butter-tree and the Parkia are very carefully in this way saved from destruction, and form a striking feature in many of their landscapes. It is a remarkable peculiarity of the flora of this region that all the species which are not essentially shrubby or arborescent strive for a perennial existence; and, as evidence of this, it may be observed that the roots and portions of the stem beneath the soil either develop into bulbs and tubers, or exhibit a determination to become woody. Annuals occupy a very insignificant place, and all vegetation seems to be provided with a means of withstanding the annual steppe-burning, and of preserving the germs of life until the next period of vitality recurs. When their corn provision is exhausted, or when there is a failure in the harvest, then do the Bongo find a welcome resource in these tubers; they subsist upon them for days in succession, and find in them the staple of their nourishment whenever they go upon their marches in the wilderness.

Quite incredible is it what the Bongo are able to digest. Most of the bulbs and tubers are so extremely bitter that it is not until they have been thoroughly steeped in boiling water or have had their pungent matter mollified by being roasted at a fire, that they can be eaten at all; they are gall to the taste. Amongst these bitter bulbs there are two which may claim a special notice; these are the Mandibo and the Moddobehee. The Mandibo is a species of Coccinea, which is nearly everywhere very abundant; the Moddobehee (dog’s gum) is one of the Eureiandræ; they are both Cucurbitaceæ, and both contain poisonous matter. Impregnated with the like bitterness are the rape-like roots of the Asclepiadeæ, the huge tubers of the Entada Wahlbergii, and of the Pachyrrhizus; so also are the various kinds of Vernoniæ and Flemingiæ, which are dug up from a foot below the surface of the soil.

The natives can make but little use of the plants which grow from any of these numerous tubers. The diminutive Drimia lifts its pretty red blossoms about a couple of inches above the rocky ground, and is a bulbous plant which becomes edible after a prolonged boiling.

Whenever a halt is made upon the marches across the wilderness, the bearers, as soon as they are liberated from their burdens, set very vigorously to work and grub up all sorts of roots from the nearest thickets. I can myself vouch for a fact, which might fairly be deemed incredible, that thirty Bongo who accompanied me on my return to Sabby, at a time when I had scarcely enough to keep me from starvation, subsisted for six consecutive days entirely on these roots, and although we were hurrying on by forced marches, they lost neither their strength nor their spirits. Their constitution was radically sound, and they seemed formed to defy the treatment of their inhospitable home.

Already it has been mentioned that there is an entire deficiency of common salt throughout the district of the Gazelle. The alkali that is everywhere its substitute is obtained by soaking the ashes of the burnt wood of the Grewia mollis, a shrub common throughout Bongoland, and which is notoriously useful in another way by the quantity of bast which it produces.

SMOKING AMONG THE BONGO.

Tobacco is indispensable to the Bongo, and is universally cultivated. The species known as Mashirr (Nicotiana rustica) is very pungent; its small thick leaves are pounded in a mortar, and are subsequently pressed and dried in moulds. From the cakes thus formed, the natives break off fragments as they require them, grind them into powder by means of stones, and smoke the preparation in long pipes that have very pretty clay bowls. They are addicted to smoking quite as inveterately as many of the nations that live in the polar regions, and are not content until they are utterly stupefied by its effects. I had a circumstance brought under my notice which exhibited to me the extreme to which they can carry their abuse of the narcotic: upon one of our marches a Bongo man had indulged to such excess, and had inhaled the pungent fume so long, that he fell senseless into a campfire, and was taken up so severely burnt that he had to be carried by his comrades on a litter for the remainder of the journey.

The Bongo fashion of smoking is even more disgusting than that which has been already described as prevalent amongst the Dinka. In the same manner as with them, the pipe is passed from hand to hand, but the lump of bast that intercepts the pungent oil is not placed in the receptacle of the stem, but is put in the mouth of the smoker, and together with the pipe is passed from one person to another. The habit of chewing tobacco is adopted as much by the Bongo as by the Mohammedan inhabitants of Nubia; but the custom is so universal that there would seem to be ample justification for the belief that it is indigenous rather than what has been acquired from foreigners. The practice in which the Bongo indulges of placing his tobacco quid behind his ear is very repulsive.

Bongo Goat.

BONGO GOATS.

It is to their indifference to cattle-breeding, like what is practised so extensively by the Dinka, that the Bongo owe their comparatively peaceful relations with the so-called “Turks.” It is to the same cause that the latter are indebted for the sluggish measure of opposition shown them by their vassals. The domestic animals of the Bongo are poultry, dogs, and goats; sheep being almost as rare as cattle. The goats are unlike those of the Dinka, but are of a breed quite common throughout these regions of Central Africa. Not only did I see them amongst the Mittoo and Madi, but likewise among the Babuckur, and even in the country of the Monbuttoo, whither they had been brought by the equatorial nations whom the Monbuttoo simply style the “Momvoo.” These goats, like the Dinka sheep, are distinguished by a hairy appendage from the breast and shoulders, and by a short stiff mane, which runs right along the ridge of the back to the small erect tail. The frontal is round, and projects considerably beyond the base of the nasal bone, and the horns are very strong and but slightly curved. The ordinary colour of these pretty animals is a light fawn or chamois-brown, the mane being very dark. I occasionally found the Bongo in possession of another breed which I met with nowhere else, and which is probably merely a cross with the Dinka goat. It has a remarkably short and plump body, and is generally of a pepper-and-salt colour. The coat is somewhat longer and more shaggy than that of the other breed, and besides the mane-like appendage in front the hind quarters are also covered with long rough hair.

Short-bodied Goat of the Bongo.

The Bongo dogs, with regard to size, are between the small Niam-niam race and the Dinka breed, which corresponds more nearly to the common pariah of Egypt. On account of the indiscriminate crossing of the races, a dog of pure Bongo breed is somewhat rare; its chief characteristics are a reddish tan colour, short erect ears, and a bushy tail like a fox’s brush. Their greatest peculiarity appeared to me to be the bristling of their hair, which at every provocation stands up along the back and neck like that of an angry cat. The bushiness of the tail distinguishes the breed from the smooth-tailed Dinka dog, and from that of the Niam-niam, of which the tails are as curly as pigtails.

Although the Bongo are not over choice in their food, they persistently abstain from eating dog’s flesh, a practice to which their southern and south-eastern neighbours are notoriously addicted; in fact, they show as much abhorrence at the idea as they would at devouring human flesh itself. They have a curious superstition about dead dogs. I was about to bury one of my dogs that had recently died, and some of the men came and implored me to desist from my intention, since the result would assuredly be that no rain would fall upon their seeds. For this reason all the Bongo simply throw their dead dogs out into the open fields.

At some seasons, especially at the end of the rainy months, fishing and hunting offer productive sources for obtaining the means of subsistence. Hunting is sometimes practised by independent individuals going out separately; but at other times it takes the form of an extensive battue, in which the men belonging to a whole district will combine to take a share. Occasionally, too, a rich booty is obtained from the trenches and snares. Nets are used in all the battues for game, and the Bongo devote as much attention to the construction of these nets as they do to the weaving of their fish-snares and basket-pots. Their fishery is principally limited to the winter months.

HUNTING-SNARES.

Elephant-hunting has for the last twelve years been among the things of the past. It is only the oldest of the men—​and here the number of the men that are really old is very small—​who appear to have any distinct recollection of it at all. The huge lance-heads, which are now only weapons of luxury in the possession of the wealthy, or upon some rare occasions used for buffalo-hunting, are the sole memorials of the abundance of ivory of which Petherick, as an eye-witness, has given so striking a description. The snares by which the Bongo succeed in catching the smaller kinds of game generally consist of the stem of a tree balanced horizontally by means of ropes.[29] A spot which the game is known to haunt is selected for the erection of these snares; a hedge, or some sort of enclosure, is set up on each side of the tree so that the game may be obliged to run underneath: it is arranged so that the animals as they pass tread upon a kind of noose or slip-knot which slackens the ropes by which the tree is suspended, and the falling weight crushes and kills the game below. The numbers of snares of this description which are found in the bush-thickets is a sufficient proof of their efficacy. The smaller species of antelopes, ichneumons, civets, genets, wild cats, servals, and caracals, are all in turn caught by this stratagem.

Hunting on a minor scale is a very favourite recreation, and the children find a daily amusement in catching rats and field-mice. They weave baskets in the form of long tubes, which they lay flat upon the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of the mouse-holes; they then commence a regular battue, when the scared mice, scampering back to regain their homes, run through the stubble, and often rush into the open traps, where, like fish in a weir-basket, they are easily secured. In this way the Bongo boys catch considerable quantities of meriones, Mus gentilis, and M. barbarus, which they tie together by their tails in clusters of about a dozen, and barter them to each other as dainty morsels. “These are our cows,” they would shout to me with great glee whenever I met them returning after their sport had been successful. Another use which is made of the mice which are captured by this simple artifice is to employ them for a bait for securing what they esteem the especial delicacy of roast cat. On the narrow paths which traverse the steppes like rifts in the long grass, they construct diminutive huts out of some twisted reeds; by placing the mice inside these they are very often able to entice the cats into a snare.

With the exception of human flesh and the flesh of dogs, the Bongo seem to consider all animal substance fit for eating, in whatever condition it may be found. The putrefying remnant of a lion’s feast, which lies in the obscurity of a forest and is only revealed by the kites and vultures circling in the air above, is to them a welcome discovery. That meat is “high” is a guarantee for its being tender, and they deem it in that condition not only more strengthening than when it is fresh, but likewise more easy of digestion. There is, however, no accounting for taste, certainly not with the Bongo, who do not recoil from the most revolting of food. Whenever my cattle were slaughtered, I always saw my bearers eagerly contending for the half-digested contents of the stomach, like the Esquimaux, whose only ideas of vegetables appears to be what they obtain from the contents of the paunches of their reindeers; and I have seen the Bongo calmly strip off the disgusting amphistoma-worms which literally line the stomachs of all the cattle of this region, and put them into their mouths by handfuls. After that, it was not a matter of surprise to me to find that the Bongo reckons as game everything that creeps or crawls, from rats and mice to snakes, and that he is not particular what he eats, from the carrion vulture to the mangy hyæna, or from the fat earth-scorpions (Heterometrus palmatus) to the caterpillars of the winged termites with their oily beetle-bodies.

Having thus dilated with more minuteness than elsewhere upon the external features of Bongo life, such as their agriculture, hunting, and fishing, I may proceed to call attention to those arts by which, even in this low grade of development, man seeks to ameliorate and embellish his existence.

BONGO DWELLINGS.

First of all, the dwelling-place may demand our notice, that which binds every man more or less to the soil which affords him his subsistence—​that family nucleus, from which the wide-branching tree of human society has derived its origin.

In the period when the Khartoomers first made their way into the country, the Bongo, quite unlike the other tribes, inhabited extensive villages, which, similar to the present Seribas, were encompassed by a palisade. Neither towns nor villages are now to be seen, and the districts which are occupied at all are only marked by scattered enclosures and little gatherings of huts, as in the country of the Dinka and the Niam-niam. Very rarely are more than five or six families resident in the same locality, so that it is almost an exaggeration to speak of their being villages in any sense. The communities in past times seem to have had a preference for gathering round some great tamarind, ficus, or butter-tree, which often still survives and constitutes the only relic of habitations which have long fallen to decay; and even to the present time the Bongo appear to retain this partiality, and more often than not they may be found beneath the natural shade of a spreading roof of foliage, enjoying the light and space which are prohibited to their cramped and narrow dwellings. The ground for a considerable circuit about the huts is all well cleared and levelled, its surface being the general scene of labour on which all the women perform their ordinary domestic duties. The corn is there thrashed and winnowed; there it is brayed in the wooden mortars or pounded by the mill; there are the leaves of the tobacco plant laid out to dry; there stand the baskets with the loads of mushrooms or supply of fruit; and there may be seen the accumulated store of nutritious roots. Dogs and poultry alike seem to revel in security under the majestic covering, while the little children at their play complete the idyllic picture of life in Central Africa.[30]

Upon the erection of their dwellings there is no people in the Gazelle district who bestow so much pains as the Bongo. Although they invariably adopt the conical shape, they allow themselves considerable diversity in the forms they use. The general plan of their architecture has already been sketched. The materials they employ are upright tree-stems, plaited faggots, canes of the bamboo, clay from the mushroom-shaped white-ant hills, and tough grass and the bast of the Grewia.

The diameter of the dwellings rarely exceeds twenty-feet, the height generally being about the same. The entrance consists of a hole so small that it is necessary to creep through in order to get inside; and the door consists of a hurdle swung upon two posts so as to be pushed backwards and forwards at pleasure. The clay floor in the interior is always perfectly level; it is made secure against damp as well as against the entrance of white ants by having been flattened down by the women trampling upon broad strips of bark laid upon it. The common sleeping-place of the parents and smaller children is on the floor. The bedding generally consists only of skins, the Bongo having little care for mats. For the pillow of the family they ordinarily use a branch of a tree smoothed by being stripped of its bark.

In every dwelling-place is found a conical receptacle for corn, named the “gallotoh,” which is elevated on piles, varying in height, so as to protect the provision from the damp of the soil or from the ravages of rats or white ants. Magazines of this kind for the reserve of corn are in general use throughout Africa, from the Rumboo of Damerghoo in the Central Soudan, right into the country of the Kaffirs and Bechuanas.

All the dwellings of the Bongo, whether large or small, are marked by one characteristic, which might almost be represented as a national feature. The peak of their huts is always furnished with a circular pad of straw, very carefully made, which serves as a seat, and from which it is possible to take a survey of the country, covered with its tall growth of corn. The name of “gony” is given to this elevation, which is surrounded by six or eight curved bits of wood projecting as though the roof were furnished with horns. It is peculiar to the huts of the Bongo.

ABUNDANCE OF IRON.

Iron is found in such quantities throughout the region that naturally the inhabitants devote much of their attention to its manipulation; its very abundance apparently secures them an advantage over the Dinka. Although, according to our conceptions they would be described as utterly deficient in tools and apparatus, still they produce some very wonderful results, even surpassing the Dyoor in skill. With their rude bellows and a hammer which, more commonly than not, is merely a round ball of pebble-stone (though occasionally it may be a little pyramid of iron without a handle) upon an anvil of gneiss or granite, with an ordinary little chisel and a pair of tongs consisting of a mere split piece of green wood, they contrive to fabricate articles which would bear comparison with the productions of an English smith.[31]

The season when opportunity is found for putting the iron-works in motion is after the harvest has been housed and the rains are over. Already, in a previous chapter,[32] iron-work, as produced by the Dyoor, has been noticed, but the Bongo have a system considerably more advanced, which appears worthy of a brief description. Their smelting apparatus is an erection of clay, generally about five feet in height, containing in its interior three distinct compartments.[33] These are all of the same size, that in the middle being filled with alternate layers of fuel and ore. This centre chamber is separated from the lower by means of a kind of frame resting on a circular projection; and it is divided from the chamber above by a narrow neck of communication. The highest and lowest of the divisions are used for fuel only. Round the base of the inferior chamber there are four holes, into which the “tewels” or pokers are introduced, and to which bellows are applied to increase the intensity of the combustion; there is a fifth hole, which can be stopped with clay as often as may be desired, and which serves to allow the metal to be raked out after it has trickled down into the cavity below the frame.

The most important of the iron productions are designed for the trade that the Bongo carry on with the tribes that dwell in the north, and which some time since was very active. The raw iron is exhibited in three separate shapes: one is named “mahee,” being spear-heads of one or two feet long, corresponding exactly with what has been mentioned as common with the Dyoor; the second is known as “loggoh kullutty,” and is simply a lot of black, ill-formed spades; the third is called distinctively “loggoh,” consisting of regular spades, which, under the market appellation of “melot,” have a wide sale everywhere along the course of the Upper Nile.

Iron money.
Loggoh Kullutty.     Loggoh melot.

BONGO MONEY.

The “loggoh kullutty” is the circulating medium of the Bongo, the only equivalent which Central Africa possesses for money of any description; but, rough-shaped as it is, it seems really to answer in its way the purpose of regular coin. According to Major Denham, who visited the Central Soudan in 1824, there were at that time some iron pieces which were circulated as currency in Loggon on the Lower Shary, answering to what is now in use among the Bongo; but at the period of Barth’s visit all traces of their use had long disappeared. The “loggoh kullutty” is formed in flat circles, varying in diameter from 10 to 12 inches. On one edge there is a short handle; on the opposite there is attached a projecting limb, something in the form of an anchor. In this shape the metal is stored up in the treasures of the rich, and up to the present time it serves as well as the lance-heads and spades for cash and for exchanges, being available not only for purchases, but for the marriage portions which every suitor is pledged to assign. The axe of the Bongo consists of a flat, cumbrous wedge of iron, into the thick end of which is inserted a knobbed handle; it is an instrument differing in no particular from what may be seen throughout Central Africa.

Bongo lances.

Besides these rough exhibitions of their craft, the Bongo produce arms, tools, and ornaments of admirable quality, and, at the instance of the controllers of the Seribas, have manufactured chains and manacles for the slave-traffic. Very elegant, it might almost be said artistic, is the work displayed on the points of their arrows and lances. The keen and (to use a botanical expression) the “awny” barbs and edges of these instruments, to any one who is aware of the simple means of production in their reach, must be quite an enigma. The lances are readily recognised by their shapes, and may be classified in a threefold way. First, there is the common lancet-formed spear-head, which is known as “mahee;” then, secondly, there is the “golo,” a hastate sort of spear, with long iron barbs below the point extending along the stem to which the wooden stock is attached; whilst the third description is called “makrigga,” and consists of a spike, the stem of which is covered with a number of teeth symmetrically arranged along it, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards. This makrigga is often merely an article of show, and the technical skill of the smith is concentrated upon its design. The name of makrigga is appropriated to it from the Randia dumetorum,[34] a prickly shrub, which is quite common in the district: seeming to indicate that the pattern is derived from an object in nature, it affords a fresh illustration of the view, that all human arts are only imitations of what may be observed in the free fields of a wide creation.

Pincers used by the
Bongo women for plucking
out their eyelashes.

Knife of the Bongo women.

BONGO ORNAMENTS.

Equal care is bestowed upon the production of the iron and copper ornaments which are worn and the cutlery which is used by the women. For the purpose of plucking out their eyebrows and eyelashes, they employ a pair of little pincers called “peenoh,” of which an illustration is here introduced. Quite peculiar to the Bongo women are their “tibbah,” or elongated oval knives, with handles at either end, which are sharpened on both edges, and which are often very elaborate in their workmanship. These knives are in constant use for all domestic purposes, being of especial service in peeling their tubers and in slicing their gourds and cucumbers. The rings, the bells, the clasps, the buttons, whatever they affix to their projecting lips or attach to the rims of their ears, the lancet-shaped hair-pins, which appear indispensable to the decoration of the crown of their head and to the parting of their locks, all are fabricated to supply the demands of the Bongo women’s toilet.

The decoration of which the men are proudest is the “dangabor,” which simply means “rings one above another.” The Dinka and the Dyoor both have an ornament very similar to this, composed of accumulated rings, which cover the arm below the elbow; but the Bongo finish off their article with much more elaborate work. Each separate ring is furnished with a boss of a height and strength to correspond with the ring next to it, the rings themselves being forged so as to become gradually larger in proportion as they are farther from the wrist. The arm is thus covered with what may be described as a sleeve of mail, each ring of which can be turned round or displaced at pleasure.

The Dangabor and a single ring.

WOODEN UTENSILS OF THE BONGO.

Hardly inferior to the skill of the Bongo in the working of iron is their dexterity in wood-carving. Perhaps the most striking specimens of their art in this way may be noticed in the little low four-legged seats or stools which are found in every household, and are called “hegba.” These are invariably made from a single block, the wood chosen for the purpose being that of the Göll-tree (Prosopis lanceolata, Benth.), which is of a chestnut brown, and after use acquires an excellent polish; they are used only by the women, who are continually to be seen sitting on them in front of their huts, but they are altogether avoided by the men, who regard every raised seat as an effeminate luxury.

Bongo stool.

Other articles of their fabric in wood are the pestles, the troughs for oil-pressing, the flails for threshing corn, and, most remarkable of all, the goblet-shaped mortars in which the corn is bruised before it is ground into flour upon the grinding-stones. Very graceful in shape are these mortars, not unlike a drinking-goblet with a cut stem; they are not sunk below the ground, as is ordinarily the case with those of the Dinka and Dyoor, but they can be removed whenever it is requisite from place to place. Their height is about thirty inches. Mortars of very similar design were noticed by Barth amongst the Musgoo, and they are also used by the Ovambo, the Makololo, and other negro nations. They are worked by two women at once, who alternately pound away with heavy pestles in a regular African fashion, which has been long immortalised by the pictorial representations of ancient Egypt. Very cleverly, too, do the Bongo cut spoons of very choice design out of horn, of the same shape as may be found in nearly every market in Europe.

Consequent upon the oppression to which the Bongo have now for years been subject, and the remorseless appropriation of all their energies by the intruders, very many of the primitive habits of the people were disappearing; and at the time of my visit my attention was rather arrested by what were memorials of a bygone and happier condition of things, than by anything that was really done under my eyes. Just as in the Central Soudan, in Borneo, and in the Tsad countries, so here also the destructive power of Islamism has manifested itself by obliterating, in comparatively a brief space of time, all signs of activity and all traces of progress of any kind. Wherever it prevails, it annihilates the chief distinctions of race, it effaces the best vestiges of the past, and extends, as it were, a new desert upon the face of the land which it overruns. Those who have been eye-witnesses of the state of things when the intruders first broke in upon the country, gave me still further details of what had been the special industries of the people.

In the villages there are found very frequently whole rows of figures carved out of wood and arranged either at the entrances of the palisaded enclosures, forming, as it were, a decoration for the gateway, or set up besides the huts of the “Nyare” (chiefs), as memorials, to immortalise the renown of some departed character. In Moody, a district towards the west, I came across the remains (still in a perfect state of preservation) of an erection of this sort, which had been reared above the grave of the Bongo chieftain Yanga. Large as life, the rough-hewn figures represented the chief followed in procession by his wives and children, apparently issuing from the tomb. The curious conception of the separate individuals, and the singular mode in which they were rendered by the artist, awakened my keenest interest. The illustration which is subjoined may be accepted as a faithful representation of the first rude efforts of savages in the arts of sculpture.

Yanga’s grave.

BONGO GRAVES.

Plastic representations of men are known generally by the name of “Moiogohgyee:” when I first saw them, I was under the impression that they must be idols, similar to what the Fetish-worship has introduced into the western coasts, but I soon satisfied myself of my misconception in this respect. The true design of these wooden figures is simply to be a memorial of some one who has departed this life: this is proved by the term “Moiagoh Komarah,” i.e., the figure of the wife, which is applied to an image raised by a surviving husband to the pious memory of his departed wife, and which is set up in the hut as a species of Penates. However rude these attempts must be pronounced, they nevertheless reveal a kind of artistic power certainly far from contemptible; at any rate, the very labour bestowed upon them indicates the appreciation which the artist entertained for his work. The Bongo, for their own part, regard their wooden images as incomparably superb, and persuade themselves that the likenesses of those who are represented are perfect. To complete the illusion, they very often deck the figure with bead-necklaces and rings and affix some hair over the appropriate parts of the body. Travellers in Central Africa have narrated that they have seen figures of wood corresponding to what I have described, but although they have almost universally taken them for carved deities, I would venture to suggest that in all probability they are elsewhere monuments of the dead, in the same way as among the Bongo.

In addition it may be mentioned that a custom exists of raising a monument of this kind to preserve the memory of any male person who has been murdered. I was made acquainted with this circumstance by the mouth of one of the national authorities, who depicted to me the peculiar custom of his fathers in a narrative to the following effect. He said that murder and manslaughter used to be the order of the day at all their festivals and drinking-bouts; when the harvest had been abundant and the granaries were well-stored with corn, there used to be no bounds to their licentiousness; there was no respect for the Nyare, and his words were disregarded amidst the blows of the Nogarra. Now the “Turks” would punish a murderer by carrying off his wife and children, and compel him to pay a heavy fine in iron and make some compensation to the relatives: but formerly the friends would take the law into their own hands, and proceed to exact personal punishment, though they had to set to work very warily if they would keep themselves out of difficulty. When anyone discovered that either his friend, or it might be his brother, or perhaps his wife, had been killed, and the criminal could not be detected, it was no unknown device to prepare beforehand an image carefully representing the murdered person, and very often the likeness would be singularly perfect. He would then invite all the men to a feast, at which the spirituous “legyee” would be freely circulated; and then, when the excitement was at its height, in the very midst of the singing and dancing, he would unexpectedly introduce the figure that had been prepared. The apparition would be sure to work its effect; the culprit would not fail to be betrayed, as he cowed and exhibited his wish to slink away. Having thus detected the offender, the injured party could deal with him as he pleased.

BONGO MUSIC.

The Bongo, in their way, are enthusiastic lovers of music; and although their instruments are of a very primitive description, and they are unacquainted even with the pretty little guitar of the Niam-niam, which is constructed on perfectly correct acoustic principles, yet they may be seen at any hour of the day strumming away and chanting to their own performances. The youngsters, down to the small boys, are all musicians. Without much trouble, and with the most meagre materials, they contrive to make little flutes; they are accustomed also to construct a monochord, which in its design reminds one of the instrument which (known as the “gubo” of the Zulus) is common throughout the tribes of Southern Africa. This consists of a bow of bamboo, with the string tightly strained across it, and this is struck by a slender slip of split bamboo. The sounding board is not, however, made of a calabash attached to the ground, but the mouth of the player himself performs that office, one end of the instrument being held to the lips with one hand, while the string is managed with the other. Performers may often be seen sitting for an hour together with an instrument of this sort: they stick one end of the bow into the ground, and fasten the string over a cavity covered with bark, which opens into an aperture for the escape of the sound. They pass one hand from one part of the bow to the other, and with the other they play upon the string with the bamboo twig, and produce a considerable variety of buzzing and humming airs which are really rather pretty. This is quite a common pastime with the lads who are put in charge of the goats. I have seen them apply themselves very earnestly and with obvious interest to their musical practice, and the ingenious use to which they apply the simplest means for obtaining harmonious tones testifies to their penetration into the secrets of the theory of sound.

As appeals, however, to the sense of sound, the great festivals of the Bongo abound with measures much more thrilling than any of these minor performances. On those occasions the orchestral results might perhaps be fairly characterised as cat’s music run wild. Unwearied thumping of drums, the bellowings of gigantic trumpets, for the manufacture of which great stems of trees come into requisition, interchanged by fits and starts with the shriller blasts of some smaller horns, make up the burden of the unearthly hubbub which re-echoes miles away along the desert. Meanwhile, women and children by the hundred fill gourd-flasks with little stones, and rattle them as if they were churning butter: or again, at other times, they will get some sticks or dry faggots and strike them together with the greatest energy. The huge wooden tubes which may be styled the trumpets of the Bongo are by the natives themselves called “manyinyee;” they vary from four to five feet in length, being closed at the extremity, and ornamented with carved work representing a man’s head, which not unfrequently is adorned with a couple of horns. The other end of the stem is open, and in an upper compartment towards the figure of the head is the orifice into which the performer blows with all his might. There is another form of manyinyee which is made like a huge wine-bottle; in order to play upon it, the musician takes it between his knees like a violoncello, and when the build of the instrument is too cumbrous, he has to bend over it as it lies upon the ground.

Little difference can be noticed between the kettle-drums of the Bongo and those of most other North African negroes. A section is cut from the thick stem of a tree, the preference being given to a tamarind when it can be procured; this is hollowed out into a cylinder, one end being larger than the other. The ends are then covered with two pieces of goat-skin stripped of the hair, which are tightly strained and laced together with thongs. At the nightly orgies a fire is invariably kept burning to dry the skin and to tighten it when it has happened to become relaxed by the heavy dews.

A great number of signal-horns may be seen made from the horns of different antelopes; these are called “mangoal,” and have three holes like small flutes, and in tone are not unlike fifes. There is one long and narrow pipe cut by the Bongo out of wood which they call a “mburrah,” and which has a widened air-chamber close to the mouth-piece, very similar to the ivory signal-horns which are so frequently to be seen in all the negro countries.

BONGO SINGING.

Difficult were the task to give any adequate description of the singing of the Bongo. It must suffice to say that it consists of a babbling recitative, which at one time suggests the yelping of a dog and at another the lowing of a cow, whilst it is broken ever and again by the gabbling of a string of words which are huddled up one into another. The commencement of a measure will always be with a lively air, and every one, without distinction of age or sex, will begin yelling, screeching, and bellowing with all their strength; gradually the surging of the voices will tone down, the rapid time will moderate, and the song be hushed into a wailing, melancholy strain. Thus it sinks into a very dirge, such as might be chanted at the grave, and be interpreted as representative of a leaden and a frowning sky, when all at once, without note of warning, there bursts forth the whole fury of the negro throats; shrill and thrilling is the outcry, and the contrast is as vivid as sunshine in the midst of rain.

Often as I was present at these festivities I never could prevent my ideas from associating Bongo music with the instinct of imitation, which belongs to men universally. The orgies always gave me the impression of having no other object than to surpass in violence the fury of the elements. Adequately to represent the rage of a hurricane in the tropics any single instrument of course must be weak, poor, and powerless, consequently they hammer at numbers of their gigantic drums with powerful blows of their heavy clubs. If they would rival the bursting of a storm, the roaring of the wind, or the splashing of the rain, they summon a chorus of their stoutest lungs; whilst to depict the bellowings of terrified wild beasts, they resort to their longest horns; and to imitate the songs of birds, they bring together all their flutes and fifes. Most characteristic of all, perchance, is the deep and rolling bass of the huge “manyinyee,” as descriptive of the rumbling thunder. The penetrating shower may drive rattling and crackling among the twigs, and amid the parched foliage of the woods, and this is imitated by the united energies of women and children, as they rattle the stones in their gourd-flasks, and clash together their bits of wood.

It remains still to notice some examples of the various handicrafts which are practised by this people. Compared with other nations, the Bongo are remarkable for the attention they give to basket-work. They make (very much after the fashion of a coffee-bag) a strainer to filter and clarify their “legyee,” which is a drink something like ale fermented from sorghum. Baskets are roughly yet substantially made by twining together the stems of the bamboo. As their first efforts in this line, the natives are accustomed to make the circular envelopes in which they pack their corn for exportation. They take the coriaceous leaves of the Combreta and Terminaliæ, and by inserting the petiole of one leaf into the laminæ of two others, they form strips of leaves which in a few minutes are made into a kind of basket, equally strong and flexible, which answers its purpose admirably.

Woven matting is very rarely found in use. The walls of every hut are made of basket-work, as are the beehives, which are more often than not under the shadow of some adjacent butter-tree. Generally these hives are long cylinders, which midway have an opening about six inches square. The yield of honey, wild or half-wild, is very large, and of fine quality: the bees belong to the European species. The aroma of the Gardenia flowers is retained to a very palpable degree, but wherever the Candelabra-euphorbia happens to be abundant, the honey partakes of the drastic properties of its poisonous milk, and has been the cause of the natives being reproached with the intention of poisoning the Nubians.

BONGO FISHING.

In consequence of the people being so much engrossed at certain periods of the year by their hunting and fishing, the manufacture of fish-nets, creels, and snares, makes an important item in their industrial pursuits. For the most part all the twist, the bird-snares, and the fishing-lines are made from the fibres of bast, which are so plentiful in the cultivated Crotalaria and the Hibiscus. For inferior purposes the common lime-like bast of the Grewia mollis is made to suffice. The Sanseviera guineensis is not less abundant, but the bast which it yields, although very fine, is not very enduring. It is generally very black through having been left to lie upon the dark soil of the marshes, and is only used for making a kind of kilt like a horse’s tail, which the women wear behind from a girdle about their waist. Cotton-shrubs are planted only by the Dinka, who make their fishing-lines of the material which is thus provided.

The manufacture of the pottery all falls to the care of the women, who do not shrink from the most difficult tasks, and, without the help of any turning-wheel, succeed in producing the most artistic specimens. The larger water-bottles are sometimes not less than a yard in diameter. The clay water-pots are ordinarily of a broad oval shape, adapted for being carried on the head with the narrow end resting on a kind of porter’s knot, which is made either of leaves or plaited straw. Handles are uniformly wanting: for, whatever may be the purpose to which the vessels are applied, whether for holding water or oil, for boiling or for baking, the material of which they are made contains so large a quantity of mica (which the natives do not understand how to get rid of), that it is very brittle, and the imperfect baking in the open air contributes to this brittleness. To compensate for the lack of handles by which the vessels might be lifted, their whole outer surface is made rather rough by being ornamented by a number of triangles and zigzag lines, which form all manner of concentric and spiral patterns. The gourd-platters and bottles are generally decorated with different dark rows of triangles. A large amount of labour is expended upon the manufacture of clay bowls for pipes, which are often really elaborate, and have generally quite a European character; very often their design consists of a human head, and these are so treasured as works of art, that their possessors cannot be induced to part with them at any price.

The preparation of skins for leather aprons and similar purposes has hitherto been limited amongst the Bongo, as probably amongst all the heathen negroes, to the simplest mechanical process of kneading and fulling by means of ashes and dung, which is followed up by a liberal application of fat and oil till a sufficient degree of softness and pliancy is attained. Recently from the Nubians the use of tan has become generally known, and it may not unreasonably be conjectured that the method of using it will gradually extend from the north of Africa towards the south, in the same way as it has spread upwards from the Cape. Previous to their contact with Europeans, none of the southern people of Africa had discovered the use of tan, although the skins of their animals were a very important item in their economy. In Bongoland at present the bark of the Gere (Hymenocardia Heudelotii) is what is most frequently employed, and the red tan it yields is found to be very effectual.

Bongo.

BONGO PHYSIOGNOMY.

We have now to notice the apparel and general external aspect of the people, which is as important in its way as the outline of any natural object, such as the growth and foliage of trees. In default of proper clothing, various disfigurements of person play an important part, and the savage is voluntarily even more of a slave to fashion than any of the most refined children of civilization. Here, as in every other quarter of the globe, the male sex desires to be externally distinguished from the female, and they differ widely in their habits in this respect. There is, however, one ugly custom which is common to both sexes throughout the basin of the Gazelle, which consists in snapping off the incisors of the lower jaw, an operation which is performed as soon as the milk teeth have been thoroughly replaced by the permanent. Upon the south borders of the country, near the Niam-niam, this custom ceases to be exactly followed, and there it is the habit, as with the Niam-niam themselves, instead of breaking them off, to file some of the teeth, and indeed sometimes all of them, into sharp points. Occasionally the natives file off the sides of the upper teeth as well as clip off the lower; nor is it an uncommon thing for gaps to be opened at the points of contact of the central upper teeth, whilst every now and then individual cases occur where interstices have been made in the sides of all the four front teeth large enough to admit a good-sized toothpick. Circumcision is unknown throughout the entire river-district.

The men do not go about in a condition so naked as either the Dyoor, the Shillooks, or the Dinka, but they wear an apron of some sort of skin, and recently have adopted a strip of stuff, which they fasten to the girdle that is never missing, allowing the ends to hang over before and behind. All the sons of the red soil, as the Bongo, the Mittoo, the Niam-niam, and the Kredy, are called “women” by the Dinka, because amongst them the females only are protected by any covering of this description. The Bongo women on the other hand, and especially those who reside on the highlands, obstinately refuse to wear any covering whatever either of skin or stuff, but merely replenish their wardrobe every morning by a visit to the woods; they are, therefore, in respect of modesty, less particular than the women of the Dinka; a supple bough with plenty of leaves, more often than not a bough of the Combretum, and perhaps a bunch of fine grass, fastened to the girdle, is all they consider necessary. Now and then a tail, like a black horsetail, composed of the bast of the Sanseviera, is appended to the back of the girdle in a way that has already been mentioned. The rest of the body is allowed by both sexes to be entirely unclad, and no addition to the costume is ever seen, except we should reckon the feathered head-gear, which is exhibited on the occasion of a feast or a ball.

As a rule the hair of both men and women is kept quite short, and not unfrequently is very closely shorn, the principal exception being found in the south, where the habits of the Niam-niam have extended their influence into the Bongo territory, and both men and women wear tufts and braids of a length approximating to that of their neighbours.

Bongo Woman.

BONGO WOMEN.

It may possibly be imagined that the extremely primitive covering of the Bongo women irradiates them with something of the charm of Paradise; but a very limited experience will soon dispel the rapture of any illusion of the kind. All full-grown women attain such an astounding girth of body, and acquire such a cumbrous superabundance of flesh, that it is quite impossible to look at them without observing their disproportion to the men. Their thighs are very often as large as a man’s chest, and their measurement across the hips can hardly fail to recall the picture in Cuvier’s Atlas of the now famous “Hottentot Venus.” Shapes developed to this magnitude are no longer the exclusive privilege of the Hottentots; day after day I saw them among the Bongo, and they may well demand to be technically described as “Steatopyga.” In certain attitudes, as for instance when they are carrying their heavy water-jars upon their heads, they seem to assume the shape of an inverted S. To their singular appearance the long switch tail of bast very much contributes, and altogether the profile of a fat Bongo woman is not unlike that of a dancing baboon. I can vouch for it that women who weigh twenty stone are far from scarce.

Very few are the people of Central Africa amongst whom the partiality for finery and ornaments is so strongly shown as with the Bongo. The women wear on their necks an accumulation of cords and beads, and not being fastidious like their neighbours, will put on without regard to shape or colour, whatever the market of Khartoom can provide. The men do not care much for this particular decoration, but prefer necklaces, on which they string some of those remarkable little fragments of wood which are so constantly found in every region of Africa. With the bits of wood hang fragments of roots, which are in form something like the mandrake, which, in Southern Europe, has been the subject of so strange a superstition. Alternating with the roots and wood are the talons of owls and eagles, the teeth of dogs, crocodiles, and jackals, little tortoise-shells, the claws of the earth-pig (Orycteropus), and in short any of those objects which we are accustomed to store in the cabinets which adorn our salons. They appear to supply the place of the extracts from the Koran which, wrapped in leather sheathes, the Nubians wear by dozens about their person; anything in the shape of an amulet being eagerly craved by every African.

BONGO DECORATION.

Not unfrequently the men deck themselves out in females’ ornaments. Many cover the rims of their ears with copper rings and crescents; others pierce the upper lip like the women, and insert either a round-headed copper nail or a copper plate, or, what is still more general, some rings or a bit of straw. The skin of the stomach above the waist is often pierced by the men, and the incision filled up with a bit of wood, or occasionally by a good-sized peg. On the wrist and upper part of the arm they wear iron rings of every pattern; some rings are cut out of elephant and buffalo hide, and look almost as though they were made of horn. The “dangabor,” an ornament composed of a series of iron rings, and worn on the lower portion of the arm, has been already described.

The Bongo women delight in distinguishing themselves by an adornment which to our notions is nothing less than a hideous mutilation. As soon as a woman is married the operation commences of extending her lower lip. This, at first only slightly bored, is widened by inserting into the orifice plugs of wood gradually increasing in size, until at length the entire feature is enlarged to five or six times its original proportions. The plugs are cylindrical in form, not less than an inch thick, and are exactly like the pegs of bone or wood worn by the women of Musgoo. By this means the lower lip is extended horizontally till it projects far beyond the upper, which is also bored and fitted with a copper plate or nail, and now and then by a little ring, and sometimes by a bit of straw about as thick as a lucifer-match. Nor do they leave the nose intact: similar bits of straw are inserted into the edges of the nostrils, and I have seen as many as three of these on either side. A very favourite ornament for the cartilage between the nostrils is a copper ring, just like those that are placed in the noses of buffaloes and other beasts of burden for the purpose of rendering them more tractable. The greatest coquettes among the ladies wear a clasp or cramp at the corners of the mouth, as though they wanted to contract the orifice, and literally to put a curb upon its capabilities. These subsidiary ornaments are not however found at all universally among the women, and it is rare to see them all at once upon a single individual: the plug in the lower lip of the married women is alone a sine quâ non, serving as it does for an artificial distinction of race. According to the custom of the people, there need only be a trifling projection of the skin so as to form a flap or a fold, to be at once the excuse for boring a hole. The ears are perforated more than any part, both the outer and the inner auricle being profusely pierced; the tip of the ear alone is frequently made to carry half-a-dozen little iron rings. There are women in the country whose bodies are pierced in some way or other in little short of a hundred different places.

The Bongo women limit their tattooing to the upper part of the arm. Zigzag or parallel lines, or rows of dots, often brought into relief by the production of proud flesh after the operation has been accomplished, are the three forms which in different combinations serve as marks of individual distinction. The men tattoo themselves differently, and some of them abstain from the operation altogether. At one time the lines run across the breast and stomach to one side of the body; at another they are limited to the top of the arm, whilst it is not at all unusual for the neck and shoulder-blades to be tattooed.

Besides the ornaments that I have mentioned, the toilet of a Bongo lady is incomplete without the masses of iron and copper rings which she is accustomed to wear on her wrists and arms, and more especially on her ankles. These rings clank like fetters as she walks, and even from a distance the two sexes can be distinguished by the character of the sound that accompanies their movements. That human patience should ever for the sake of fashion submit to a still greater martyrdom seems almost incredible, though hereafter we shall have sufficient proof when we delineate the habits of the Mittoo, the neighbours of the Bongo, that such is really the case.

In Bongoland, as in all the northern parts of the territory that I visited, copper of late years has attained a monetary value, and has become an accustomed medium of exchange. Glass beads are annually deteriorating in estimation, and have long ceased to be treasured up and buried in the earth like jewels or precious stones, being now used only to gratify female vanity. In former times, when the only intercourse that the Bongo held with the Mohammedan world was by occasional dealings with the Baggara Arabs, through the intervention of the Dembo, a Shillook tribe connected with the Dyoor, cowrie-shells were in great request, but these also have long since fallen out of the category of objects of value. Gold and silver are very rarely used as ornaments, even in the Mohammedan parts of the Eastern Soudan; it is therefore hardly a matter of surprise that to the Bongo, whose soil is singularly uniform in its geological productions, they should be all but unknown. The Bongo, moreover, have but little value for brass, differing greatly in this respect from their neighbours, the Dyoor.

BONGO WEAPONS.

Their weapons consist mainly of lances, bows and arrows, shields being very rarely used, and even then being appropriated from other neighbouring nations. Although the greater part of the population is at present quite unaccustomed to any warlike occupation, except when any of them chance to be employed in the raids upon the Dinka or in the Niam-niam campaigns, yet they still maintain a wonderful dexterity in the use of the bow and arrow, and we shall have occasion in another place to notice their performances in this respect. The large size of their weapons is remarkable; I saw many of their bows which were four feet in length, their arrows are rarely under three feet long, and on this account they are never made from the light reed-grass, but are cut out of solid wood. The forms of the arrow-heads also have a decided nationality stamped upon them. In the course of time I was easily able to determine at a glance the tribe to which any weapon belonged by certain characteristics, the details of which would now engross more time and space than are at our command. It may be mentioned that the Bongo, like the negroes above Fesoglu, on the Upper Blue Nile, imbue their arrows with the milky juice of one of the Euphorbiæ. This species, of which I now for the first time collected some specimens, has been erroneously represented by Tremaux in the atlas of his travels[35] as Euphorbia mamillaris, but it is in fact one of the many Cactus-euphorbiæ for which the flora of Tropical Africa, and especially that of the drier regions, is distinguished, and is entirely distinct from the South African species. It is a branching, straggling shrub, varying in height from five to eight feet, at one time growing in large masses in the light woods, and then failing altogether for the space of several days’ journey. Not only the larger branches, nearly two inches thick, but also the smaller boughs, are encrusted with a snowy white rind, covered with thick spiny protuberances, which stand singly under the eyes of the leaves. At the extremity of each bough is a bunch of fleshy succulent leaves, shaped like lances, and six inches in length. This species of Cactus-euphorbia (E. venefica) is termed by the Bongo “bolloh,” in contradistinction to “kakoh,” their name for the larger sort (E. candelabrum), which is common in the country, but of which the milky juice is far less dangerous than that of the “bolloh,” for if this be applied in a fresh condition to the skin, it results in a violent inflammation. It is, however, my opinion that this juice, as it is used by the Bongo, being spread in a hard mass over the barbs and heads of the arrows, can do very little harm to the wounded, as when it is once hard it is difficult to melt, and there cannot possibly be time for it to commingle with the blood after a wound has been made by an arrow.

BONGO GAMES.

We may now turn our attention to the Bongo games, which are as original and primitive as their music. One of these games, as forming excellent training for the chase, deserves some especial notice. A number of men are provided with pointed sticks made of hard wood, which they use as lances. They form a large ring, and another man who has a piece of soft wood attached to a long string, runs round and round within the circle. The others then endeavour with their pointed sticks to hit the mark whilst it is being carried rapidly round. As soon as it is struck it falls to the ground, and the successful marksman is greeted with a loud cheer. Another game requires no less calmness and dexterity. A piece of wood bent into a crescent has a short string attached to the middle; this wood is then hurled by the one end of it with such violence to the earth that it goes spinning like a boomerang through the air. The players stand face to face at a distance of about twenty feet apart, and the game consists in catching the wood by the string, a performance that requires no little skill, as there is considerable danger of receiving a sharp knock. Both games might, under some modifications, admit of being adopted into our rural sports.

Turning now to the national manners, customs, and ideas, I profess that they are subjects of which I must treat with considerable reserve, since my residence as a stranger for two years amongst these savages only gave me after all a very superficial insight into the mysteries of their inner life. Since, however, the accounts of eye-witnesses, who knew the land in its primitive condition, seem to accord with and to corroborate my own observations, as well as the information I obtained from the Bongo themselves, I am in a position to depose to some facts, of which I must leave the scientific analysis to those who are seeking to cultivate the untried soil of the psychology of nations.

Elsewhere, and among other nations with whom I became acquainted, the number of a man’s wives was dependent on the extent of his possessions, but amongst the Bongo it seemed to be limited to a maximum of three. Here, as in other parts of Africa, a wife cannot be obtained for nothing, even the very poorest must pay a purchase price to the father of the bride in the form of a number of plates of iron; unless a man could provide the premium, he could only get an old woman for a wife. The usual price paid for a young girl would be about ten plates of iron weighing two pounds each, and twenty lance tips. Divorces, when necessary, are regulated in the usual way, and the father is always compelled to make a restitution of at least a portion of the wedding-payment. If a man should send his wife back to her father, she is at liberty to marry again, and with her husband’s consent she may take her children with her; if, however, her husband retains the children, her father is bound to refund the entire wedding-gift that he received. This would be the case although ten years might have elapsed since the marriage. The barrenness of a woman is always an excuse for a divorce. In cases of adultery, the husband endeavours to kill the seducer, and the wife gets a sound flogging. Whoever has been circumcised according to the Mohammedan law, cannot hope to make a good match in Bongoland.

A Bongo woman, as a rule, will seldom be found to have less than five children: the usual number is six, and the maximum twelve. In childbirth she is supported with her arms on a horizontal beam, and is in that position delivered of the child; the navel-cord is cut very long with a knife, and always without a ligature. No festivities are observed on the occasion of a birth. The infants are carried on the mothers’ backs, sewn up in a bag of goat’s-hide, like a water-bottle. The children are kept at the breast until they have completed their second year, weaning being never thought of until they can be trusted to run about. In order to wean a child, the mother’s breast is smeared with some acrid matter, and the bruised leaves of some of the Capparidæ are mixed with water to a pulp, and have the effect of drying up the milk.

Among the Bongo and the neighbouring nations there is a custom, manifestly originating in a national morality, that forbids all children that are not at the breast to sleep in the same hut with their parents; the Bongo in this respect putting to shame many of those who would boast of their civilization. The elder children have a hut appropriated to themselves, but take their meals with the rest of the family. In addition to this custom there is the universal rule, as with ourselves, that no matrimonial alliance takes place until the youths are about eighteen and the girls about fifteen years of age.

BONGO EXEQUIES.

In the disposal of their dead, the customs of the Bongo are very remarkable. Immediately after life is extinct, the corpses are placed, like the Peruvian mummies, in what may be described as a crouching posture, with the knees forced up to the chin, and are then firmly bound round the head and legs. When the body has been thus compressed into the smallest possible compass, it is sewn into a sack made of skins, and placed in a deep grave. A shaft is sunk perpendicularly down for about four feet, and then a niche is hollowed to the side, so that the sack containing the corpse should not have to sustain any vertical pressure from the earth which is thrown in to fill up the grave. This form of interment is also prescribed in the law of Islam, which, in this and many other cases, has probably followed an African custom. The Bongo have a striking practice, for which, perhaps, some reason may be assigned, of burying men with the face turned to the north and women to the south. After the grave is filled in, a heap of stones is piled over the spot in a short cylindrical form, and this is supported by strong stakes, which are driven into the soil all round. On the middle of the pile is placed a pitcher, frequently the same from which the deceased was accustomed to drink his water. The graves are always close to the huts, their site being marked by a number of long forked branches, carved, by way of ornament, with numerous notches and incisions, and having their points sharpened like horns. Of these votive stakes I saw a number varying from one to five on each grave. The typical meaning belonging to these sticks has long since fallen into oblivion, and notwithstanding all my endeavours to become acquainted with the Bongo, and to initiate myself into their manners and customs, I could never discover a satisfactory explanation. The sticks reminded me of the old English finance-budgets in the time of William the Conqueror. In answer to my inquiries, the Khartoomers merely returned the same answer as they did to my predecessor, Heuglin; they persisted in saying that every notch denoted an enemy killed in battle by the deceased. The Bongo themselves, however, repeatedly declared that such was by no means the case, and quite repudiated the idea that they should ever think of thus perpetuating the bloodthirstiness of the dead. The neighbouring Mittoo and Madi adopt very much the same method of sepulture. The memorial-urns erected over the graves of the Musgoo remind the traveller of those of the Bongo. Whenever a burial takes place, all the neighbours are invited to attend, and are abundantly entertained with merissa. The entire company takes part in the formation of the grave, in the rearing of the memorial-urn, and in the erection of the votive stakes. When the ceremony is finished, they shoot at the stakes with arrows, which they leave sticking in the wood. I often noticed arrows that had been thus shot still adhering to the sticks.

The Bongo have not the remotest conception of immortality. They have no more idea of the transmigration of souls, or any doctrine of the kind, than they have of the existence of an ocean. I have tried various ways and means of solving the problem of their inner life, but always without success. Although the belief in immortality may be indigenous to Africa, I should question whether the ancient Egyptians did not in their religious development obey the promptings of the Asiatic East. At any rate, those statements are incorrect which would endeavour to explain the dull resignation displayed by the victims of human sacrifice in Dahomey by a theory of their belief in immortality. All religion, in our sense of the word religion, is quite unknown to the Bongo, and, beyond the term “loma,” which denotes equally luck and ill-luck, they have nothing in their language to signify any deity or spiritual being. “Loma” is likewise the term that they use for the Supreme Being, whom they hear invoked as “Allah” by their oppressors, and some of them make use of the expression, “loma-gobo,” i. e., the superior, to denote the God of the “Turks.” The almost incomprehensible prayers of the Mohammedans are called by the Bongo “malah,” which has evidently some connection with the word “Allah” that is generally repeated over and over again in all the devotions of the Nubians.

If any one is ill, his illness is attributed to “Loma,” but in the event of anybody losing a wager or a game, or returning from a hunting adventure without game, or coming back from war without booty, he is said to have had “no loma” (loma nya), in the sense of having no luck.

BONGO SUPERSTITION.

Quite amazing is the fear which exists among the Bongo about ghosts, whose abode is said to be in the shadowy darkness of the woods. Spirits, devils, and witches have the general appellation of “bitaboh;” wood-goblins being specially called “ronga.” Comprehended under the same term are all the bats (especially the Megaderma frons, which flutters about from tree to tree in broad daylight), as likewise are owls of every kind (Strix leucotis and Strix capensis being here the chief); and besides these the Ndorr (Galago senegalensis), a kind of pseudo-simia, with great red eyes and erect ears, which drags out a gloomy existence in the cavities of hollow trees. There are, too, prowling beasts of night, for which they entertain the utmost dread, regarding them with superstitious awe. To ward off the evil influences of these spirits, the Bongo are acquainted with no other means except the magical roots in which the professional sorcerers trade, in a similar way as the Mohammedan priests of the Soudan in their amulets and sentences from the Koran. Very seldom are any attempts made to expel the spirits by the means of exorcism, which is turned to great account by the Dinka magicians. The institution of the “Cogyoor” is here called “belomah,” but whenever it is necessary to have an invocation over a sick patient, they more often than not send for a professional wizard from the neighbouring Dinka.

Good spirits are quite unrecognised, and, according to the general negro idea, no benefit can ever come from a spirit at all. They affirm that the only thing they know about spirits is that they do mischief, and certain it is that they have no conception either of there being a Creator, or any kind and ruling power above. They assert that there is no other resource for obtaining communication with spirits, except by means of certain roots, which may be of service likewise in employing the powers of evil to inflict injury on others. To their knowledge of this magic may be attributed much of the influence which the native chiefs, independently of their authorised rule, exercise over the mass of the people in their districts. This may be witnessed among the Bary on the Bahr-el-Gebel, and a hundred other tribes, who yield the greatest deference to the controllers or captains of their communities. The practice of fetching down rain is never pretended to by the Bongo chiefs, and may be said to be absolutely unknown; but probably this may rise from the climate so rarely making it necessary to put their skill in this respect to the test.

BELIEF IN WITCHES.

All the very old people of either sex, but especially the old women, are exposed to the suspicion of allying themselves to wicked spirits, for the purpose of effecting the injury and detriment of others. Old folks, so the Bongo maintain, wander through the forest-glades at night, and have only to secure the proper roots, and then they may apparently be lying calmly in their huts, whilst in reality they are taking counsel with the spirits of mischief how they can best bring their neighbours to death and destruction. They dig for roots, it is continually said, that they may have the means of poisoning those around them. Whenever any case of sudden death occurs, the aged people are held responsible, and nothing, it is taken for granted, could be more certain than that a robust man, except he were starved, would not die. Woe to the old crones, then, in whose house the suspected herbs and roots are found! though they be father or mother, they have no chance of escape.

A genuine and downright belief in witches has long been and still continues as deeply seated here as in any spot upon the face of the earth, and nowhere are prosecutions more continually being instituted against them. As matter of fact, I can affirm that really aged folks among the Bongo are comparatively scarce, and that the number of grey-headed people is, by contrast, surprisingly large amongst the neighbouring race of the Dyoor, who put no faith at all in any witchcraft. The Nubians are not only open to superstitions of their own, but confirm the Bongo in all of theirs. In the Eastern Soudan, which is a Mohammedan country, the conversation will constantly turn upon the “sáhara” (i. e., the witches), and no comparison is more frequent than that which likens the old women to hyænas: in fact, many of the people hold hard and fast to the conviction that the witches are capable of going out at night, and taking up their quarters inside the bodies of these detestable brutes, without any one being aware of what is happening. It chanced, during my stay in Gallabat, that I killed one out of a herd of hyænas that was infesting the district; my fate, in consequence, was to be loaded with reproaches on the part of the Sheikh, who informed me that his mother was a “hyæna-woman,” and that I might, for all I could tell, have shot her. After this I was not so surprised as might be expected when Idrees, the governor of Ghattas’s Seriba, boasted in my presence of his conflicts with witches, bragging that in one day he had had half a dozen of them executed. An occasion shortly afterwards arose, when Idrees was contemplating putting two old women to death at the desire of some Bongo, and the only scheme I could devise to make him desist from his purpose, was by threatening him that, in the event of the women being executed, I would poison his water-springs.

But, in this dread of witches, the whole superstition of the Bongo culminates and exhausts itself; and we Europeans may well ask what real right have we, with all our advancement in knowledge, to presume to reproach them? We cannot resist the impression that these poor Bongo are infinitely more free from hundreds of superstitious fallacies than many of those who boast of their civilization; much more so, for instance, than the Mohammedans of the Soudan, where the idlest of superstitions prevail in every household. Let nature be free, and the germs of energy in man’s spirit will develop themselves, without overstepping their proper limits, in trustful dependence upon the presiding spirit which controls all thought. That the spirit of man, moreover, revolves in a circle, is demonstrated by the old man becoming again a child. A philosopher might fairly speculate (in the spirit of Bernardin de St. Pierre, when he advocated a worship of Nature) whether this land would not have been happier if the Moslems had never set foot upon its soil. They brought a religion that was destitute of morality; they introduced contagion rather than knowledge; they even suppressed the true doctrines of Mohammed their prophet, which would have enfranchised the very people whom they oppressed, and have raised them to a condition of brotherhood, and of equality.

BONGO SURGERY.

The method of proceeding among the Bongo with the sick and wounded is invariably of the very simplest character. When the disorder is internal, and the origin cannot be detected, the treatment consists merely in liberal applications of very hot water. The patient is stretched upon the ground, and sprinkled by means of leafy boughs with boiling water from vessels that are placed close by. Somewhat more expert is their proceeding in the case of the wounded. It once chanced that I saw a group of sufferers brought back from one of the raids that had been made into the territory of the Dinka. The wounds had nearly all been inflicted by the lances of the adversary. With remarkable fortitude the patients all submitted to the practice of the country, which consisted in the introduction of a number of setons, made of the strong and fibrous bast of the grewia, into the injured parts, in order to reduce the inflammation. Amongst others, I saw a knee, which was immensely swollen, subject to the operation of being pierced in every direction by setons of this sort, until it was larded like a roast hare. With the exception of red ochre the Bongo, like most of their neighbours, are not acquainted with any mineral which they can apply to a wound, either as a reduceut or an antiseptic. As medicines to accelerate the natural processes of cure, they make use of the astringent bitter barks of certain trees like the Hymenocardia, the Butyrospermum, and the Prosopis, which are here known as the “gere,” the “kor,” and the “göll.” Syphilis, which now makes its insidious progress, was quite unknown amongst these poor savages previous to the settlement amongst them of the Nubians, and against its mischief the only specific employed is the bitter bark of the Heddo-tree (Anogeissus), one, however, which undoubtedly is utterly useless for the purpose.

The misshapen and crippled are entirely unknown amongst these unsophisticated children of Nature. But in a country where, even with the best attention on the part of a mother, every child must be exposed to the perils which necessarily are associated with existence in a wilderness, how should it be possible for a cripple to stand out the battle of life? As freaks of nature, every now and then there may be seen some dwarfs, and I presume that some mutes may occasionally be found, as there is a word (“mabang”) in their language to express the defect in the faculty of speech.

The insane (“bindahko”) are shackled hand and foot; and avowedly with the design of cooling and soothing their passions, they are thrown into the river, where they are immersed by practised swimmers. If this remedy should prove of no effect, the patient is put into confinement, and dieted by the relatives; but generally the lot of a maniac is far happier than that which befalls an aged man, however innocent. To maintain the strength of invalids, certain kinds of flesh are prescribed, and a particular value is attributed to the flesh of the Gullukoo (Tmetoceros abyssinicus), a kind of rhinoceros hornbill, which has a detestable flavour, as odious as hemlock.

The dialect of the people throughout the whole country exhibits very little diversity; the best evidence for this is afforded by the perfect uniformity of expression in every part of the land for all natural objects whatever; whilst even in dealing with conceptions of an abstract character, there is little fear of being misunderstood. The language altogether has a harmonious ring, abounding in the vowel sounds of a and o, as the name of the people indicates; it is very simple in its grammatical structure, and at the same time it presents a great variety of terms for all concrete subjects. The vocabulary that I compiled contained nearly one thousand distinct expressions.

BONGO DIALECT.

The etymology of connected words and the analysis of separate idioms afford considerable interest, and transport the student right into the ingenuous world of their natural life. The more common of our abstract ideas such as spirit, soul, hope, and fear, appear to be absolutely wanting, but experience shows that in this respect other negro tongues are not more richly provided by nature. The labours of missionaries in translating the Scriptures have notoriously introduced into the written language a number of elevated idioms and of metaphorical ideas which very probably in a few generations may be more or less incorporated into the tongue, but to the student of language who shall make the gleanings these introductions will be a mere refuse, and the only subject of any scientific interest will be the speech of the people as it was while it remained intact and unaffected by innovation.

Instances of the indirect method which is employed on the part of the Bongo to express any abstract idea may here be given. The monosyllable “firr,” for example used in combination with other words, answers the purpose of expressing any of the following ideas: will, love, pleasure, taste, or speech. The true conception which would appear to be the original force of the little word, is first the will, and then the expression of that will by means of the tongue. The phrase for “I wish it,” would be “firr nahamah,” which is literally, “The will is in my stomach.”

Nor is it uninteresting to notice the various equivalents which are found of one and the same word. “Mahee” means “lance” and “meat” in general, and is a collective expression for antelopes of every kind; “attamatta” is employed equally for what is “bitter” and what is “annoying;” “dill” implies either a “shadow” or a “cloud;” “gimah” is used indifferently for either “a son” or “a boy,” and “goah” for either “a pit” or “deep.” “Helleleh” simply means “wind” or “air,” but by reduplication “helleleh-helleleh,” implies whatever is “light.” Either “rain” or “the sky” may be indicated by the word “hetorro,” and “ndan” not merely signifies “night,” but is used for “to-day.” This last mode of expression has been transferred from the African to the Arabic of the Eastern Soudan, where “fee lehle” means either “by night” or “this very day.”

The disposition which is ever manifested amongst the untutored children of nature to represent certain animals by imitating the sounds they utter, is extended amongst the Bongo to describe a variety of inanimate object. As examples of this kind of nomenclature I may mention “golongolo” as their name for a “bell,” “gohi” as their name for a “cough,” “kulluluh” for a “ball,” and “marongonn” for “snoring.” The name they give a “cat” is “mbriow” differing little in its pronunciation from “mew.”

There is a kind of poetry which underlies many of their expressions, and which invests some objects with a certain charm of indefiniteness; thus for example they call a leaf “mbillee-kaggah,” “an ear of the tree,” and a man’s chest they name “doah kiddi,” or “the capital of the veins.”

The speech of a people is very often indicative of the predominating character of their pursuits. By the name of “mony,” which originally meant the common sorghum, which is the staple of their produce, the Bongo, being an agricultural people, have come to denote not so much the particular corn, as eatables of any description. They have, moreover, adopted this word as the root of a verb which is conjugated. In a way corresponding to this the Niam-niam, who are mainly addicted to hunting, give a very comprehensive meaning to their word “push-yo,” which signifies “meat.” Of almost infinite variety are the names of the different individuals among the Bongo. I had opportunities of making inquiries whilst I was measuring nearly a hundred of the people, and I do not think that I found more than five names that occurred more than once. As a regular rule parents name their children after trees or animals, or some object in nature, and it is quite exceptional for any personal peculiarity to be associated with the appellation.

INTERMINGLING OF RACES.

In the labyrinth of African culture it is very difficult to disentangle the hundred threads which lead up to the centre from which they have been all unwound. Not a custom, not a superstition is found in one part which is not more or less accurately repeated in another; not one contrivance of design, not one weapon of war exists of which it can be declared that it is exclusive property of any one race. From north to south, and from sea to sea, in some form or other every invention is sure to be repeated; it is “the thing that has been.” The creative hand of Nature alone produces what is new. If we could at once grasp and set before our minds facts that are known (whether as regards language, race, culture, history, or development) of that vast region of the world which is comprehended in the name of Africa, we should have before us the witness of an intermingling of races which is beyond all precedent. And yet, bewildering as the prospect would appear, it remains a fact not to be gainsaid, that it is impossible for any one to survey the country as a whole without perceiving that high above the multitude of individual differences there is throned a principle of unity which embraces well nigh all the population.

Such a conclusion has been amply borne out by the preceding delineation of the Bongo, who form an element in that unity. We cannot take a retrospect of the particulars which have been now detailed about them, without the question arising as to which of the other races of Central Africa most nearly resemble the Bongo. Any answer to this question that could not be invalidated would afford hints invaluable for the investigation of the latest movements among African nations; but I must confess that I am only hazarding an opinion which I cannot establish, when I name the countries about Lake Tsad as being those in which the most marked similarity in habit to the Bongo might be expected, and the tribes to which I would more particularly allude are the Musgoo, the Massa, the Wandala, and the Loggon.

I conclude by repeating the comparison which I made at the beginning between the existence of a people and a drop of water evaporating in the sea. Ere long, the Bongo as a people will be quite forgotten, superseded by a rising race. The time cannot be far off when this race, so gifted and so impressionable, shall be known no more. The domination over the people which is contemplated in Egypt cannot fail to effect this result, and it is a destiny that probably awaits all the rest of the African races. However much the Nubian may tyrannize, he still leaves the poor natives a portion of their happiness. But there is still a more distant future: after the Nubian comes the Turk, and he takes all. Truly it is not without reason that the proverb circulates in every district, “Where the Turk has been no grass will grow.”

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Vide ‘Linguistische Ergebnisse einer Reise nach Central Afrika,’ by Dr. G. Schweinfurth. Berlin: Wiegandt and Hempsel, 1873.

[29] An illustration of this contrivance appears in Petherick’s ‘Travels in Central Africa,’ vol. i. p. 255.

[30] For a pictorial representation of this scene, vide vol. ii.

[31] Vide Petherick, ‘Egypt, the Soudan,’ &c., p. 395.

[32] Vide Chap. V. p. [206], seq.

[33] The woodcut represents a vertical section of one of these smelting-ovens.

[34] Petherick in his ‘Travels,’ vol. i. p. 164, refers to this shrub, and designates one of its branches by the name of “ebony.”

[35] Tremaux: ‘Voyage Pittoresque au Soudan.’ Tab. XIV.