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

by Georg August Schweinfurth

THE HEART OF AFRICA.

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CHAPTER I.

My former journey. Inducements to a second. Plan and object. Custom-house difficulties at Suez. Scenes in the Governor’s divan. Environs of Suez. Sulphur mine of Gimsah. Recluse life of the officials. An unenticing coast. The roadstead of Djidda. The bride of the fish. Voyage across the Red Sea. Salt works of Roway. Appearance of the shore. Charm of the moonlight nights. Importance of Suakin. First night-camp in the mountains. New species of Dracæna. Numerous succulents among the flora. The valley of Singat. Idyllic abode of the Governor. Mountains of Erkoweet. The olive-tree wild. Gardens of the desert. Characteristics of the town Bedouins. Equipment for the desert. Old fanatic from Kano. Injury and oppression. The Bedouin camp O-Mareg. Brown coating of the rocks. Goats and sheep of the Bedouins. Plant with my own name. Contest with the camel-drivers. Ugliness of the women. A monument of nature. Arrival at the Nile. Tent in peril. A wedding. The ninety-nine islands and the Sablook-straits. Pitiable condition of the country. Arrival at Khartoom.

When, in the summer of 1868, I prepared for the great journey, of which the following pages contain the description, I was already no novice on African soil. In 1863 I had served an apprenticeship in the art of travelling in the sunny fields of Egypt and Nubia. For months together, in my own boat, I had navigated the Red Sea; and it was while I was exploring the untraversed mountains by its coasts that I seriously conceived my larger project. My curiosity was particularly attracted towards the district of the independent Bishareen. I had then repeatedly crossed the country between the Nile and the sea, and while sojourning on the lower terraces of the Abyssinian highlands, I had learnt to appreciate the full enchantment of the wonders of nature in Africa.

In 1866, passing through Khartoom and Berber, I found my way back again to Egypt.

Once entertained, the project of the botanical investigation of these lands resolved itself more and more into the problem of my life. The splendid herbarium, too, which I had carried home as the reward of my labours, obtained though it was at the cost of repeated attacks of fever, contributed to intensify my desire. Altogether the result of my first attempt was an encouragement and happy omen for my success in a second. My experience hitherto was likewise advantageous to me so far as this,—​it had afforded opportunity of cultivating the faculty so necessary to every explorer of unknown districts, of correctly generalising from details. Observations and impressions require to be surveyed from a comprehensive point of view, in order that the characteristic features of a country may be represented in their true proportions.

Besides this general information which I had practically gained and which I could no more have learnt from books than I could have learnt the foreign habits and modes of thought, I had also acquired that fluency in the Arab vernacular which is indispensable to every traveller, and which, moreover, appears to suffice for the whole of the immense district which is commanded by the Nile and its host of tributaries.

BOTANICAL ARDOUR.

Herbarium, topography, and language all seemed to favour me; the chief drawback was the state of my health. I suffered from a disorganised condition of the spleen, which gave me some uneasiness and misgiving; yet, after all, it appeared to be just the key that had unlocked the secret of the unexampled good fortune of my journey. The numerous attacks of fever had probably reduced it to such a state of inactivity, that it ceased to be affected by any miasma; or perhaps it had assumed the function of a condensator, so as to render the miasma innocuous. Anyhow, it seemed to perform services which I could not do otherwise than gratefully accept as a timely gift of Providence. As a farewell on my landing in Alexandria, I experienced one slight twinge from my malady, and then it was quiet; it did not again re-appear even in the noxious swamps of the Upper Nile, which had been disastrous to so many of my predecessors. No recurrence of my disorder interrupted my activity or clouded my enjoyment, but fever-free I remained, an exception among a hundred travellers.

The time which elapsed between the completion of my first, and the commencement of my second journey, was occupied in studies which were directed to the scientific classification and analysis of what had been so abundantly secured.

Whoever knows the blameless avarice of a plant-hunter will understand how these studies could only arouse in me a craving after fresh booty. I could not forget that the greater part of the Nile territory, with the mysterious flora of its most southern affluents, still remained a fresh field for botanical investigations; and no wonder that it presented itself as an object irresistibly attractive to my desires. But one who has himself, on the virgin soil of knowledge in unopened lands, been captivated by the charm of gathering fresh varieties, and has surrendered himself to the unreserved enjoyment of Nature’s freedom, will be prompted to yet keener eagerness; such an one cannot be daunted by any privation he has undergone, nor deterred by any alarm for his health: he recalls as a vision of Paradise the land he has learnt to love; he exaggerates the insalubrity of a northern climate; he bewails the wretched formality of our civilised life, and so, back to the distant solitudes flies his recollection like a dove to the wilderness.

Of this kind were my impressions as these two years passed away. I was prohibited from any immediate prosecution of my hope by the inadequacy of my pecuniary means. A welcome opportunity, however, soon presented itself, and enabled me to resume my investigation of the district of the Nile.

After the death of Alexander von Humboldt, there had been founded in Berlin, as a monument of gratitude and recognition of his services, the “Humboldt Institution of Natural Philosophy and Travels.” The object of this was, without regard to nationality or creed, to assist talent in every direction in which Humboldt had displayed his scientific energies; and it was especially directed that the funds should be applied to promote travels in the most-remote districts. The Institute contemplated a supply of means for the prosecution of those philosophical studies to which Humboldt dedicated himself with such unceasing ardour. The Royal Academy of Science of Berlin was vested alike with the power of deciding on the undertakings and of selecting suitable agents to carry out their designs.

To that eminent scientific corporation I ventured to submit a scheme for the botanical investigation of those equatorial districts which are traversed by the western affluents of the Upper Nile. My proposal met with a ready sanction, and I was rejoiced to receive a grant of the disposable funds of the Institution, which had been accumulating for the space of five years.

Thus it happened, that in July 1868 I was once more upon the soil of Africa.

GOVERNMENT COUNTENANCE.

During my first stay at Khartoom, which is the centre of government of the Egyptian Soudan, I had collected a variety of information about the ivory expeditions undertaken by the merchants of the place to the country about the sources of the Nile; I had likewise made certain alliances with the natives, and by these means I hoped to project a plan for a scientific progress over the district on a firm basis. There was no doubt that in the heathen negro districts of the Upper Nile, the Egyptian Government exercised little influence and no authority. Under its direction, the Khartoom merchants had indeed done something—​for sixteen years they had traversed the land in well-nigh every direction, and they had established stations for themselves in the negro borders; but they had not made good any hold upon the territory in general. Nevertheless, I had no alternative than to conclude that without the countenance of the Government, and without the co-operation and support of the merchants, there was no reasonable expectation that the objects of a scientific traveller could be forwarded.

I was quite aware that various travellers had already attempted, at a large sacrifice of money, to arrange independent expeditions, and to engage an adequate number of armed men on their own responsibility; but no sooner had they reached the more remote regions, where the few channels of the river were all in the hands of the merchants, than they necessarily became dependent on the merchants for their supplies. There was, besides, no other quarter on which to rely for obtaining porters, who are indispensable in a country where all known beasts of burden are accustomed in a short time to succumb to the climate.

Upon the whole, therefore, I soon came to the determination of being taken in the train of the merchants of Khartoom, trusting that the countries opened by them would offer sufficient scope for all my energies. It was probable that the ivory traders would never, of their own accord, want to thwart me; yet I would not rely entirely on this, as I knew that they were themselves subjects of the Viceroy. As matter of fact, probably, they were entire masters of the situation in the negro countries, and really irresponsible; but still their interests made them apparently subservient to an absolute government, and this was the handle that I desired to use accordingly. By diplomatic interest, I had secured the ostensible recognition of the Viceregal Government, but from my own experience, I was fully convinced that mere letters of recommendation to the local authorities, as long as their contents are limited to ordinary formal phrases, are of very questionable advantage. I might refer particularly to Sir Samuel Baker’s misadventure as affording an illustration of the insufficiency of such credentials. I considered myself fortunate, therefore, in obtaining from the Prime Minister of the Viceroy (although he was himself not in residence) special orders, which I knew were indispensable, to the Governor-General of Khartoom. The Governor-General was to superintend any contract which I might make with the merchants to secure that my journey through the district of the Gazelle River should be unhindered, and to ensure the due fulfilment of whatever obligations might be undertaken.

Thus the course appeared to be smooth, by which I might hope to reach the centre of the mysterious continent; but I was still far from my object, still far from the point which I could consider as the true starting-point of my real journey. Between Alexandria and Khartoom was a route familiar enough, but even Khartoom could hardly be deemed the beginning. In order to reach the cannibal and the pigmy there faced me, as perchance there does the reader, many a trial of patience. What I did in Alexandria and Cairo can afford little or no interest; I was there fully occupied in preparations and purchases for my equipment, at times feeling much depressed. Before me lay the uncertain future, and the perils, which I could not conceal from myself, of this inhospitable region; and behind me was Europe, in which to dwell was insupportable, without seeing my cherished designs accomplished.

AT SUEZ.

In Suez the dejection of despondency yielded to feelings of a more lively nature, partly from vexation, partly from amusement. The custom-house afforded me vexation, whilst the Governor’s divan was an unfailing source of amusement. I arrived in Suez on the 16th of August, proposing to continue my journey to Djidda by the next steamer. Much gratified by the intelligence that a steamer belonging to the Sulphur Company would start in four days, I was proceeding to embark at once, when I was stopped by the custom-house authorities, who desired a strict investigation of the luggage, and insisted upon payment of the tariff duties for every article of my huge accumulation of baggage. Perhaps everything might have been arranged, but when my additional waggon appeared, although I explained that it had been furnished me by the Government, and notwithstanding that I was the bearer of letters directed to the Egyptian revenue officers, the director required an extra special order, and referred me to the Governor, who telegraphed back to Alexandria. In the meantime, for the next two days, I was compelled to take turns with my factotum, the Nubian servant, to sit in the sun on my baggage in order to protect my boxes which contained my money bags full of Maria Theresa dollars. As a refuge for the night I betook myself to a hotel, not much larger than a hut, in which I had already some years previously found the accommodation just suited to give me a foretaste of the privations of the desert.

My consternation may be imagined, when at last there arrived from the capital an order that I must pay precisely as any ordinary traveller. Hardly had I recovered my first surprise, when accidentally one of the Governor’s clerks called attention to some contradictions in the despatch. Further inquiries were instituted, and the discovery was made that an important word had been overlooked, and that the tenor of the message was that I was “not” to pay.

Whilst this was going on, and I was kept in my suspense, I stayed chiefly in the Governor’s divan. This officer, untroubled at the revolutions which were taking place around him, untouched by any development of the spirit of the age so perceptible here, where three-quarters of the world join hands, ruled his people in simplicity and in the fear of the Lord. During the time which I passed sitting in his divan awaiting the issue of events, I was a witness of several incidents exhibiting this simplicity, and which struck me as being somewhat ludicrous. First stepped in a swarthy-looking fellow, with a knavish countenance, such as one meets but seldom even in the streets of Alexandria. He wanted to legitimatise himself in his character of a British subject, or “protégé” as he styled himself. To the Governor’s inquiry where he came from, he said from Tarablus. “Tarablus! then how can you be English?” said the Governor. “Why, surely, because Tarablus is in the west,” replied the rogue. It was objected that he was forging a lie, and that Tarablus was not in the west, and thence there ensued a tedious geographical discussion about Eastern and Western Tripoli. The rascal went on to assert that his father was a native of Malta, that after his death he had married, settled in Tripoli, and had become a Mohammedan; and then he cunningly added, “Allah be with you, and give you grace! I should hope I could be an Englishman and yet be a good Mussulman.” Quite satisfied, the Governor gave a contented look, and let him pass. The order was given for the next applicant to be heard. With hesitating steps there now approached a little man, black and repulsive, bringing with him a veiled girl to the front. It was a scene which suggested the thought that he must be a slave-dealer, and it reminded me of one of Horace Vernet’s famous pictures; but the circumstances were different. He proceeded to unroll mysteriously and display a splendid caftan of yellow silk. He was, it seemed, a tailor of the suburbs, and the veiled beauty was a slave-girl from Enarea, who had formerly been sold for filthy lucre, and was now bartering her honesty under the same inducement. The caftan was a gorgeous vestment lined with imitation ermine, and not unlike the night-dress of Ivan the Terrible, which is preserved in the Troitsky convent near Moscow. The girl had ordered the dress, and now would not pay for it, and accordingly the tailor had brought her with him to the Governor, and so enforced his demand.

SCENE IN THE DIVAN.

The next scene had a wonderful climax. It might almost remind one of the tedious campaign ending with the sudden collapse of Magdala. What the beginning of the contention was, I cannot tell. The Governor had apparently been trying to mediate between two Arnauts; but as the prolonged discourse was carried on in Turkish, I did not understand it. A quantity of apples were produced, and some of them laid for an evidently conciliatory purpose beside the Governor. All at once, however, some misunderstanding occurred, and there arose a furious storm of apples: they were hurled in every direction, the Bey himself being the originator of the bombardment; and the scene closed as effectively as though there had been a display of fireworks. For myself, I was happily protected by my situation; but I could see all, and am ready, if need be, to vouch for my representation in the presence of the great Sultan himself. If any one is inclined to suspect that such a sight is incompatible with the dignity or indolence of Turks, I can only remind him that their enlarged intercourse with temperaments less sluggish than their own has broken down much of their composure; and that now just as little patience can be expected from an African Bey when he is irritated, as from an excited Bavarian corporal. Although these details may appear to have no direct connection with what concerns Central Africa, yet they are significant as exhibiting how completely, for all purposes of administration, every institution which is Turkish or Mohammedan remains fixed on its ancient basis. Though Suez were to become a second San Francisco, or however much it might concentrate upon itself the traffic of the world, scenes of judicial practice such as these would be sure to recur until the last Pasha or Bey had taken farewell of this mortal state.

Since my first visit five years ago, in January 1864, the population of Suez had increased threefold. The Abyssinian campaign alone had been the means of almost doubling the number of its inhabitants. A portion of the camp formed for the marching troops, and an immense depôt for trusses of hay, seeming well nigh like a large village in itself, were now the sole relics of that successful enterprise.

The fresh-water canal, which had now been completed for five years, had not effected any marked improvement upon the melancholy environs of the town, where desolation still reigned as ever; no gardens, no plantations, no verdure relieved the eye, which sought its refreshment from the blue sky and the azure sea. The hopeful expectations which were entertained from that canal seem by no means to have been realised. The deposit of any fertilising soil proceeded very slowly, and hitherto had made no change in the condition of vegetation at Suez, except just at the foot of the Mokkatan mountains, where the boulder flats, unimpregnated with salt, are traversed by a separate side branch of the main canal. Large fields of vegetables are cultivated here, and, without the aid of man, many varieties of desert plants contribute to the verdure. The tourist who loves to inscribe fresh acquisitions in his diary, may here without trouble find the far-famed “rose of Jericho,” which he would seek in vain around the suburbs of Cairo.

In order to reach Khartoom, I had chosen the sea-route by Suakin, so as to avoid the heat and fatigue of a journey through the great Nubian desert. This sea-route, by Suakin and Berber, is quicker and altogether less expensive than that by Assouan and Korosko; but it is not advisable for merchants who are travelling with any quantity of goods, on account of the heavy duties which are levied both at starting from Suez and at landing at Suakin.

ON THE RED SEA.

To save trouble and time I thought it would be best to proceed to Djidda, and there hire a sailing vessel to convey our party across to Suakin. To reach Djidda, I made choice of a little French packet which was going thither in preference to one of the Egyptian Azizieh steamers which ply between Suez and Massowa. These larger vessels do indeed touch both at Djidda and Suakin, but they are not suited for general travellers. The name of our little steamer was ‘Prince Mohammed Tawfik,’ (the heir-apparent to the throne of Egypt): it belonged to the “Compagnie Soufrière,” and was commissioned to supply the sulphur mines of Gimsah on the Egyptian coast with fresh water every fourteen days. Although it was in no way adapted for the conveyance of passengers, I was nevertheless quite comfortable on board. It was a vessel of only 300 tons burden, but by dividing the receptacle for conveying the Nile water into seven separate compartments, a great economy of space was effected, and a good hold reserved. The fact of the captain being a Dane, was a still farther recommendation.

It was a memorable morning, that 18th of August, on which the sailing vessel was prepared to leave the roadstead. Many a curious eye, in those early hours, was strained to witness the sun, as its disk rose darkened by the shadow of an eclipse. Above the flood of the Erythræan Sea appeared a golden sickle, its crescent light bearing resemblance to the moon. We were detained for yet two days in the roadstead; but at last we weighed anchor, and the little craft soon vanished from the midst of its more imposing neighbours, the great mail ships and men-of-war, which gave such a bright animation to the anchorage. A refreshing breeze from the north-east carried us across the gulf. Ever deepening violet shadows covered the shore, until the obscurity of night had completely hidden Mount St. Catherine and the Mount of Moses from our gaze. At dawn we were facing the grim shore of the sulphur mountain. Here we were greeted by the waving of the French tricolour, which, in the monotonous grey that mantled the whole land, afforded a bright resting-place for the weary eye.

According to a treaty made with the Egyptian Government, the Company are enabled to carry on their operations over 160 miles of coast, south from Cape Seit, where the Egyptian territory forms a promontory opposite the peninsula of Sinai. The coast line is similar in outline to the adjacent Gimsah, whilst, with the group of islands which lie off it, it forms the entrance of the Gulf of Suez. We now passed down the narrow channel which divides the group of islands from the mainland, and there lay before us the bluff of Gimsah, a steep mass of pure gypsum, white as chalk. This peak is about 200 feet above the level of the sea: it faces nearly south, its aspect is bare, and like all the mountains contiguous to the sea on these dreary and uninhabited coasts, it presents hardly the faintest trace of vegetation. Since July, 1867, the mines have been worked by a gang of labourers, of which twenty-six were Europeans and 300 were brought from Upper Egypt. For a time they were yielding a rich produce, which afforded the best hopes for the future; but now, like so much else in the country, have fallen into decay. The mutual intrigues and corruption of the contractors have yielded a fresh testimony on the one hand, to the continual ill-luck of the Government, which seems fated never to be able to improve the bounty of its natural resources; and on the other, to the ruthless avarice of foreigners, which is ever stopping the progress of the country. A tedious lawsuit has laid bare a whole series of scandals, discreditable alike to the directors and to the administrators of the Viceregal Government. The state of affairs, even in 1868, was melancholy enough. The Egyptian Government had contracted to supply work in the mines at a stipulated daily rate of payment. For the protection of the colony, as well as for the maintenance of discipline among the workmen, a guard of twenty-five soldiers was kept at Gimsah; this was rather a superfluity, since the Egyptian workmen, once taken into service, could not easily escape. They were hemmed in on one side by wide deserts, which could not be traversed in a day; and as for danger on the other from the Bedouins, none could be apprehended. A report about the Bedouins, which was current at Suez, could not fail to awaken my interest. The passengers of a mail steamer, which had lately foundered at the entrance of the Gulf, maintained that they had seen on the opposite mainland a body of wild men 200 strong, looking out for booty and for plunder. Assuredly by no exertions could the Bedouins collect such a force in the course of a few hours. Poor sons of the desert, I knew them better! An exhausted stomach, shrivelled up on their long wanderings till it is like an empty water-bottle, is the only voice in their naturally harmless character which could excite to violence. Give them a couple of handfuls of durra-corn, and you have made them the best of friends. Their desire for plunder is limited to the robbing of turtles’ nests, and the taking of eggs from the neighbouring islands.

SULPHUR WORKS AT GIMSAH.

Protected by numberless coral-reefs, the coasts of the Red Sea everywhere afford to small vessels the most comfortable harbours and anchorage. Here a short stone quay sufficed as a mole for moorage, and close behind was a grotto-like cistern in the rock, into which the water could be pumped by means of pipes connected with the reservoirs in the ship. On the narrow border of land between the foot of the rock and the sea, were erected huts of planks for the workmen, and barracks of stone for the officials of the Company. Such was the little piece of land on which the colony, composed of representatives of many a nation, prolonged its deplorable existence. Bounded in front by the dreary expanse of sea, which was rarely enlivened by a solitary sail, shut in behind by the sun-scorched gypsum, they were thus exposed to a double share of direct and reflected rays. The atmosphere in which they toiled was burdened with the stifling fumes of sulphur, and oppressed with the perpetual odour of burning petroleum; not alone the welfare, but the very existence of the colony, was dependent on the safe return of the steamer which provided them with food and drink. Whoever has lingered here can form some conception of the endurances of the poor beasts in our zoological gardens, which have been brought together from every zone, and caged in hopeless imprisonment. So monotonously and void of joy did the days of these wretched miners pass away; they led a life more gloomy than monastic, which might almost recall the first century of Christendom. Perhaps such a life belongs to the air, for it may be remembered that the renowned convents of St. Paul and St. Antony are distant but a few miles to the north-west; they are remnants of the oldest convents that are known, and to them, as often as a patriarch is required, does Egypt, according to ancient rule, ever turn to supply the vacancy.

TROPICAL HEAT.

In reality the colony of Gimsah, when approached from the sea, did present quite the appearance of a monastic settlement in the heart of a desert. Caverns were hewn in all directions, in order to work the veins of gypseous spar containing the sulphur, and amongst them lay a row of twelve hexagonal little houses, which were the kilns, built after the Sicilian fashion, and which might at first be mistaken for the cells of pious monks. To crown the denial and privation of this existence, the Company, under the pretext of maintaining discipline, order, and morality among the miners, had peremptorily banished all women from the sulphur coasts. This restriction was especially irritating to the French, and as a refinement of cruelty was as intolerable as those poisonous fumes of pitch and sulphur which were here set free from the bowels of the earth. Nevertheless it would seem to have answered well, for young and old, Arab and European, went through their work with a diligence such as is rarely to be observed in other tropical regions. Only when the sun’s heat after midday was most insupportable, was there a cessation of labour. At 12 o’clock, when the employé of the Suez Canal, in his period of repose, sauntered into the coffee-house to take an ice or to enjoy a game at billiards, the untiring director began his daily circuit of inspection; and seldom has a quotation seemed to me more apt than that in which he said that the hour was come in which he must surrender himself to the sulphurous and torturing flames.

After staying twenty-four hours in the harbour at Gimsah, the ‘Prince Mohammed Tawfik’ continued its voyage to Djidda, where it arrived on the fourth day. At that season, when no pilgrims were coming or going, we found the harbour all but deserted; only one French and two Egyptian men-of-war were in the security of the roadstead. I easily obtained an open Arab boat, which I hoped, under favourable gales, should convey me to Suakin.

On account of the prevalence of north-winds through the greater part of the year, navigation in the Red Sea is nearly always as easy in this direction as it is difficult in the contrary. This accounts for European sailing vessels so rarely reaching Suez; they proceed only as far as Djidda, and that only when coming from India or at the time of the pilgrimage.

I had to spend two hot days on board while my baggage was disembarked. Whoever has been to India knows well enough what is the furnace temperature of the Red Sea, and how, south of the tropic of Cancer, it becomes insufferable. The thermometer stood at midday at about 95° Fahrenheit, and the air was like a vapour-bath. The sea water, a few degrees cooler, afforded us, nevertheless, some refreshment, and we did our utmost to enjoy it at all hours of the day. Still there was something very enervating and depressing about this amphibious life. Had the heat and sun-glare been less overpowering, we might have truly enjoyed the splashing and sport in the bright green floods which spread over the shallows where coral banks ranged themselves below, and where the eye could detect a thousand marvels. Like terraces filled with the choicest plants, the sloping beds of coral descended with variegated festoons into the purple shades of the deep; strange forms were witnessed in these living groves, and conspicuous among others was the “bride of the fish,” which is celebrated in the Arabian fishing-song, “O bride, lovely bride of the fish, come to me.” Ever and anon on my voyage, which was to me as an Odyssey, did I delight to catch fragments of this song, as it was dreamily hummed by the man at the stern during the hot midday hour when the crew had sunk into slumber, and while, noiselessly and spirit-like, our vessel glided through the emerald floods. The enchantment, as of a fairy tale, of these waters with their myriad living forms of every tint and shape, defies all power of description.

Without entering the town, I lost no time in putting off to sea in my little Arab craft. At first we made little headway, but after noon a fresh breeze came from the north-east, which continued all night, so that by the following morning, after a voyage of nearly 100 miles in twenty hours, we slackened sail under the mountains which I had previously visited, in lat. 21° N. The Nubian coast was almost close in front of us. A very primitive kind of compass enabled us to steer to this goal. I was glad to find that no water had reached my baggage, for in the heavy sea the boat had rolled and pitched considerably. We ran along the coast, and each familiar scene revived in me pleasant memories of my former journey, which had been unmarred by a single trouble. Close in view was Cape Roway, where the formation of a lagoon had developed natural salt-works, from which is obtained the salt for the consumption at Djidda, and for export to India. The salt, however, is only secured during the eight hottest months of the year, when the Red Sea is reduced to its lowest level, two or three feet below its altitude in the winter. The only explanation of this phenomenon seems to be the prevalent direction of the wind taken in connection with the position of the water. The bearings of the sea are such that the wind drives the waves with full force towards the Straits of Mandeb, the narrowness of which retards the outflow of the water and produces an immense evaporation.

SUBMARINE MEADOW.

The flat shore between the mountains and the sea with its coral reefs was hidden from our view. A green carpet of samphire covered the coast for miles along the land. This botanically may be represented as coming under the genus Suæda, the name of which is imitated from the Arab “sued,” the original of our “soda.” This plant has long been turned to a profitable account, and to this day Arab boats may be seen about the coast, engaged in the procuring and preserving of it.

Rising directly out of the water close to the shore grow in patches great clusters of Avicennia, so abundant in tropical seas, the beautiful laurel-leaf of which forms a dazzling contrast to the bare brown of the mainland.

Over considerable tracts at the depth of thirty feet the sea bottom resembles a submarine meadow, rich with every species of sea-grass: in these, turtles and dujongs, which are so numerous in this part of the Red Sea, find their pasture land. It must be a very protracted business for these cumbrous creatures to get their sustenance, bit by bit, from these tender leaflets; but they have time enough and nothing else to do.

The little islets in the height of summer are the resort of flocks of water-birds who go there to breed undisturbed. On one of these, in July 1864, we collected over 2000 eggs of the tern, although the dry area above the strand consisted of scarcely so many square feet. At the approach of night the wind failed us, and with fluttering sails we drifted into sight of a place called Durroor. Two antique Turkish guard-houses of small dimensions gleamed with their white walls far across the sea. They are not unlike the rough-walled watch-towers of our fortresses, and are said to have been built by Selim II. when Yemen was subdued; they are the scanty remains of a past which continues to the present, isolated memorials of a barren, inhospitable coast, where all is changeless as the rolling waves.

I shall not easily forget the nights which I passed becalmed upon that sea. Sleep there could be none. Drenched in perspiration, one could only sit by his lamp and indulge the hope that the breeze at daybreak might be somewhat cooler. Air and sea combined to form an interminable mass of vapour through which the moon could only penetrate with a lurid silvery gleam. One bright strip alone cleaves itself a way over the silent waves; it stretches towards an aperture in the horizon, which would seem to be the origin of all the brightness: but all is full of strange illusion, for the moon is here above our heads. The boat floats as though it were an aërial vessel in a globe of vapour; the depth of the sea, illumined by the vertical beams of the moon, is like another sky beneath us, and hosts of mysterious beings, diversified in colour and confused in form, are moving underneath our feet. The calmness of the air and the unbroken stillness of this spectral nature increased the magic of these moonlight nights.

Late in the evening of the third day we ran into the harbour of Suakin. This town, formerly held directly subject to the Turkish power, had three years since, together with Massowa and the adjacent coast, been surrendered to the Viceroy of Egypt. In that short time it had remarkably improved. Formed by nature to serve as a harbour for the Egyptian Soudan, and even for Abyssinia, the place, as long as its administration came from Arabia and Constantinople, could inevitably never rise, and even now its prosperity is only comparative. The Egyptian Government still obstructs all traffic by the heavy duties which it levies even on the natural intercourse with Suez; it is desirous of transferring its interests as a centre to Massowa, watching continually with attentive eyes the ungoverned condition of Abyssinia. Since the traffic on the Nile by way of Berber ever continues in uninterrupted activity, and this place lies but 200 miles from Suakin, whilst the distance between Massowa and Khartoom is twice as far, why any preference should be given to Massowa is altogether incomprehensible.

SUAKIN.

I was now visiting Suakin for the fourth time, and the Governor received me very graciously as an old acquaintance. He sent immediately for some camels, which I required for the continuation of my journey. He himself had to leave the town on the following day to visit his summer abode in the neighbouring mountains. There still remained to me four months before commencing my real journey from Khartoom, as the voyage up the White Nile could not begin until December or January; I resolved to fill up the interval by a tour through the mountains of South Nubia, for the purpose of accustoming myself to the heat and fatigue of a harmless climate, before exposing myself to the fever atmosphere of Khartoom and the Upper Nile districts. Just at this time of year, too, the valleys between the Red Sea and the Nile promised me a rich booty, and I hoped to obtain a remuneration for any toil on my part by the botanical varieties which were to be looked for on the elevated ridges. I could not do otherwise than rejoice in the prospect of escape from the glowing oven of Suakin towards the western horizon, where the mountain-chains, veiled in grey vapour, betrayed the refreshing rains which favoured the district and rendered it so preferable for my sojourn. At night was heard the roll of distant thunder, and the darkness was broken at intervals by flashes of lightning.

On the 10th of September at daybreak all was ready. After the lapse of two years passed in the domestic comforts of Europe, it is not altogether easy to remount the “ship of the desert.” Our first day’s march was through a trying country. The plain indeed was uniformly level, but for twelve miles it was covered with such huge black boulders glowing with the heat, that progress was very difficult. After we had proceeded about nine miles from the town, we made a short midday halt under the miserable shade of some dry acacias, which were like the uncovered skeletons of parasols. As if in despair they stretched their leafless branches towards the sky, and seemed to implore for water. Exposed here in a leathern pipe to the wind, our drinking water soon cooled down to a temperature about 18° below the surrounding atmosphere.

The coast plains, although practically level, evidently slope very gradually down to the sea, for after a few hours’ march the town is seen like a white spot far below. Beyond is the expanse of sea, which melts into the horizon. The coast-ridges are on an average from 3000 to 4000 feet high, but occasionally single peaks may rise to an altitude of 5000 feet. At one time they appear like a lofty wall, rising abruptly from the slanting plane; at another like separate piles of rock picturesquely grouped behind and over one another. Our route awhile across the narrow promontory now lay along the enclosure of a valley bounded by sloping walls of granite. After twelve hours’ perseverance, on the afternoon of the following day we reached the first mountain pass, about 3000 feet above the level of the sea.

NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS.

Infinitely refreshing was it to ascend at every step higher into the mountain atmosphere, and to be raised above the vapourous heat of the suffocating shore. There seemed a requickening energy in every breath of air, as gratefully it circulated on the heights. The real charm of such a change could not be appreciated more than on the first night of camping-out. Comfortably stretched upon the clean smooth stones which form the valley, the weary limbs could find repose; through the silent night the stars shed a bright and kind encouragement; there was an aromatic odour floating refreshingly around, for, impregnated with camphor, mint, and thyme, the air was laden with scents which the stores of the perfumer could not rival, and such as no quarter of the globe could surpass. The plants which exhale the welcome aroma are little obscure mountain weeds, amongst which a “pulicaria” plays an essential part. Noiselessly and like spectres glided the camels on their soft feet through the valley, rejoicing in the pasture, sweet and luscious after the scanty herbage of the shore, where for them all was dearth and salt and bitterness.

Solemnity reigned throughout nature; no discordant cry of mountain bird, no howling beast of prey, disturbed the traveller: there was only the delicate song of the desert cricket to lull him into peaceful slumber.

The mountains between Suakin and Singat afford a habitat for such numbers of remarkable plants that they appear for their variety alone well worth a visit. The most striking forms which arrest the attention of the uninitiated are the Dracænæ and Euphorbiæ, remarkable as both are for their fantastic shapes. They flourish on the loftiest heights, but are found 2000 feet below, towards the valleys. The first belong to those types of vegetation which (as though they had been carried in the air and dropped from another world) are limited to extremely narrow sections of the earth. The first dragon-trees (dracænæ) which were observed in the African continent, are those which are to be found on these mountains alone, and even here only over an area of a few square miles.[3] The Nubian dracænæ, being only from 15 to 20 feet in height, are dwarfish in comparison with their famous sister of Orotava in Teneriffe, but in other respects there are only minute and subtle distinctions between them and those which are found in the Canary Isles. In the language of the native nomad tribes of the Hadendoa and Bishareen, the dracæna is known as “To-Omba” or “T’Ombet.” The leaves afford bast for cords, the long flower stalks serve in June as excellent food for camels, whilst for goats they are almost poison.[4]

Another remarkable feature of this mountain-district is the large number of succulent plants, the fantastic forms of which here appropriately adorn the craggy walls of the valley, and supply a needed decoration to the more barren rocks of Southern Nubia.

In Abyssinia itself neither euphorbiæ nor aloes are ever found at an altitude of less than 4000 feet. Here, beside the giant Kolkwal, they are found much lower towards the valley. Four smaller kinds of the same species, as well as some remarkable Stapeliæ (which resemble the cactus type of the euphorbiæ), flourish to the very summit of the mountains. Found in company with them is a wild unearthly-looking plant called the Caraïb (Bucerosia), of which the branches are like wings, prickly and jagged round the edges like a dragon’s back. They produce clusters of brown flowers as large as one’s fist, which exhale a noxious and revolting smell, the plants themselves being swollen with a white and slimy poisonous juice.

OMBET—DRAGON-TREES.

THE LASSAV.

No space may be found to enumerate all the varieties, but I must mention the Seyleb (Sanseviera), whose fleshy tender leaves provided the Nubian nomad with the ordinary material for the cords with which he binds their burdens on his camels. These leaves in shape are not unlike the Nile whips, and on that account may readily recall and stir up painful memories to the poor Nubian of the kurbatch of the Turks, whenever he may chance to see them. So richly burdened are the hanging rocks with the varieties of rarest plants; so large and multiform is the exhibition of scarce and novel succulents—​that the greatest enthusiast could hardly fail to be bewildered. As a most interesting development of structural peculiarity, the Lassav, one of the Capparids, demands some notice. It produces flowers which take a form quite unique. A drawing taken from nature shows the strange deformity of the petals, a double cluster of which is attached to the one broad sepal, so as to produce the effect of two handkerchiefs in one pocket.

The Lassav (Capparis galeata).
(Illustration two-thirds of natural size.)

This rich covering of vegetation is, however, confined to the side of the mountains towards the sea; on the other side, as soon as the second pass is left behind, the rocks are bare, and only the lowest part of the valley is covered with anything of luxuriant verdure. Acacias, growing so closely as almost to form a hedge, and gigantic clumps of the grass-green Salvadora, shoot up like great dishes of green salad from the cheerless space around. The moistening vapour of the sea does not reach here to clothe the parched and naked rock. Such were the valleys through which on the morning of the third day we passed on to complete the first stage of our wanderings. Towards midday, after marching for nineteen hours, we had reached Singat, the summer retreat of the town Bedouins of Suakin.

The valley of Singat is about a league in breadth. It is enclosed by two lofty mountain chains running parallel to the coast, apparently joined by a number of projecting spurs. On the broad sandy bed of the valley were erected scarcely less than 500 of those Bedouin tents, of which the shape, in their drooping folds, may be compared to what we see in the breast of a roasted fowl. Here, at least a quarter of the population of the town, which reckons 3000 souls, passes the season of refreshing rains. Later, when the mountain valleys are again dry and destitute of pasture, these transient habitations are carried back again; and the camels and goats must find their pasturage on the slopes in the vicinity of the town, which are exposed to the action of the damp sea air.

Here, at his usual resort, I met Muntass Bey, the Governor of Suakin. His residence consisted of a Sammor-acacia, with foliage wide-spreading like a parasol. Under the shadow of this commodious and airy roof, common to all, was served the midday meal. Some tents in the immediate proximity were provided as places of refuge from the rain. A storm of unusual violence broke over us in the course of the day, and changed the centre of the valley into a foaming torrent, 200 paces wide, for three hours; the flood rushed onwards with unabated strength and sought the sea. I found shelter in a guard-room built of blocks of stone and clay, the quarters of the garrison of 200 Bazibozuks. After the rain the temperature was lowered to a refreshing coolness, and on the following morning I rejoiced to register a temperature of 68° F.

SUMMER RETREATS.

Whilst I stayed in Singat, I always at dinner-time found an open table beneath the Governor’s great tree. This was rendered enjoyable not more by the skill of the cook than by the harmony of the Egyptian singers, whom the Bey had in his suite. The camels, which I had hired in Suakin, were meanwhile sent away to the pastures in the neighbouring valleys, to be recruited against their approaching fatigues. The camel drivers were by no means in a hurry to start, as time was not of the smallest value to them. A trip of five days in the lofty mountains of Erkoweet, eight or ten leagues to the south-east of Singat, unclosed to my researches the vegetable treasures of this most northerly spur of the Abyssinian highland, hitherto unexplored; and was full of enjoyment, equally beneficial both to mind and body.

Erkoweet is another summer retreat for the people of Suakin. The valley in which the tents are pitched is called Harrasa, and discloses the whole flora of the Abyssinian highland in wonderful and complete luxuriance. Euphorbiæ and dracænæ deck the mountains in masses which might almost be reckoned by millions, so that the slopes in the distance have the appearance of being covered with huge black patches. From amongst innumerable projections of granite, mostly dome-shaped and adorned with charming foliage, there juts forth one huge slanting mass of mountain, which is probably the highest elevation of the district of Suakin, if not of the entire chain which runs along the coast. I ascended this peak nearly 6000 feet in altitude, and was amply repaid for the exertion by the magnificent prospect before me. There was extreme enjoyment in the freshness of the air. The whole contour of the coast lay stretched in clear and perfect outline. The whole confused system of the mountains of the coast lay like a map below my feet. In a circumference of seventy miles I plainly recognised single masses, so that the peaks known to me in my earlier visits served as landmarks to inform me of my true position.

As the result of several favourable meteorological combinations, there exists in these loftier elevations a more luxuriant development of vegetation than in any of the neighbouring mountain districts of South Nubia, which have a lower altitude. This is illustrated very plainly by the clusters of beard-moss (Usnea) which hang on every twig and branch, by the abundance of sulphur-coloured lichens on every mass of rock, and likewise by the formation of numerous luxuriant beds of moss. Mosses are generally deficient alike in Egypt proper and in Nubia, and are scarcely seen in the trenches and clefts of the Nile valley; their existence is dependent on a minimum of moisture throughout the year, which is there but rarely reached.

At Erkoweet I found again the wild olive tree, which I had already discovered some years previously on the mountains by the Elbe. I noticed that it assumes the same low bushy shape here, and bears the same box-like foliage, as it does on the coast ridges of the Mediterranean; when the two are compared they exhibit a general identity, so that I conclude the African and European are of the same family. The olive tree, it is well known, is reckoned, like the fig tree, as originally a product of the frontiers of Asia; in remote antiquity, it was reverenced by Semitic nations, and cultivated until it bore a rich produce. This type of vegetation fails completely in the interior of the continent. In the time of Homer the olive grew wild on the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and it is still to be met with, though in an altered condition, on the coasts of Syria; but here on the Red Sea it has remained unchanged for thousands of years, and the famous classical tree of myth and song is still undisturbed in the dreams of its youth.

WATER-COURSES.

A bare boulder-flat of black hornblende stones, extending several miles, divides the mountains of Erkoweet from those which bound the valley of Singat on the east. The broad water-courses which run between, show what must be the prodigious volume and violence of the currents which occasionally rush downwards to the sea. These deep water-courses are, however, only periodically filled, and then only for a few hours, in the course of the year, so that for some months they are adapted for the cultivation of corn. Notwithstanding, there was here but a very limited cultivation of sorghum, the Arabian durra, since there is a difficulty in securing labour. The idle nomads have no disposition for agricultural employment, although famine in dry seasons, when the flocks can nowhere find sufficient pasture, brings back its recurring calamity. In the year before my last visit, in the valleys about Singat alone, seventy men had died literally of hunger, after vainly endeavouring for weeks to subsist upon wild purslane.

All water-courses, with a supply of moist soil upon the ground just sufficient for a few months, although they are not enclosed by heights like valleys, are comprehended within the Arab designation “el wady.” Cheerless through the dry season, after the first rain their level sand flats are clothed with the most luxuriant flora; fresh springing grasses put forth their little cushion points, and give the sward the appearance of being dotted with a myriad spikes; then quickly come the sprouting blades, and all is like a waving field of corn. Halfway between Singat and Erkoweet we halted in a wady of this character, which bore the name of Sarroweet. What a prospect! how gay with its variety of hue, green and red and yellow! Nothing could be more pleasant than the shade of the acacia, nothing more striking than the abundance of bloom of the Abyssinian aloe, transforming the dreary sand-beds into smiling gardens. Green were the tabbes-grass and the acacias, yellow and red were the aloes, and in such crowded masses, that I was involuntarily reminded of the splendour of the tulip beds of the Netherlands; but here gardens lay in the midst of a waste of gloomy black stone. One special charm of a desert journey is that it is full of contrasts, that it brings close together dearth and plenty, death and life; it opens the eyes of the traveller to the minutest benefits of nature, and demonstrates how every enjoyment is allied to a corresponding deprivation. Richly laden with treasures I returned to Singat, where I remained until the 21st of September, and during my stay I had once again repeated opportunities of studying my old friends the people of Suakin in their domestic relations.

The coast lands on both sides of the Red Sea offer a striking likeness to each other, which does not consist in physical resemblances alone. The people are the same in feeling and in manners, however much the true Ethiopians, such as the Bishareen, Hadendoa, and Beni-Ammer, may differ in language and descent from the true Arabs; I say from the true Arabs, because the term Arab has been at times too indiscriminately applied, and ought to be limited to the nomads in Arabia, as distinguished from the settlers. On both coasts the inhabitants follow the same character of life. They are people of the deserts, wandering shepherds, and procure whatever corn they may require from external sources. Even the town life of the Arabs is essentially half a camp life. As a collateral illustration of this I may remark that to this day in Malta, where an Arab colony has reached as high a degree of civilisation as ever yet it has attained, the small towns, which are inhabited by this active little community, are called by the very same designations as elsewhere belong to the nomad encampments in the desert. Half Suakin is like a desert camp, and for this reason I have called its inhabitants town Bedouins.

TOWN BEDOUINS.

These town Bedouins are people whose only distinction from the Bedouins of the mountains is that their dress almost always is of a spotless white; the true sons of the desert, in consequence of their continual camp life, have long toned down the colour of their single garment, never washed, to a brownish-grey, quite in harmony with the general hue of the surrounding country. Many very beautiful faces, perfectly regular in feature, are to be found amongst these swarthy Bedouins, whilst a wonderful dignity and elegance mark their movements. Like the inhabitants of Hedjas and Yemen they chew tobacco, and find recreation in various amusements which are unknown to the mountain Bedouins. All alike, however, have in common the same single aim of existence: to do as little as possible, to sleep much, to drink goats’ milk, to eat sheep’s flesh, and finally to scrape together all the Maria Theresa dollars that they can; the latter is a matter of some difficulty, on account of their natural idleness. Black female slaves instead of asses, which in Suakin would cost too much to feed, are indispensable to them for carrying water from the well to the town. Whoever possesses fifty dollars in his bag and has one slave besides his water-bearer, is quite a magnate, and spends much labour in the profuse adornment of his hair. When he is not sleeping, that is to say, in the cool hours of the morning and evening, he takes his walk, always bareheaded and with high-towering locks, here and there on the road joining in a conversation or conferring the favours of his weighty counsel. When it becomes too hot in Suakin, and the goats give no more milk, after the last weed has been devoured, and the last tundup (sodada) eaten to the roots by the camels, they leave the cob-webbed thorn hedges of their farms, pack together the acacia-rods and date-mats, the materials of the tent, and withdraw to the mountain pastures, which they retain by ancestral right. After them follow the Turkish soldiers, who roam through the valleys, switching their kurbatch, and proceed to collect the taxes levied in proportion to the number of cattle. The services of these officials in return are enlisted to re-capture any camel stealers who may be seeking to escape to the remote solitudes of the mountains.

On the 21st of September I resumed my journey towards the Nile, a further distance of 175 miles. On the way my little party, which, besides the camel drivers, consisted of only a native of Berber and a dog which I had brought from Europe, was increased by falling in with two young pilgrims on their way from Mecca. I was unable to complete my proper retinue until I should reach Khartoom, since the men who had offered me their services in Egypt appeared so weakly that I considered them unfit for undertaking any journey into Central Africa. The addition therefore of these two blacks for the approaching march of sixteen days through mountain solitudes was very welcome. Their armour consisted of a Turkish sabre, and this, together with my gun, seemed completely sufficient protection against the natives, whom Sir Samuel Baker a few years before had so successfully mastered with the help of an umbrella, that a considerable number of them voluntarily laid down their arms. The vigilance of the dog was a security against any nocturnal attack, and indeed, at two different times he had given warning to my little caravan just at the right time.

RIVAL WIVES.

Less welcome to me was the company of a disagreeable old fanatic, who, followed by two wives, was on his return journey from the Holy City of the East to his home in the far west. He was a priest from Kano in Haussa, and when he told of the wonders of the world which he had seen on his long journeys, I could always set him right, having really seen infinitely more than he had. I completely non-plussed him by my geographical knowledge of the Western Soudan, and after the details which I gave of that country, he was, however reluctantly, at last obliged to believe that I had actually been there. But any friendship between us was rendered impossible by the constant noise and contention caused by his wives. All amicable relations came utterly to an end when I found myself driven as I did to come forward as the champion of the oppressed. Of the priest’s two wives, one had faithfully followed her husband from his home, and now saw herself supplanted by the other, whom the priest had married at the tomb of the Prophet. The fellow had begun to impose on his first wife in the most shameful manner by the withdrawal of every choice morsel and of every harmless indulgence; consequently the two women were continually quarrelling, and literally laid on to each other by the hair. The man himself always took the part of the new wife, and cruelly maltreated the old. At last it became too much for me to be the daily witness of such revolting scenes, and I took the old sinner to task, and tried to inculcate in him due ideas of woman’s rights and dignity, so that he could tell his countrymen in Haussa what we thought on such matters. The indifferent camel drivers and the still more indifferent camels, both alike as unmoved as the black rocks in their solemn stateliness, alone surveyed this little tragedy. Whoever has to travel through deserts should endeavour to be free from such rabble and useless retinue. A large company is troublesome on account of the scarcity of shade, since there is not always time at the halting-places to pitch a tent, and one must avail himself of the few larger trees which exist in the valleys.

A stiff ascent of the road at a short distance from Singat led westwards to the water-shed between the Nile and the Red Sea. The elevated pass is rather to the rear of the defiles on the Suakin side. We then descended to a very broad wady full of pasture, called O-Mareg, which was a third summer retreat for the natives of Suakin. In the middle of a green valley; two miles broad, some fifty tents were erected, all under the surveillance of a Turkish captain with some soldiers to look after the interests of the Government. Great herds of camels, cows, sheep, and goats, and amongst them several hundreds of asses, were grazing in every direction. The Wady O-Mareg does not form, as might be expected, a tributary of the great mountain-river Langeb, which at its recurring period joins the Barka, but takes its course direct to the Atbara, as do all the larger water-courses of the ensuing road.

In consequence of the repeated storms of rain, at the time of my journey there was water in nearly all the valleys, and everywhere there was abundance of pasture for the camels. The drivers accordingly chose a more direct road running to the south of the ordinary route of the caravans. This enabled me to fill up my map with many new details. As a general rule the drivers followed the rule of never, if possible, encountering the native shepherds on the road. Although they were of the same race, they feared the conflicts which were frequently unavoidable in the neighbourhood of any wells. I was not surprised at their timidity, as I had myself experienced some difficulty in my former tour.

Having crossed the third chain, we reached the great wady Amet, which is bounded on the north by Mount O-Kurr, a colossal mass visible as a landmark in the west for a whole day’s journey. The predominating rocks are greenstone in several varieties, although beautiful serpentine is far from infrequent. In one part of the valley rises a homogeneous mass of splendid porphyry nearly 1000 feet in height, brilliantly marked on its surface with veins of Indian red. From the prevaence in these mountains of greenstone, which no doubt often contains a grass-green stratum, the conclusion must not be drawn that green is at all a prevailing colour of the walls of rock. This is by no means the case; indeed, nearly all kinds of rock, however diverse they may appear when broken, are covered externally with an uniform dark brown, which obliterates all distinctive shades. In its interior the greenstone is unpolished and of bright colour. A superficial accretion, the cause of which remains hitherto unexplained, forms itself on every fragment and gives a coating about a millimeter thick, in colour not unlike a bright brown cake of chocolate.

BISHAREEN GOATS AND SHEEP.

In Wady Amet we lighted upon some sorghum-fields, which seem to have been planted out, like those at O-Mareg and Erkoweet, by way of experiment; but in reality they here represented the whole exertions of the idle inhabitants of the desert. Some primitive huts, heaped up in Cyclopean rudeness, bore witness to the stability of this rendezvous of native shepherds. We were here amply provided with milk and meat, goats and sheep being alike abundant in the neighbouring valleys. Camel-breeding is not carried on here so much as in the northern parts of Etbai, as the whole district of the Bishareen between the Nile and the sea is called; the breeders avoiding the proximity of the great roads through fear of the foraging and reprisals of the military.

The goats of the country form a small race of their own and belong to the comprehensive variety which is called the Ethiopian. Differing from those of the Nile valley, they are again found among all the nomad people in the interior; the goats of the Dinka being a larger kind of the same character. The Ethiopian goat may be reckoned among the most agile and elegant of the race, and it might be called the climbing goat, since it prefers to feed on the young shoots of the acacia, and for that purpose often climbs up the slanting stems or low-growing branches. A large flock occasionally groups itself round a tree with pendant branches: in that case, the animals are rarely seen in any other position than standing upright on their hind legs, and give at a distance an impression that they must be a crowd of men. Others may be observed in grotesque attitudes, with legs straddling, hanging in mid-air, and weighing down the boughs of an acacia.

A Bishareen Sheep.

The Bishareen keep larger flocks of sheep than of goats; the breed is very peculiar, marked by distinctions which might almost constitute a nationality. The Etbai race is closely allied to the thick-tailed species in all general characteristics, but distinguished by the lissome condition of its long and bushy tail. The fleece is hardly worthy of being called wool at all, for it simply consists of rather long straight hair. Almost all are perfectly white, except (and this is the chief mark of distinction in the species) on the ancles and mouth, which are covered with black hair. The usual price in the country for such sheep never exceeds a Maria Theresa dollar (four shillings), whilst young lambs cost but half this sum. Cattle are found only in the environs of Suakin and on the road to Taka, lying further south than the one on which we travelled. On the route which we took, in consequence of the smaller rainfall, the pasture necessary for their maintenance is not permanent throughout the year, like it is in the lands adjacent to the Barka basin. In the next district we crossed a high level, intersected by numerous water-courses deeply worn amidst the stones and rubble. The most considerable of all these water-courses periodically flowing to the south-west, was the Wady Arab. The dry bed of this was bounded by shelving banks from 40 to 50 feet in height, and the ascent was steep enough to demand no small exertion from our laden camels.

SCHWEINFURTHIA.

Here grew in great abundance the plant, a species of Scrophulariaceæ, to which my own name had been assigned (Schweinfurthia pterosperma). It met me as a greeting from my distant home. In itself it is but an insignificant little weed, but upon its discovery, Alexander Braun, the celebrated professor of the University of Berlin, had named it in my honour—​a little token of remembrance, which, according to the tribute of Linnæus, may be more lasting than any memorial in brass or marble.

A hollow, as of a saddle-seat, between the mountains led us over the chain, unbroken by a pass, of the fourth of the parallel mountain ridges which, with many branches, traverse this part of Africa. To the right on the north we left Mount Wowinte and the peak of Badab in which it culminates at an altitude of 5000 feet. The road then descended into the wide plain spreading to the west of this height, where a magnificent panorama opened to the view. Next we reached the Wady Habohb, a watercourse of which the breadth was about 400 feet. Proceeding across Wady Kokreb, two miles wide, we arrived at length at the equally wide Wady Yumga. By this time we were on the next line of the mountain range, in which is situated the much frequented well of Koway, a rendezvous for all the nomads who wander in the neighbouring localities. Here, by order of the great Sheikh of the Hadendoa, a tribute, sanctioned by the Egyptian Government, is levied on every caravan that passes.

My lazy camel drivers used every available opportunity to prolong the duration of the journey. For my part I was indifferent to this, as I had time at my disposal, and my enjoyment of the flora fully occupied me; my companions, however, were not so patient. They longed for their cherished Nile to put an end to this camp-life in dreary deserts. At length even my own forbearance was exhausted; the excuses became intolerable: at one time the camels had run away, at another they wanted food, so that it grew up to a regular fight between us four and the dozen Bedouins who were conducting us. Some sticks, the single Turkish sabre, and an indestructible pipe tube, which I swung in my hand, were our only weapons, but they sufficed to turn the victory to our side. My tube smashed a number of patriarchal shepherd staves, and thus an end was put to the eternal halts and feeds, and we went on towards the west at a better pace. I thought of the proverb that the European in India either learns patience or loses it.

As we followed the Wady Laemeb with the water of its channel now replaced by verdure, we come to O-Fik, the last mountain on the route, beyond which a desert, unrefreshed by a single spring, extends as far as the Nile valley. The last well was that of O-Baek. We lighted here upon some Bishareen families, who were staying temporarily with their flocks in the neighbourhood of the well, and were accustomed after the first rain to sow a considerable piece of ground with sorghum. Amongst the men may be observed expressive features, well developed, unlike ours, yet less unlike them than the other inhabitants of the Nile valley. But more frightful creatures than the women of these nomads there surely cannot be on earth. Of course I speak only of those who have passed the spring-time of their life. They are lean beyond all conception, and as haggard as their goats would be if shorn of their hair, which alone gives any roundness to their gaunt frames. There is nothing about them even of that natural delicacy of many savages which makes the children of the desert appear like the gazelle, which is clean, though it never bathes. Physically and morally they are loathsome; toothless, mangy, inquisitive, and chattering; in a word, they are the very incorporation of the infirmities of senility.

From this place it required an energetic march of twenty leagues to reach the first well on the confines of the Nile-valley. The road, now formed by numerous pathways running closely side by side like cattle-ruts, crossed a great boulder flat in a W.S.W. direction. The pack-camels proceeded side by side in phalanx, as upon the open lands they rarely march in single file. There were sandy water-courses ever and again intersecting our way, and groups of hills meeting the eye in the horizon.

Aboo-Odfa.

MONUMENT OF NATURE.

On leaving O-Baek we had next to traverse the plains extending to the west of the wells; formed of the finest quicksand, blown up into hills often as high as a house, these sands were a considerable impediment to the camels. From the dreary waste of the plain with its loose black rocks, jutted up a solitary block of granite, to which the Bedouins give the suggestive name of “Eremit.” An hour’s journey further on there appeared, above the plain by the right of the road, another isolated mass of granite, one of those landmarks visible from afar, which, after the weariness of the desert journey, is ever greeted gratefully by the eye of the long-tried traveller. It is a natural stone obelisk, 35 feet high, in its singular shape resembling an inverted pear or fig. The block is narrow at the base, and evidently in the course of time has been worn away by the action of the sand as it has been driven by the wind.[5] This monument, the unhewn production of nature itself, is called by the natives Aboo-Odfa, Odfa being the name of a saddle covered with a canopy which is used for women on the camel. Smaller blocks of similar conformation are not unfrequently met with at other parts of the road.

On the grassy bottom of Aboo-Kolod, where, in consequence of the late rain, great pools had formed themselves, we made our last night camp but one. The slopes had all the characteristics of being on the level of the Nile at Berber, whilst the remainder of the road again ascends. The last wady is Aboo-Selem; it was at that time one unbroken sorghum-field, its fruitful soil was already cultivated by the industrious inhabitants of the Nile valley, although the recurrence of the rain would permit the culture only at intervals. At length on the 7th of October we entered the town of Berber. Without loss of time I found a boat on which to continue my journey to Khartoom.

Whilst I encamped at Berber, pending my embarkation on the Nile, I had been unconsciously put into a position of some jeopardy. The native of Dongola who accompanied me as my servant, in order to find the safest place he could to secure the prohibited wares of a Greek merchant from the eyes of the police, had, without my knowledge, concealed under my tent a considerable quantity of gunpowder and other explosive materials. Whilst the fellow was away on a visit to town, I had unsuspiciously kindled a fire on the loose sandy soil, in order to perform my cooking operations, little dreaming of the peril which happily I escaped.

HOSPITALITY.

My old acquaintance, M. Lafargue, who was settled in Berber as a merchant and presided over the French Vice-consulate, himself an experienced traveller on the Upper Nile, received me with that hearty hospitality which many other desert wanderers have proved besides myself. Sir Samuel Baker aptly compares such receptions to the oasis in the desert. No necessity of letters of introduction here as with us in Europe; no hollow forms of speech, exchanging courtesies which perchance mean the very reverse; no empty compliment of at best a tedious dinner; but here in Egypt the people receive us with free and genial amiability, all Europeans are fellow citizens and everything is true and hearty. “What pleases me the most is the ease with which you travel in this country; you come, you go, you return again, as though it were a walk.” Such were M. Lafargue’s cordial words to me. We parted well pleased with one another: I shall not see him again.

About the last part of the journey to Khartoom, which embraces the passage up the Nile, and which is sufficiently well known by the descriptions of other travellers, I have nothing new to relate. By the complete failure of wind, much of this portion of my journey was so exceptionally prolonged, that it took sixteen days to accomplish the whole. For the first part of the voyage, as far as Shendy and Matamma, the only considerable towns in this district, the shore offered nothing attractive. It reminded me of the Egyptian valley of the Nile only in two places; the mouth of the Atbara, and one spot where the renowned pyramids of Meroe formed a noble background.

Matamma is a populous town, but extremely slow and dull. The buildings, constructed of Nile earth, are insignificant in themselves, and irregularly crowded together in a mass like huge ant-hills; not a single tree affords its shade to the dreary streets, which are filthy with dirt.

The ennui and the calm which obliged us to lay to here, suggested all sorts of unprofitable vagaries to my servant Arbab. He received from me part of his wages, and took a wife on the spot from amongst the circle of his kinsfolk. The bride, two days afterwards, was given back to herself and her relations, to await indefinitely, for a year and a day, the expected return of her husband. Arbab had already been several times married in Khartoom; and at every return he repeated the same usual, one may almost say, the becoming custom.

The second half of the Nile voyage was, however, rich in the charms of scenery. This is especially applicable to the views afforded by the river islands. These islands are so many throughout the whole extent of the sixth cataract, between the island of Marnad and the lofty mountain-island of Rowyan, that no one pretends to know their precise number, and the sailors call them, in consequence, the ninety-nine islands. This excursion offers to the traveller a most attractive prospect, and the landscapes on shore afford a treat which no other river voyage could surpass. Splendid groups of acacias, in three varieties, with groves of the holy-thorn, overgrown by the hanging foliage of graceful climbers, made the profusion of islands set in the surface of the water appear like bright-green luxuriant and gay tangles. Wildly romantic, on the contrary, reminding one of the Binger-loch, are the valley-straits of Sablook, where the Nile, narrowed to a small mountain stream, flows between high bare granite walls which rise some hundred feet.

So much the more surprising appeared the breadth which the Nile exhibits above this cataract, where it displays itself in a majesty which it has long lost in Egypt. Below their confluence, the waters of the Blue and the White Nile are distinctly visible many miles apart. It is highly probable that at certain times the level of the streams might show a difference of several feet; the proposed establishment of a Nilometer should therefore take place below the confluence, in order that with the help of the telegraph accurate intelligence of its condition might be remitted to Cairo.

PITIABLE CONDITION OF NUBIANS.

In the Nubian Nile-valley all charm is gone. Extremely wretched is the aspect of the country, and equally pitiable are its present social conditions. In the course of the last ten years, as a consequence, first, of the increased taxation, and secondly, of the diminished production, matters have continually become worse and worse. To the cursory glance of a traveller only a small proportion of this deep-rooted misery may be disclosed; he may perceive the consequences, without being able to assign the reasons; and from the contradictory statements of the inhabitants, he can hardly form a clear idea of the real condition of the country. On the other hand, the complaints of the people give him an incomplete representation of the circumstances, unless he at the same time takes notice of the objections which the Government appears justified in raising against them. Only a thorough knowledge of the country combined with local study would put him in a position to form an opinion. In spite of everything, the fact remains that the culture of the soil is declining, that scarcity is everywhere on the increase, and that distress is consequently more frequent. In the last two months of this year’s harvest, the market price of a rup[6] of sorghum-corn had risen to a Maria Theresa dollar. Three years before, large villages had been pointed out to me, lying completely deserted on account of the emigration of the inhabitants, and now again similar evidence of distress was forced upon my notice. In the district between Damer and Shendy, the population seemed utterly scared at the increasing emigrations. The unmarried men go to Khartoom in order to be enlisted as so-called soldiers by the merchants on the Upper Nile. The elder people, on the other hand, leave their culture, and with a few sheep or goats endeavour to lead a meagre nomad life as shepherds in the steppes and deserts.

On the 1st of November, at midday, we at last reached Khartoom, and landed on the bank, which was all alive with hundreds of boats. The German Vice-consul, Herr Duisberg, who had shown me so much kindness at the time of my former visit, again received me most hospitably. In his elegant and commodious house, I had every opportunity for rest and refreshment in anticipation of my coming labours.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] These appear to belong to the same species which Wellsted (‘Travels to the City of the Caliphs,’ vol. ii. p. 286) observed on the island of Socotra and (‘Travels in Arabia,’ vol. ii. p. 449) on the south coast of Arabia.

[4] The accompanying plate gives a faithful representation of the stiff forms of the dracænæ, surrounded by the still more rigid complications of rocks in the height of the pass. In the illustration, besides the dracæna, may be seen the Kolkwal-euphorbiæ, and in the right hand corner the Caraïb.

[5] The sketch on the preceding page is taken carefully from nature.

[6] The rup is a measure equal in weight to seven and a half litres, or about five oka, and containing under two English gallons.

CHAPTER II.

Kind reception in Khartoom. Dyafer Pasha, the Governor-General. Contract with Ghattas. Herr W. Duisberg. Ivory trade at Khartoom. Khartoom possessions in the negro countries. Departure from Khartoom. Manning of the boat. Construction of the Khartoom boats. First night on the White Nile. Character of the landscape. Washing away of the east bank. Fertility of the country on the west. Acacia forests. Herds of the Hassanieh. Numerous hippopotamuses. Geese and ducks. Beginning of the wilderness. The Ambatch-wood. First day of ill-luck. Running over a wild buffalo. Baggara Arabs. Brethren in the faith. The mountain Nyemati. Evening gossip about pygmies. Native Egyptian cultivated plants. Buffalos alarming the Baggara. Mohammed Kher, the robber chief. Impressions on the first sight of savages. Boat attacked by bees. Frightful agony. Gadflies. Giant snails. A man carries three canoes. Repair of the sail-yard. Fashoda the most southern military station. Fifteen Shillooks at a shot. Gay temperament of the people. Gun accidents. African giant snakes.

In Egypt, in well-informed circles, it was a current opinion that the Government was trying, on principle, to throw impediments in the way of any explorers who might purpose penetrating the district of the Upper Nile. It was supposed that they were desirous of preventing the circulation, by eye-witnesses, of adverse reports, and of keeping back from the eyes of the world any undesirable details as to the position of matters with reference to the slave trade. They were unwilling to let it be seen that their influence over the people of Khartoom was insufficient for the suppression of the slave traffic amongst them. Under this impression I entered upon my journey with some misgiving, entertaining no very sanguine hopes as to the real utility of the order delivered to me for the Governor-General of Khartoom, who at that time was administering affairs with considerable vigour in all the provinces of the Soudan under the Egyptian dominion above the first cataract.

So much the more grateful, therefore, was my surprise when, immediately after my arrival in Khartoom, I was honoured by a visit from the powerful Dyafer Pasha, and, after the first few words, satisfied myself that there was a reasonable expectation that, on this occasion, the local government would do all within their power to secure the most complete protection to a scientific expedition.

My letter of recommendation from the Academy was afterwards read in the Government divan. It was fluently translated, sentence by sentence, into Arabic by the physician in ordinary, and the Pasha at once declared that he would be the Vokil, that is to say, the manager of affairs, for the Academy of Berlin, and promised that he would not fail to afford me the necessary assistance for my journey. How faithfully he kept his word is well known, and on that account the thanks of the Academy of Science were formally presented to him. Dyafer had been an old captain of a frigate in the stirring times of Mohammed Ali; he was a man of considerable attainments, and had already become known to me on the occasion of my first journey, when he acted as Governor of Upper Egypt. In his house were seen piles of atlases and anatomical plates; he was not wanting in a clear comprehension of, nor indeed in an actual interest in, my undertaking. He expressed his hope that my journey might accomplish its aim, and if anything of material benefit should be discovered that it might not be reserved, but freely communicated to the State. I assured him that the Royal Academy had no narrow views, and that he might be certain that although I trusted by prosecuting science to gain credit for myself, I should not overlook anything that might be honourable to him, or for the advantage of his Government. The Pasha seemed gratified by my reply, and referred me to the writers, who were to settle the various covenants of my agreement with an ivory trader, Ghattas, a Coptic Christian. The Governor-General himself had arranged the terms, and I could find little in their tenor that would be adverse to my interests.

PRELIMINARY COVENANTS.

Besides Ghattas, there were several other merchants in Khartoom, who possessed large settlements in the district of the Upper Nile, but he alone amongst them was not a Mahommedan; the others were, for the most part, true Osmanlis, whose reputation, with respect to slave dealing, did not stand too high. Thus the choice of the administrator fell upon the unlucky Ghattas, who, being also the richest of all, was required to become surety against any misadventure that might occur to the traveller in the interior. If he were betrayed to the cannibals, or if he were left in the lurch among savages and cut-throats, so much the better for the treasury of the Government, who would have the most legitimate reasons for proceeding to the confiscation of his estates.

I should fail to discharge a duty of gratitude if I were to omit to acknowledge the interest displayed in behalf of my enterprise by Herr Duisberg, who was at that time Vice-consul of the North German Confederation in Khartoom. Not only did he entertain me most hospitably for several weeks in his house, but likewise exerted all his influence on his friends the ivory-traders, so as to dispose them favourably to my undertaking, and to relieve them from any fear of interference on my part with their affairs.

Notwithstanding any prejudice which might attach to him as the leader of the Protestant mission, the Vice-consul had gained the esteem of all parties in Khartoom, and was especially in favour with the Governor-General, who very thoroughly appreciated his integrity. His conciliating manners availed to satisfy the Khartoom merchants that my plan was not adverse to their interests. Hitherto they had looked upon every scientific traveller as a dangerous spy, whose visit only aimed at denouncing their transactions on the Upper Nile, and reporting them to the Consul-General in Egypt. On this occasion they consented to meet me at a sumptuous entertainment given by Herr Duisberg before my departure. All the gentry of the town, Pashas and Beys, glittering with their stars and orders, and merchants, in their gorgeous satin robes, gathered together at that feast of reconciliation between the representatives of African commerce and of European science.

The entire ivory trade of Khartoom is in the hands of six larger merchants, with whom are associated a dozen more whose business is on a smaller scale. For years the annual export of ivory has not exceeded the value of 500,000 Maria Theresa dollars. There has been a continual decrease in the yield of ivory from the territory adjacent to the river, so that last year, even that sum would not have been maintained, unless the expeditions had, season after season, been penetrating deeper into the more remote districts of the interior. It is a fallacy to suppose that the pursuit of elephants is merely a secondary consideration in these enterprises of the Khartoom merchants, or that it only serves as a cloke to disguise the far more lucrative slave trade. These two occupations have far less to do with one another than is frequently supposed. If it had not been for the high value of ivory, the countries about the sources of the Nile would even now be as little unfolded to us as the equatorial centre of the great continent: they are regions which of themselves could produce absolutely nothing to remunerate transport. The settlements owe their original existence to the ivory trade; but it must, on the other hand, be admitted that these settlements in various ways have facilitated the operations of the regular slave-traders. Without these depôts the professional slave-traders could never have penetrated so far, whilst now they are enabled to pour themselves into the negro countries annually by thousands, on the roads over Kordofan and Darfur.

MERCHANT SERIBAS.

The merchants of Khartoom, to whom I have alluded, maintain a great number of settlements in districts as near as possible to the present ivory countries, and among peaceful races devoted to agriculture. They have apportioned the territory amongst themselves, and have brought the natives to a condition of vassalage. Under the protection of an armed guard procured from Khartoom, they have established various depôts, undertaken expeditions into the interior, and secured an unmolested transit to and fro. These depôts for ivory, ammunition, barter-goods, and means of subsistence, are villages surrounded by palisades, and are called Seribas.[7] Every Khartoom merchant, in the different districts where he maintains his settlements, is represented by a superintendent and a number of subordinate agents. These agents command the armed men of the country, determine what products the subjected natives must pay by way of impost to support the guards, as well as the number of bearers they must furnish for the distant exploring expeditions; they appoint and displace the local managers; carry on war or strike alliances with the chiefs of the ivory countries, and once a year remit the collected stores to Khartoom.

Both the principal districts of the Khartoom ivory trade are accessible by the navigation of the two source-affluents together forming the White Nile, viz. the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Bahr-el-Gebel. The name Bahr-el-Abiad is understood in Khartoom to include the entire domain of the Nile and its affluents above this town, but in its true and more limited sense it signifies only the united mainstream as far as the mouth of the Sobat, “White Nile.” Two less important centres are approached by the channels of the Sobat and the Giraffe. The landing-places, called Meshera, are in all cases at a distance of some days’ journey from the depôts. The trade winds and the rainy seasons both have their effect in determining the time of year in which progress can be made. They render the passage up stream practicable only from December to January, and limit the valley journey to June, July, and August. On the Bahr-el-Gebel the extreme point of navigation is the well-known Gondokoro in lat 5° N., the termination of a series of voyages of discovery. On the Bahr-el-Ghazal a kind of cul-de-sac leads to the only existing Meshera. Beyond this, the Khartoom people have already advanced 5° in a southerly, as well as in a westerly direction. In the district of the Gazelle River, the Niam-niam countries form a great source of the ivory-produce; of the ways which were available, this was the direction which appeared to promise the best opening for the prosecution of my object. Accordingly, I determined to proceed by the Gazelle, and concluded my contract with the Coptic Ghattas. He engaged to supply the means of subsistence, and to furnish me with bearers and an adequate number of armed men. He also placed at my disposal a boat for the journey, and it was expressly stipulated that I should be at liberty to join all the enterprises and excursions of his own people.

The Governor-General laid similar obligations for my protection on all the other chief merchants who had possessions in the territory of the Gazelle. Duplicates of all the agreements were prepared; one copy being retained by me, the counterparts were deposited with the local government at Khartoom. After these necessary provisions for my security had been adjusted, there was nothing now to hinder me from commencing my real journey. Never before had the Egyptian Government done so much indirectly to co-operate with a scientific traveller; and it was with no little satisfaction that I regarded my budget of documents, which would unlock for me so considerable a section of Central Africa.

EMBARKATION ON THE WHITE NILE.

In order to have continually about me a number of people upon whose fidelity and attachment I might fairly rely under all circumstances, I took into my service six Nubians, who had settled in Khartoom with their wives and children, and who resided there, and had already travelled in different parts of the Upper Nile. All had previously served under other Europeans. Riharn, the cook, had accompanied the Consul Petherick on his ill-fated journey of 1863. Their conduct in no way disappointed me, and I had never any serious cause of complaint against any of them.

At last, all preparations had so far prospered that the journey to the Gazelle River might be commenced on the 5th of January 1869. A little concession had, however, to be made to the superstitious representations of the Khartoom people. Wednesday and Saturday, as days of ill-omen, were excluded from the times of departure. Somehow or other this introduced a parley which entailed a little delay. Protestations, I knew, availed but little, and my common sense suggested unconditional submission to the custom of the country. Not simply was it impossible to convince the people of the absurdity of any superstition of theirs, but what was of more moment, they would be sure, on the very first occasion of any mischance, to attribute it to the perverseness of the Frank. They would have looked idly and helplessly on if I had persisted in carrying out my will in opposition to the decrees of fate.

On board our little vessel we altogether counted thirty-two, a number small in comparison with that in the other boats. The total number, however, did not admit of much reduction. No boat’s crew alone could suffice to overcome the obstacles which were to be expected in the waters further up the country.

The merchant Ghattas, to whom the boat belonged, had manned it with eight boatmen, and had also put on board fifteen hired men to serve, partly as a protection against any attacks, and partly to assist in towing the boats. The soldiers, as they were called, were for the most part young, and were originally inhabitants of the valley of the Upper Nile, between Berber and Khartoom, but from whence they had been driven to escape on account of the heavy taxation. Since agriculture hardly kept them from misery and starvation, they preferred to hire themselves out as robbers, slave-hunters, cattle-stealers, or whatever could enable them to gratify the innate propensity for adventure which belongs to every Nubian. Besides the six Nubians engaged in Khartoom, my own retinue included two women slaves, whose hand labour supplied the want of mills; their office, performed by means of stones, was to convert our corn into the flour requisite for the maintenance of the crew. We were packed closely enough; cramped up, we appeared like cattle in a pew, yet our accommodation was comparatively spacious. Other boats I saw of which the dimensions were hardly larger than our own, and which were made to carry sometimes sixty, sometimes eighty human beings. But even this was a trifling repletion as compared with the boats we met, and which, in a hold of not more than fifty tons, often stowed away 200 slaves. The crew squat like hens on shelves outstretched upon deck between mast and mast; and in order to afford the soldiers rest by night, the vessels lie-to whenever the shore is safe.

A rough wooden partition erected at the stern of the bulky vessel was assigned to me as my special berth. I had arranged it as well as I could, and sat there surrounded, in charming confusion, by baggage and trunks, and the thousand articles which made up my equipment. The boats which are used upon the upper waters of the Nile are called “negger;” their construction, I believe, is unlike what can be seen in any other country of the world. They are as strong as they are massive, being built so as to withstand the violent pushings of the hippopotamuses, as well as the collisions with the mussel banks, which are scattered in various directions. I am certain that one of these boats at any maritime exhibition would attract the attention of all who take any interest in such things. I am not aware that there is anything accurate to be found in any history of travel on this subject, and it may be permitted me therefore to insert a few particulars of the Khartoom ship-building.

SHIP-BUILDING AT KHARTOOM.

There can be no question that the ship-building on the Red Sea, just like the architecture of the towns along its coast, is of Indian origin, all the timber required in Arabia being procured from India. At Khartoom, on the contrary, this art, although in many respects it has peculiarities of its own, has been derived from an Egyptian source. Taking their own special requirements into account, the boat-builders of Egypt have completely altered the structure and shape of their river boats. It must be borne in mind that the recurring cataracts, which interrupt the navigation of the Nubian Nile valley, rendered any ascent of the river a matter of difficulty, demanding indeed the most strenuous exertions. The cataracts are ten in number, and only recently have they been overcome by some small steam vessels of about 60-horse power. The only wood which is used in Khartoom for ship-building is that of the Sunt acacia (A. nilotica), which, though far heavier and harder than our oak, is the only wood which the soil of the Soudan supplies, which appears capable of being sawn into planks. But on account of the irregular texture and numerous branches of the trunk of this acacia, it is impossible to cut it into boards more than ten feet in length, and even these are rare. Masts and sail-yards, since those of deal seldom reach Khartoom, and then are of an exorbitant price, must be made by splicing together a number of small pieces. Externally these are bound with ox hide; but in violent gales they are extremely liable to start. Not only does the wood fail to be either straight or long, it is also so hard, that it requires to be sawn while it is green. The saw is an instrument so rarely employed throughout Nubia, that it is handled most unskilfully by the carpenters; as matter of course, there are neither steam-mills nor water-mills in Khartoom, and consequently the planks are cut without the faintest pretence to regularity.

All these defects are, however, cancelled by the unexampled toughness and indestructible nature of the wood; it might fairly be asked from what other material could boats 60 feet long and 20 feet broad be constructed without ribs or braces. The sides of the boat are a foot thick, and are formed of layers of different lengths, which acquire stability and firmness from their own support. An empty boat, seen from inside, has somewhat the appearance of an elongated shell of half a hazel-nut. The planks, where they overlap or are dove-tailed together, are fastened by iron nails driven in perpendicularly, the necessary holes being bored from the outer to the inner surfaces in such a way that the same nail holds together two, or occasionally more, thicknesses of wood. In this manner, with much trouble and more measuring, is obtained the proper curvature of the hull, which, as a whole, is marked by a complete symmetry. The cost of the stout iron nails, and the rapid wear of axe and saw, make the expenses of building these boats so considerable that they amount to five times as much as oak vessels of the same size in Europe. A mast about 20 feet high bears the giant-yard of the single lateen sail, which is generally half as long again as the boat.

NIGHT ON THE RIVER.

Amid the farewell salutations of a large concourse, among which my people counted numerous friends and relations, we pushed off from the shore. Without delay we took our onward course to the mouth of the Blue Nile, doubling the Ras-el-Khartoom, that large promontory, which resembles in form the snout of an animal; it gives its name to the town, and is the partition land between the two arms of the Nile. Bulky and ponderous as was our boat, the power of the north wind laid its hold upon our giant-sail, and carried us with the speed of steam towards the south. On the forenoon of the following day we found ourselves already 1° below the latitude of Khartoom. We sailed, without staying our course, through the night, which was cheered by the moonlight. I was sleepless with excitement at finding myself at last brought irrevocably to the attainment of my cherished hopes. The universal quiet was only broken by the rush of the bilge-water, and now and then by the cry of the water-birds. Shrouded like mummies in their white garments lay the crew, closely packed upon the narrow deck; and altogether there was something spectral in the stillness of the nocturnal voyage.

As the morning sun fell upon the low monotonous shores of the flowing river, it seemed at times almost as though it were illuminating the ocean, so vast was the extent of water where the current ran for any distance in a straight and unwinding course. Low levels, that seemed interminable, only marked out from the land beyond by narrow belts of trees, formed the framework of the scene. The borders of the desert rise and fall in gentle undulations, on which stand, sometimes scantily and sometimes thickly, groups of Haras and Seyal acacias. The vegetation which is visible demonstrates the complete desert character of Nubia. The shooshgrass (Panicum turgidum), the most general of herbage for the camels, is here trodden down in masses.

The voyage up the White Nile has been very frequently described by various travellers. The districts along the shore mostly retain an unchanging aspect for miles together. Barely does some distant mountain or isolated hill relieve the eye from the wide monotony. In spite of all, there was no lack of interest. There is much that cannot fail to make the progress ever striking and impressive.

The attention is soon attracted by the astonishing number of geese and ducks which are seen day after day. The traveller in these parts is so satiated with them, fattened and roasted, that the sight creates something akin to disgust. The number of cattle is prodigious: far as the eye can reach they are scattered alike on either shore, whilst, close at hand, they come down to the river-marshes to get their drink. The stream, as wide again as the Nile of Egypt, is enlivened by the boats belonging to the shepherds, who row hither and thither to conduct their cattle, their dogs in the water swimming patiently behind.

Early on the third day we reached Getina, a considerable village inhabited by Hassanieh, and which is a favourite rendezvous of the Nile-boats. The flats here were bright with the luxuriant green of the sedge; growing abundantly as it does, it serves to impart to the banks the meadow-like character of northern tracts. Thousands of geese (Chenalopex ægyptiacus), in no degree disconcerted by the arrival of any stranger, waddled up and down. Although in places the right bank is bounded by sand-banks thirty feet high, the left appears completely and interminably flat, and occasionally admits of the culture of sorghum. This remarkable difference which exists between the aspect of the two banks, and which may be observed for several degrees, is to be explained by a hydrographical law, which is illustrated not only here, but likewise in the district of the Lower Nile. As rivers flow from southerly into more northern latitudes, their fluid particles are set in motion with increased velocity, the result of which is to drive them onwards so as to wash away the eastern bank, leaving a continual deposit on the west.

This phenomenon, which may be just as plainly perceived on several of the great rivers of Europe, is, as might be expected, presented here on a large scale, where the Nile retains its northerly direction along a course which extends over a third part of the earth’s quadrant. Hence it has arisen that the cultivated fields lie more generally upon the western shore, while the eastern gives a deeper fairway, and is found dotted at intervals with settled villages. Hardly ever does the fairway deviate from the eastern shore, and the evident depression of the shore has led several travellers to suspect that they have discovered a proof of the continuous sloping of the land, which, in truth, is only apparent.

It will be understood, therefore, how great a mistake is made in attempting to estimate, as many of my predecessors have done, the degree of productiveness of the country by the sandy levels and starving fields on the right bank. As matter of fact, the White Nile is enriched by an alluvium which would be quite as fruitful as that of the Blue Nile, except that it is wanting in the crumbling clay, which is the product of the volcanic mountains of Abyssinia, and which undoubtedly exercises a most beneficial influence on the results of Egyptian agriculture. Here the soil is not only rich, it is remarkable for its lightness; and, probably from the absence of chalk, it has a warmer, brighter colour than generally marks the Nubian or Egyptian land.

Towards midday the wind had so much increased that our Reis let the boat drift without sail against the stream. The progress we thus made was surprising: then as the gale gradually fell, we ventured to unfurl our sail, till the speed we reached was like that of an arrow over the waters. We drove through the midst of the flocks of geese which came athwart our course, and firing at random caught up as many of the wounded as came within our grasp. Towards the close of the day we reached Wod-Shellay.

WOD-SHELLAY.

Wod-Shellay is one of the favourite resting-places of all voyagers upon the Nile. Here, according to custom, an ox was slaughtered,[8] and a formal leave was taken of the Mohammedan world, by liberal draughts of merissa beer. This leave-taking had to be repeated more than once. We were told that higher up the stream there were no more villages, but somehow or other opportunities were found, either on pretext of making purchases or of looking at old friends, on which it became necessary to have some more parting cups of merissa beer. Subject to these delays, I lost considerable time frequently in insipid dreariness, where neither scenes nor men could excite my interest.

After making a complete day of rest at Wod-Shellay, I crossed over to the western shore on a brief excursion. I entered some villages at a distance from the Nile and gained some information as to the condition of their agriculture. Wide, though much thinned, forests of the Sunt acacia (A. nilotica and arabica) cover the districts near the shore; further on there was a wide extent of cultivated flat. The soil is a stiffish ash-grey clay, different from that of Egypt, but not inferior in fertility—​an opinion which Sir Samuel Baker, not investigating the west and being acquainted only with the sandy east, has ventured to deny.

A large yellow-grained variety of Sorghum vulgare, known in the Khartoom markets as “soffra,” thrives here in such perfection that but few ears came under my notice which were not at least nine inches long and more than four in diameter; convincing evidence to me of the fruitful nature of the ground.

I was accompanied by Arslan, a great sheep-dog, which I had brought with me from Europe, and in all the villages through which I passed the inhabitants, as I advanced, scampered off in terror, crying “Hyæna, hyæna!” It was difficult to make them understand that the brown-spotted animal was only a dog. I do not think I know a country where the dread of great dogs is so universal as in the Soudan.

But a few years ago unlimited forests here met the stranger’s eye; the large demand for timber for ship-building purposes, however, has all but destroyed them. At Wod-Shellay, in Mohammed Ali’s time, the Government maintained a large dock, on which were built the numerous boats which that enterprising ruler sent out into the upper districts; at present there is a similar establishment higher up the stream upon the Isle of Aba, where the stores of wood are awhile secured to meet the demands of the future. Scarcely one tree out of a hundred yields timber suitable for building: and all along the bank the owners like to pay their taxes by means of wood instead of money; the consequence naturally is that the best trees are prematurely lost and that old trees are comparatively rare. The steamboat service on these waters is much assisted by the inexhaustible supply of fuel which is everywhere to be procured along the banks.

MOUNT ARRASH-KOL.

Our voyage was next continued, through the night, as far as a watering-place on the western shore, near which lay the village of Turra. We lay-to in sight of the neighbouring mountain Arrash-kol.

The hippopotamuses now became more frequent; their noise, gurgling, and snorting was heard far over the waters, and grated as harshly on the ear as the incessant creaking of our own rudder. The traveller up the White Nile must accustom himself to this, or he has no hope of an undisturbed night’s rest.

The western shores, which are marked by rows of acacias almost as though arranged in avenues, have nothing African in their aspect, chiefly on account of the absence of the palm, that chief ornament of the tropics; they rather remind of what may be seen in the thinly-populated districts beside the Volga and other of the streams of Russia. The Arrash-kol is an isolated mountain some hundred feet high, of which the jagged steeps jut up from the uniform level. It is well known to botanists through the treasures which were gathered there thirty years ago by the traveller Kotschy. Time did not permit me to investigate the country from this interesting centre. I was obliged to content myself with a trip to the village of Turra, two leagues away.

No idea can be formed of the number of cattle all hereabouts; the route leads over continual watering-places, where herds of cattle, varying in number from 1000 to 3000, are assembled, and form a most striking spectacle. The cattle of the Hassanieh are distinguished by a hump, and are of a race peculiar to the whole of the Soudan, having beyond a doubt some close affinity to the Indian zebu. The ox of the Egyptians, which, in consequence of the cattle-plague in 1863-64, has almost entirely died out, has no hump. Its horns are short, and it differs in the shape of its skull from the ox of the Soudan; the breed has survived only in Central Nubia. In girth and height, not only do the cattle of the Hassanieh exceed the Egyptian, but those which I shall have occasion to mention hereafter as belonging to the Baggara Arabs, surpass the breeds which are kept by the pagan negroes of the Upper Nile. Amongst the Shillooks and Dinka, for instance, the light grey colour predominates, whilst the marking of the skin in the majority of those of which we speak is like a spotted leopard, black specks on a lightish ground; but neither are the white and brown, the piebald, nor coats entirely dun-colour, at all unfrequent.

I was conducted through the fragrant wood of the flowering acacia to a place where a little weekly market had gathered the neatherds of the neighbourhood, and where milk flowed in streams. The Hassanieh do not differ externally from the score of other nomad races which, more or less Arabised, inhabit the steppes and deserts on both sides of the Nile. They appeared to me far more confiding than my old friends the Bishareen and Hadendoa, but perhaps for the reason that, speaking good Arabic, they were able to contribute their part to a good understanding on both sides. They crowded round me everywhere to gaze at my strange big dog, and I was repeatedly obliged to give a history in detail of his genealogy, his qualities, and all about him. Being in possession of a splendid race of greyhounds, which they train for gazelle hunting, and of which they have a high opinion, their interest was raised to the highest pitch. The dogs smelt strongly; and it is no exaggeration to say, so did the men.

AFRICAN NOVELTIES.

The graceful shade acacias (A. spirocarpa) here come once again into the front, soon to be finally lost sight of on the other side of the neighbouring desert. Along the right bank there were many masses of a large-leaved shrub, which covers the country, and for miles disputes the precedence with all the prevailing vegetation; it is the Ipomæa asarifolia, appearing in some places like rose bushes in the luxuriant adornment of its ample blossoms, a bright relief to the general dreariness of the shore.

Our voyage is again continued by night; the channel is broad and deep; freely we sail throughout the hours of darkness. The noise of the hippopotamuses is the chief disturbance; it seems as if there is no relief from their tumult. It almost seemed as if they were quite close about us, but one had but to look around, and their clumsy heads were visible in the distance, projecting like black points above the stream. By way of variety there came, at intervals, the roar of some lion prowling on the bank. Such were the novelties of Africa.

In the morning we passed Dueme, one of the largest villages in this district. Soon we reached the groups of little islands whose soil, naturally fertile, has been successfully subject to a recent cultivation. It is a cheering sign of the progress of cultivation in these regions, to see the fellaheen of Nubia travelling continually further and further up the banks of the White Nile. The passive population of blacks on the river, at least in the space of a few decades, has been partly displaced, and partly spurred on to greater energy; and doubtless, therefore, there are many places in Nubia itself capable of being cultivated, which have become desolate only as a consequence of the oppressiveness of a heavy taxation.

The flocks of geese were still unending, and every expedient was resorted to to make a variety in the way of cooking them; they were stuffed with rice; they were dressed with tomato sauce; they were served with mushrooms; and when every imaginable way of preparing them was exhausted, we had recourse, by way of variety, to the ducks (Anas viduata) which were obtainable. Then was the golden age of my cuisine. Our provisions were ample, and the inventive faculties of my cook Riharn turned them all to the best account. But different times were yet to come, times when Riharn must murmur that the three years of his life spent in Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo had all been sacrificed, and must repine that he could find no scope for his abilities in Central Africa. The result of all this was, that he was a terrible backslider in his art, and at the end of three years could never cook a dish of rice without burning it.

A few days after our departure I had made the unpleasant discovery that the prudent Ghattas, to whom the vessel belonged, with an eye to economy, had put on board, without due protection, all his powder and a year’s supply of the cartridges necessary for the expedition. In order to save the expense of proper chests he had wrapped up several hundredweight of these combustibles loosely in sacks of matting and paper parcels only, and piled them up just under the entrance to my cabin, where I was accustomed to sit smoking my pipe and surveying the land. I had now thrown a cowhide across this explosive heap, and so secured that the smoking and the contemplation might be resumed with greater composure on my part.

On the same day we reached the Egyptian military station Kowa, or El-Ais, at which there is a large Government corn-store. El-Ais was for years the extreme southern boundary of the State. Passing through it is a much frequented road, which crosses the White as well as the Blue Nile, and unites Kordofan with Abyssinia. Along this road the Baggara fetch most of their horses, which they buy by auction in the market of Gallabat.

Directly above Kowa begins the region of the Shillook Islands, which, as yet unthinned by the axe, are very valuable. A little further up the stream, following the outline of the banks, stretches a series of Nubian agricultural settlement. At one of these goodly islands, known as Om-mandeb, we stayed our course awhile. Mandeb is the name here given to the prickliest of prickly plants, the Mimosa asperata; transplanted by the stream, it is occasionally found even as far off as Egypt, but here it surrounds the island shore, and forms a hedge of impenetrable thorns. Here in a wild state is the water melon, and I have submitted proofs that the cradle of this nursling of culture lies in Africa, the original home of the domestic cat and of the ass.

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE.

A rich variety of animal life is developed in this wilderness; not only did the shore swarm with hippopotamuses, whose vestiges were like deep pit-holes, but the ground was scooped out in places vacated by rows of crocodiles, which now basked only thirty paces in our front. Great iguanas (Varanus) and snakes rustled in the dry grass. Everywhere under the trees were snake skins and egg shells; above in the branches was heard the commotion of the mischievous monkeys (Cercopithecus griseoviridus), whilst birds of many a species, eagles from giant nests, and hosts of fluttering water-fowl, gave incessant animation to the scenery of the shore.

What, however, most interested me, was the unlimited variety in the kinds of water plants which abounded on the floods, the sport of the winds and waves. Among them the Herminiera, known under the native name of ambatch, has already been the subject of general remark; it plays so prominent a part in the upper waters of the Nile, that it might fairly be designated the most remarkable of the native plants.

My predecessor, Kotschy, who did not know that it had already been observed by Adanson in Senegambia, named it Ædemone mirabilis, which was corrupted into the still more wonderful name of Anemone mirabilis, and so appeared in many books which treated of Africa. The ambatch is distinguished for the unexampled lightness of its wood, if the fungus-like substance of the stem deserves such a name at all. It shoots up to 15 or 20 feet in height, and at its base generally attains a thickness of about 6 inches. The weight of this fungus-wood is so insignificant that it really suggests comparison to a feather. Only by taking it into his hands could any one believe that it were possible for one man to lift on to his shoulders a raft made large enough to carry eight people on the water. The plant shoots up with great rapidity by the quiet places of the shore, and since it roots merely in the water, whole bushes are easily broken off by the force of the wind or stream, and settle themselves afresh in other places: This is the true origin of the grass-barriers so frequently mentioned as blocking up the waters of the Upper Nile, and in many seasons making navigation utterly impracticable. Other plants have a share in the formation of these floating islands, which daily emerge like the Delos of tradition; among them, in particular, the vossia grass, and the famous papyrus of antiquity, which at present is nowhere to be found either in Nubia or in Egypt.

On the 13th of January, on one of the thronging islands, we had our first rencontre with the Shillooks. This tribe of negroes formerly extended themselves much further north than at present, having settlements on all the islands; but now they only exceptionally penetrate to this latitude (12° 30´) in their canoes of hollow tamarind stems. The Baggara, meanwhile, are ever gaining a firmer footing on the river banks, and have already with their flocks ventured far to the east of the stream into the land of the Dinka.

MISFORTUNE.

Some long islands of sand distinguished by stripes here gave a noticeable feature to the scene; they were cohered with flocks of Balearic or peacock cranes, which had arranged themselves in five or six rows like a regiment of soldiers, their beaks turned to the wind and facing the north. When young this bird, thus plentifully supplied, has flesh more palatable than the goose, because it feeds on corn and beans; and, like the guinea fowl, it made a change in our bill of fare. On the western banks were large herds of antelopes (A. megaloceras), which we could see peacefully coming down to drink. In other places we passed close by trees with a lively population of monkeys swinging on the branches; and now for the first time we observed the troops of maraboo storks, which made their appearance in considerable numbers by the water’s edge. All this diversity of life gave the fascination of romance to the loneliness of the forest.

The 14th of January was the first day of ill-luck, which I was myself the means of bringing about. Early in the morning another boat had joined us; and the people wished me to allow them to stay awhile that they might enjoy themselves together. Being, however, at a spot which seemed to me extremely dull, I urged them to go further, in order to land on a little island that appeared more full of interest. The excursion which I took was attended by a misfortune which befell one of the two men whom I took to accompany me. Mohammed Amin, such was his name, running at my side, had chanced to come upon a wild buffalo, that I had not the least intention of injuring, but which the man, unhappily, approached too near in the high grass. The buffalo, it would seem, was taking his midday nap, and disturbed from his siesta, rose in the utmost fury. To spring up and whirl the destroyer of his peace in the air was but the work of an instant. There lay my faithful companion, bleeding all over, and in front of him, tail erect, stood the buffalo roaring, and in a threatening attitude ready to trample down his victim. As fate would have it, however, the attention of the infuriated brute was attracted by the other two men, who stood by looking on speechless with astonishment. I had no gun; Mohammed had been carrying my breech-loader in his hand, and there it was swinging on the left horn of the buffalo. The other man with me, who carried my rifle, had immediately taken aim, but the trigger snapped in vain, and time after time the gun missed fire. No time now for any consultation; it was a question of a moment. The man grasped at a small iron hatchet and hurled it straight at the buffalo’s head from a distance of about twenty paces; the aim was good, and thus was the prey rescued from the enemy. With a wild bound the buffalo threw itself sidelong into the reeds, tore along through the rustling stalks with its ponderous weight, bellowing and shaking all the ground. Roaring and growling, bounding violently from side to side, he could be seen in wild career, and as we presumed that the whole herd might be in his train, we seized the guns, and made our quickest way to a neighbouring tree. All, however, soon was quiet, and our next thought was directed to the unfortunate sufferer. Mohammed’s head lay as though nailed to the ground, his ears pierced by sharp reed-stalks, but a moment’s inspection convinced us that the injuries were not fatal. The buffalo’s horn had struck his mouth, and, besides the loss of four teeth in the upper jaw and some minor fractures, he had sustained no further harm. I left my other companion on the spot to wash Mohammed, and hastened alone to the distant boat to have him fetched. In three weeks he had recovered, and as an equivalent for each of his four teeth he had a backsheesh of ten dollars. This liberality on my part wonderfully animated the desire for enterprise amongst my companions, and put them in great good humour towards me for the future.

BRETHREN IN THE FAITH.

After a long time a mountain once again appeared; it was the two peaks of the Nyemati, imposing masses of granite which rise aloft on the right. We took up our quarters on the opposite island, where a number of Baggara Arabs had pitched their tented camp. “Habbabkum, habbabkum, habbabkum, aschera” (good friends), again and again our people begin to shout as soon as they see their swarthy brethren in the faith upon the shore. Then from our side are heard demands for “semmem” and for “roab” (butter and buttermilk), whilst the Arabs cry for “esh, esh,” that is, for corn. “Corn,” we reply, “we have hardly enough for ourselves.” And then once more ensues the mingling of the sounds “semmem” and “habbabkum.” At last, on shore, we are embracing the “habbabkums” with wonderful emotion; but this does not quite go down; we find everything they offer us has to be paid for handsomely at Khartoom market-prices. As soon as it was seen that nothing was to be got out of them without payment, our crew was not long in conferring upon them the name of “Nas-batalin” (rascals).

The women were much more courteous, and vied in amiability, so as to entice as many visitors as possible to their merissa-shops. These they had improvised in their huts, eager to make a profit from the ever-thirsty Khartoomers as they sail along. With these women, who were ever actively employed at the hearth, though little accustomed to keep alive the sacred fire of Vesta, my party spent their holiday in rioting and revelry. I, for my part, lingered out my time on the neighbouring steppe, treating the children to biscuits, as I should to bonbons.

The Baggara Arabs possess the wide district which extends from Kordofan and Darfur on the south, as far as the river banks inhabited by the Dinka and Shillooks. Part of them—​indeed, in the east, a third of them—​pay tribute to Egypt. The name Baggara means “neatherds,” and indeed their wealth consists simply of cattle; they are not, however, shepherds, as they are represented in the idylls of home, but mounted and warlike from their youth; they are bolder robbers than any other of the Ethiopian nomad races. They bring down elephants with lance and sword, a feat scarcely less free from risk than playing with lions and leopards as though they were kittens. Many of them hire themselves out to the Khartoomers to accompany their expeditions to the interior. Several came to offer their services to me, under the impression that my object was the capture of slaves. I confess that I could hardly restrain my admiration when I gazed upon their athlete, agile forms, although I had no call for their services.

The Baggara speak a tolerably pure Soudan-Arabic; they seem to extend themselves rapidly as an immigrant tribe over the pasture steppes, at the expense of other and less favoured races. Their countenances betray little of the Semitic expression, and I saw not a few whose physiognomy reminded me of some of my old friends at home. I can confidently maintain that they form the finest race of the nomad people dwelling on the Nile. I could not help being surprised at the love of ornament and finery which was manifested by this race, advanced as it is. The clothing of the generality consists of indigo-blue shirts, such as are worn by the peasants of Egypt, whilst the more wealthy array themselves in robes of scarlet and figured calico.

On the other shore I visited the mountain, which is almost contiguous to the river. Growing here I first found the tamarind, which never failed me more throughout my entire wanderings. The thick shade of these bright green trees makes them a favourite rendezvous on all the roads of Central Africa. Every traveller in the Soudan can scarce be otherwise than quite familiar with the Hegelig (Balanites), of which, like plums, the fruit falls off and thickly strews the ground below. By the people of Khartoom it is called Lalôb. It contains a sweetish pulp, tasting at first like gingerbread, but it leaves a bitter taste behind, and is purgative in its properties.

MOUNT NYEMATI.

Climbing about 800 feet I reached the summit of the Nyemati, and had a fine view of the steppes intersected by the stream. The slopes consist partly of rough, massy blocks of granite, and partly of huge unbroken flats, some a hundred feet in length, which descend to the river and in places appear like sunken roofs. In the rifts and deeper clefts swarm multitudes of bats, and a fetid atmosphere exhales from these murky chasms. The Abyssinian rock-rabbit, creeping like a marmot over the stones, is ever to be seen among the mountains of the steppes. The eastern horizon is bounded by the mountains of the Dar-el-Fungi in Upper Sennaar, at a distance of more than thirty miles.

As we progressed further the river islands became more frequent, and the channels more and more narrowed by the surrounding masses of impenetrable grass. The ambatch is here almost excluded by the vossia grass, but only to re-appear at the mouth of the waters. We came continually upon Baggara, with whom, without stopping on our course, we talked and discussed the market prices of provisions. A fine fat bullock was bought for only three dollars, a price at which it would pay to found here a company for the extract of meat; the skins are not exported, but are used in the country. The Baggara hold all the left bank, and visit it in winter when the steppes in the interior are dry and scorched. Wherever they settle, as now and then they do, either on the islands or on the right bank, they completely drive out the Shillook negroes. At various times in the day we landed to fraternise with the Baggara. The large flocks of ducks afforded entertaining and successful sport; and as for geese, there were still more than I and my people could eat. To and fro, ever and again swept through the water a Shillook fishing in his fragile boat; he is not entitled to the “habbabkum,” because he is a heathen; he is mocked with “Wod-e-Mek” (son of a king) for a greeting, made to tell where he comes from, and whither he is going, and if he has any fish, it is taken from him: such is the practice on every vessel. But the Shillooks are also subject to Egyptian rule, and there is no reason to doubt that in a short time they will enjoy equal rights with the other subjects of the Viceroy, however insignificant these may appear to be.

To a degree that created some misgiving as to what might be before us, the progress now began to be unalterably tedious. For a weary time all woodlands seemed wholly to have forsaken the shore; nothing was to be perceived but the desolation of a vast savannah. Dark brown widow-ducks (Anas viduata) and shovellers were shot, whose oily taste is only disguised by red pepper. At night the time was usually beguiled by stories of adventures in the Upper Nile district. Everyone has something wonderful which he delights to tell, something beyond all experience, and is ready to swear by the Koran and by the beard of the Prophet that what he says is true. “Africa,” said Aristotle ages ago, “has always something new to show;” the latest tale was now about the pygmies, of whom I here received my earliest information. I had no idea that I should be brought into actual and close connection with such people. I laughed at the accounts which eye-witnesses gave of them, and, for my part, quietly put them into the category of men with tails. I took my share in dressing up a story for the entertainment of my party. Alexandre Dumas’s tale, ‘l’Homme à queue,’ served my purpose admirably. It is so clever, and yet so pointed in its fine simplicity, that it thoroughly enlisted the attention of all who heard it.

NILE VEGETATION.

Notwithstanding the undeniable sameness which prevailed in its outward character, I found every fresh landing-place afford me some surprise or other. Rich was the reward of penetrating, as I did, a thorough wilderness on the right bank on the mainland. Buffaloes forcing their way along had beaten many avenues through thickets and creepers, and along these I went, followed by a group of armed men. The vestiges in every direction were so conclusive as to the number of the beasts that were about, that we might well expect a rencontre as dangerous as that which has already been related. Here in a wild state is found the Luffa, a plant of the gourd family. The dried fruit of this contains a fibrous skeleton, that answers the purpose of a bathing-sponge, and it is frequently cultivated in Egypt for that purpose. I could enumerate a whole series of plants, known in Egypt only under cultivation, which find their original and proper home in the primeval forests of the White Nile. Not unreasonably may an inference be drawn that, in ages indefinitely long ago, the entire Nile Valley exhibited a vegetation harmonising in its character throughout, much more than now. It was the upgrowth of civilisation in ancient Egypt which displaced the flora from its northern seat, and made it, as at present, only to be found hundreds of miles higher up the land. This assumption is in a measure confirmed by the traditions which survive with regard to animals. In remote times, the ibis, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, all existed in far more northerly latitudes than now. The papyrus, it may be added, gives its witness to the same theory.

After a while the southern horizon was again broken by the elevation of a mountain, which proved to be the Defafang, an extinct volcano, 1000 feet high, several miles from the river. Werne, one of the first explorers of the Upper Nile waters, the only European who visited this locality, collected a variety of specimens of the rocks, and they exhibited the volcanic nature of the basaltic lava, corresponding to similar formations in the Eifel. This mountain stands as the boundary-mark between the first negro territory on the White Nile and the shepherd race of the Baggara.

As we were sailing in deep water close to the reedy shore, the roar and rustle of our great sail started up a herd of wild buffaloes, which disappeared from sight, before we had time to seize our rifles. When presently we were passing the last camp of the Baggara, our attention was attracted to a scene of excitement, at once vivid and picturesque. The entire population, alarmed by an attack of wild buffaloes on some cattle-drivers, was up and in hot pursuit. Hundreds of men armed with lance or sword, some of them mounted, were furiously hurrying to the scene, urged on by the frantic shrieks of the excited women. We could not resist the conclusion that the buffaloes, which we had disturbed, had proceeded to attack the neighbouring drivers. An impression seemed to prevail that we had fired at the Baggara, but in the tumult nobody exactly understood the circumstances. The gale was in our favour, and we glided rapidly out of reach without learning the precise issue of the disorder. We observed one poor fellow who had incurred a disaster similar to, and perhaps worse than, that which happened to my own Mohammed Amin. About Mohammed I may here mention that his upper lip had been held together by a couple of insect-needles; that he had been treated to plenty of pap and camomile-tea, and that after spitting out one little splinter of bone after another, he soon found himself getting all right again.

In the course of the afternoon the boat sailed for a wager with a flotilla of light-grey pelicans. Repeated small shot could not make them rise; but at last we outstripped them, and succeeded in shooting down several from the group. From the supple breast-feathers of this bird, the savages of the Upper Nile prepare close perukes, which make an excellent imitation of a luxuriant crop of grey hair, and would be a valuable acquisition to any theatrical wardrobe.

MOHAMMED KHER.

A hurried trip upon the left bank brought me upon the track of a large herd of elephants. According to the Baggara, this district is most prolific as a hunting-ground for these animals. The adjacent territories of the Shillooks, on the other hand, are too densely populated to allow elephants to be numerous, and they have to be sought at some distance, where on account of the wide water-level, they are often reached in boats.

At sunset we reached a place on the right bank, which will always retain a certain notoriety in the history of the White Nile, as having once been the headquarters of the renowned robber chief, Mohammed Kher. The raised works, having on their interior traces of decayed walls of earth, and surrounded by deep trenches, mark the site of Mohammed Kher’s seriba. To judge by the heaps of bones which still exist, the number of cattle slaughtered and feasted on must have been something enormous. Booty was plundered from far and near, but the Shillooks were the greatest sufferers. Mohammed Kher, with his contingent of well-mounted Baggara, was not only for many years a terror to the neighbouring negro races, but could defy the authority of the Governor at Khartoom. Yet principally it was he who taught the people of Khartoom how, by means of earthworks and regular ramparts, to intimidate the natives and bring them into subjection. Many human bones, the relics of slaves carried off by sickness, as well as the skulls of asses and horses, are found everywhere about. As a consequence of the burning of the steppes, they are frequently noticed in a half-charred condition. Throughout Africa burnt human bones are ever the marks which the slave trade leaves behind. Not far from this ill-famed place we lay-to alongside the village of Kaka, the most northerly place inhabited by Shillooks on the White Nile, and at which the Egyptian Government maintained a depôt for corn. Twenty years ago hundreds of Dinka villages stood on this side of the river. From the descriptions of travellers who accompanied the expeditions sent out by Mehemet Ali to discover the sources of the Nile, it has been ascertained that the number of the population here was formerly as important as it now is in the very heart of the Shillook country. As a result of the incessant ravages of Mohammed Kher, the entire eastern shore has degenerated into a forest waste. The river still parts the separate districts of the hostile tribes; but the Shillooks have attempted to settle nowhere except at Kaka in the deserted district; the Dinka, on their part, having withdrawn some days’ journey into the interior.

Soon after the arrival of the boat, a great crowd of naked Shillooks, prompted by curiosity, assembled on the shore, my dog still being the chief attraction. The first sight of a throng of savages, suddenly presenting themselves in their native nudity, is one from which no amount of familiarity can remove the strange impression; it takes abiding hold upon the memory, and makes the traveller recall anew the civilisation he has left behind.

One of the Khartoom men disturbed my pensive contemplations by pointing to the Shillooks, and making a remark that they looked like Christians. I punished him with the scornful reply to the effect that of whatever faith the savages were, I could answer for it that they had the good luck to be neither Jews nor Mohammedans.

A large sombrero of Mexican cut which protected my head from the rays of the sun, excited the curiosity of the Shillooks. On their own heads they wore a similar covering, except that theirs was made from their own hair. I called their attention to the great likeness between black men and white men, but very great was their astonishment when they saw that my hair could be taken off and put on again, which would be to them very incredible. It might almost be said that they are hardly born without their crests, which sometimes resemble the comb of a guinea-fowl, and at other times seem to be borrowed and designed from the aureoles which we admire in Greek sacred pictures. Even while they are infants at the breast, the hair is begun to be fastened into shape with gum-arabic and ashes, and in course of time is permanently brought into whatever form they please.

SWARM OF BEES.

The dreary steppe in the neighbourhood of Kaka contained nothing that was worth the trouble of collecting. The dried-up remains of vegetation had been completely annihilated by fire. Accordingly I was anxious to proceed farther the same day, that I might botanise in some undisturbed spot of the primæval forest; my desire was, however, frustrated by an incident which I do not even now remember without a shudder. At the village the shore, as far as the eye could reach, forms a treeless steppe; but at some little distance the river is again bordered by a dense forest. A place was soon reached, where the stream takes a remarkable bend, and proceeds for eight miles in a north-easterly direction. This place has the singular name of Dyoorab-el-Esh, or the sack of corn. Now, as the north-east wind of course was adverse to any north-east progress, it was necessary that the boat should be towed by the crew. As the rope was being drawn along through the grass on the banks it happened that it disturbed a swarm of bees. In a moment, like a great cloud, they burst upon the men who were dragging; every one of them threw himself headlong into the water and hurried to regain the boat. The swarm followed at their heels, and in a few seconds filled every nook and cranny of the deck. What a scene of confusion ensued may readily be imagined.

Without any foreboding of ill, I was arranging my plants in my cabin, when I heard all around me a scampering which I took at first to be merely the frolics of my people, as that was the order of the day. I called out to inquire the meaning of the noise, but only got excited gestures and reproachful looks in answer. The cry of “Bees! bees!” soon broke upon my ear, and I proceeded to light a pipe. My attempt was entirely in vain; in an instant bees in thousands are about me, and I am mercilessly stung all over my face and hands. To no purpose do I try to protect my face with a handkerchief, and the more violently I fling my hands about so much the more violent becomes the impetuosity of the irritated insects. The maddening pain is now on my cheek, now in my eye, now in my hair. The dogs from under my bed burst out frantically, overturning everything in their way. Losing well nigh all control over myself, I fling myself in despair into the river; I dive down, but all in vain, for the stings rain down still upon my head. Not heeding the warnings of my people, I creep through the reedy grass to the swampy bank. The grass lacerates my hands, and I try to gain the mainland, hoping to find shelter in the woods. All at once four powerful arms seize me and drag me back with such force that I think I must be choked in the mud. I am compelled to go back on board, and flight is not to be thought of.

BEE-STINGS.

In the cooling moisture I had so far recovered my self-possession, that it occurred to me to drag a sheet from my chest, and this at last I found some protection, but I had first gradually to crush the bees which I had enclosed with me within this covering. Meantime by great self-denial and courage on the part of my excellent people, my large dog was brought on board to me and covered with cloths; the other, an animal from Khartoom, was unfortunately lost. Cowering down convulsively, I lingered out thus three full hours, whilst the buzzing continued uninterruptedly, and solitary stings penetrated periodically through the linen. Everyone by degrees became equally passive as myself; at length a perfect silence reigned on board; the bees subsided into quietness. Meanwhile, some courageous men had crept stealthily to the bank, and had succeeded in setting fire to the reeds. The smoke rose to their assistance, and thus they contrived to scare away the bees from the boat, and, setting it afloat, they drove it to the other bank. Had the thought of the fire occurred at first, our misfortune would have assumed a much milder character; but in the suddenness of the attack everyone lost all presence of mind. Free from further apprehension, we could now examine our injuries. With the help of a looking-glass and a pair of pincers I extracted all the stings from my face and hands, and inconvenience in those places soon passed away. But it was impossible to discover the stings in my hair; many of them had been broken off short in the midst of the fray, and, remaining behind, produced little ulcers which for two days were acutely painful. Poor Arslan was terribly punished, especially about the head; but the stings had clung harmlessly in the long hair on his back. I was really sorry for the loss of my nice little dog, which was never recovered, and in all likelihood had been stung to death. These murderous bees belong to the striped variety of our own honeybee. A mishap like ours has been seldom experienced in the waters of the White Nile. Consul Petherick, as his servants informed me, had once to undergo a similar misfortune. Our own grievance was not confined to ourselves: every boat of the sixteen which that day were sailing in our track, was pestered by the same infliction. No imagination can adequately depict the confusion which must have spread in boats where were crowded together from 60 to 80 men. I felt ready, in the evening, for an encounter with half a score of buffaloes or a brace of lions rather than have anything more to do with bees; and this was a sentiment in which all the ship’s company heartily concurred. I took my quinine and awoke refreshed and cheerful; but several of the ill-used members of our party were suffering from violent fever. My own freedom from fever might perchance in a measure be attributed to my involuntary vapour-bath. I had been sitting muffled up for some hours in my wet clothes through the heat of the day, and no vapour bath more effectual could be contrived. Among the crews of the boats which followed us there were two deaths, which ensued as the result of the injuries which had been sustained.

On the day of the bee-visitation another insect had likewise presented itself, which inflicted some sharpish stings, although they were not attended by any continuous annoyance. It was in itself an insignificant gadfly (Tabanus), which here appears to play the part of the tsetse-fly, the natives declaring of it that it injures the cattle. It is widely diffused in the regions through which I travelled, and where the tsetse seems to fail.

Our second day of misadventure came to an end; on the following morning we were again passing along banks void of trees. Towards midday we made a pause on the right bank by a charming grove, where trailing creepers (Leptadenia) dropped their pendants perpendicularly down, and bound the spreading boughs of the Shubahi acacias (A. verugera) to the ground, an apparatus admirably adapted to the gymnastic frolics of the little apes. Wherever anyone ventures to penetrate into the thickets he will not fail to find countless traces of animal life; snake-skins and feathers of many a species are scattered over the ground; tortoise-shells and fish-bones, the remains of the eagle’s feast; bones of animals; occasionally even human skeletons, perfectly entire. On the shore are the shell-fish left by the high water, especially the homes of the Ampularia (A. Wernei) as large as one’s fist, in its way a giant amongst the mollusks of the mighty river.

AMBATCH CANOES.

Warned by our experience we were ever on the alert against bees, keeping in readiness a bundle of straw and some faggots, in order to be able to kindle the dry grass immediately we had accomplished our excursion on the land. Towards midday we perceived with horror more bees in the shore-grass, and lost no time in getting across to the left bank. Here we came across numbers of Shillooks fishing in their light canoes of ambatch; darting through the water almost as swiftly as the fish themselves. This speed does not, however, prevent them from having a waddling movement, something like a duck, in their light craft. So light are these canoes that one man can carry three of them on his shoulder, although each canoe is capable of holding three men. From a few dozen shoots of ambatch of about three years’ growth, a canoe of this kind can be easily produced; at about six feet high the stem goes rapidly off to a point, so that a bundle of them needs only be tied together at the extremities, and there is at once attained a curve that would grace a gondola.[9] To use these canoes adroitly requires considerable practice, as the least shifting of the centre of gravity is made at the risk of a capsize. Nevertheless, they afforded me good service by taking me to the bank with dry feet, and by enabling me to make botanical collections from the floating bushes. When the Shillook has come to the end of his voyage, he seizes his gondola like an ancient warrior might his shield. He carries it, partly to ensure its safety and partly to allow it to dry, because the ambatch wood easily imbibes moisture and becomes saturated.

Ambatch Canoe.

During our wanderings the crew had made a valuable discovery to replace the cracked middle of our long sailyard. It consisted of a tolerably straight, though much knotted, stem of Balanites; it was only 10 feet long, but was doubtless found with much trouble, so rare are any trees that are straight. The portion of the sailyard which had become useless now fell under the axe; it was full of cracks, and could no longer be held together by cow hide; the old bit of northern pinewood, which had done service for years on no one knows how many vessels or in how many latitudes, had now reached the limit of its destiny here on the White Nile, and was to be committed to the flames. Peace to its ashes!

The width of the cultivated country appears to be about ten miles, the whole of the left shore being dotted with numerous small villages. We were not far from Fashoda, the seat of the provincial government, and for the first time availed ourselves of our store of glass beads to open a lively trade with the Shillooks. But the beads had already so much deteriorated in value that we were obliged to buy eggs, fowls, and milk, quite at Khartoom market prices. The poor savages insisted upon this as only right and fair; it was in consequence of their transition from the monkey age of man—​the termination, as it were, to them of the stone and bronze period—​directly into the advanced condition of citizens and payers of taxes.

FASHODA.

Towards midday on the 24th of January we reached Fashoda, and thus, after a prosperous progress, arrived at the limit of the Egyptian empire. Fashoda is the seat of a Mudir, provided with a garrison for the maintenance of Egyptian power. The complete subjection of the entire Shillook country did not, however, follow until two years later. The governor for a considerable time resided six leagues from the town, where he was quartered with 500 soldiers, in order to bring to reason the southern Shillooks, who were by no means inclined to submit. During this time the armed force in Fashoda did not consist of more than 200 men.

The erection of anything like a town had only been begun within the last two years. The place was formerly called Denab, and now consisted of merely a large mass of conical huts of straw, besides the remarkable structure which constituted the fort. The long boundary walls of the fort, with their hundreds of waterspouts, looked at a distance as though they were mounted with so many cannon, and presented a formidable appearance. In reality the number of cannon which the fort could boast was only four, the rest of the field ordnance being in the camp of the Mudir. His deputy received me very courteously. As a present he sent me at once two fat wethers, and placed at my disposal his boats, mules, horses, soldiers—​in short, everything that could assist me to inspect the neighbourhood in comfort.

On account of the shallowness of the water on the side on which the town is built, the boat was moored close by a narrow island which was connected with the mainland by a kind of jetty composed of faggots. This at the time of high water serves as a mole for any boats that may arrive, which are then able to lie close alongside the doors. Before the walls of the town, on a terrace left dry by the sunken flood, extend fields and vegetable gardens, which the Governor, following the Egyptian fashion, has caused to be planted.[10] This is the southern limit of the wheat culture in the Eastern Soudan.

The neighbouring country consists of steppes, over which, as far as the eye can see, larger and smaller groups of Shillook huts rise from the grass. The demand of wood for the use of the troops has caused the larger trees everywhere to be miserably mutilated, and the few boats which are at the disposal of the Government have enough to do in procuring fuel for the heating of the steamer stationed there. Every branch as it grows is immediately cut off, and the naked stems of the acacias, once so magnificent on account of their massive proportions, are alone able to defy the meagre tools Fashoda can supply.

View of Fashoda.

For three years, it is said, there has been an undisturbed peace here, that is to say, in the environs of Fashoda; up to that time, outbreaks more or less violent, on the part of the negro settlers, had been the order of the day. Near a withered Adansonia, less than a mile from the walls, the spot was pointed out to me where the cannon of the fortress was for the last time called into action. A well-directed shot had mown down fifteen men at once from a single party who were taking advantage of the rainy season and the high grass to make an attack. The fatal shot was decisive, and the attack was abandoned. From among the bones of the Shillooks killed on that day I selected from a neighbouring pit nine skulls in good preservation, the investigation of which has furnished some material evidence towards the ethnography of Africa.

TENT ON THE BANK.

All boats are compelled to stop for several days at Fashoda, partly to complete their corn-stores, and partly on account of the poll-tax, to submit to an inspection of the papers, which contain the lists of the crew and soldiers. Hence it happens that throughout January and February Fashoda life is pretty brisk. Egyptian galley-slaves, wearing no fetters—​escape being as difficult as in Siberia—​loitered on the shore begging, and pestered me with scraps of French and Italian. This I found by no means agreeable. After the cramped dimensions of my cabin, I longed for wider freedom to my limbs; accordingly I had a tent pitched upon the bank, but from fear of thieves it was obliged to be continually guarded by men with loaded guns. Many boats came and went, wending their way to the Upper Nile waters; all reported that more or less they had been sufferers from the bees in Dyoorab-el-Esh. I was told that the whole crew of one boat was obliged to remain in the water from noon till evening, now and then raising their heads to get air, but always under the penalty of getting some dozen fresh stings.

The weather during these days was very cool, for a strong north-east wind blew incessantly with such violence, that at daybreak we had usually a temperature of only 62° Fahr. Even the hippopotamuses seemed to find it over cool in the water, for at sunrise they appeared en masse on a neighbouring sandbank: amongst them I found a suitable target on which to try the effect of the full-sized ball which my large elephant gun carried.

I was continually bewildered by the jokes and buffoonery of the crews, for whom jesting seemed a necessity of life. Nothing was done without bad puns. There was an undying esprit amusant, whose flow was unchecked alike by day and night. Whenever any one did a thing which could be made ridiculous, he was received with a volley of cheers of “Hue! hue!” (there he is). The merissa beer of Fashoda, served out in gourd-shells—​pints and pots being here unknown—​naturally is not without its influence in promoting this perpetual folly. The love of jocoseness among these people is not confined to the young, but makes them, even when advanced in years, as merry and as naïve as children.

Some Arab names are as generally common as our own Brown and Smith; on our boat alone we had six Mohammeds; for distinction, therefore, each of these had to be assigned his special nickname. One was called Abu-Asherah (the man with ten fathers); another Berdawily (the chilly one). The others were designated by epithets more or less poetical, as father of the virgin, or sheikh of the women. My Mohammed, who had the rencontre with the buffalo, was sufficiently distinguished by his appellation of Amin, the faithful, but he was also jocosely known as “the swimmer.” He had once been the means of losing a boat which a merchant had entrusted to his care, and had only escaped by swimming to shore, a feat which acquired for him the satire associated with his name.

An occurrence, which I can hardly say surprised me, but which I had expected hourly from amongst the Arab idlers, alarmed us on the first evening of our arrival. The gun of one of our soldiers went off accidentally, and the ball whistled across our boat. On the following morning, through similar carelessness, a slave of one of the Government officials received a shot through his arm, for which the offender had to pay 150 dollars, a sum which had to be raised from the entire crew, because, as they said, they were all liable to the same accident. I had myself only narrowly escaped being hit by the first mishap, and the captain (although generally he was most considerate towards his crew), acting as Ghattas’ agent, fell with great severity upon the offender. By the judgment of the majority, to which the Nubians ever appeal, the fellow was assigned some dozen lashes of the kurbatch, which he was thrown down on the deck to receive, and which he bore without a murmur.

The right side of the main stream at Fashoda is not the mainland, but is a long island, which extends for several leagues above and below. Beyond the true eastern shore the Dinka are said to be settled in extensive villages, and at that time still furnished an inexhaustible supply of slaves to the marauding expeditions of the garrison of Fashoda. In 1870, Baker succeeded in putting an end to this disorder, the knowledge of which penetrated to the most remote tribes. The Dinka tribes of that region are called Dang-Yoht, Dang-Yahl, Behr, Nyell, and Abelang.

KILLING A BOA.

The shore opposite Fashoda contains wide bush-forests and unlimited supplies of wood. During one of my excursions thither I killed an enormous African boa, the Python Sebæ. It was about fifteen feet in length, not above the average size to which the species attains; in Gallabat I have frequently seen them over twenty feet. The speedy death of this huge reptile by a charge of heavy shot, of which only four grains hit, struck me as very remarkable. The skin was brilliantly spotted, and yielded admirable material for making a waterproof gun-case.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] In the Soudan, every thorn-hedge, or palisade, is called a Seriba; in Syria, also, the cane-hedges, for the enclosing of cattle, are termed Sirb, or Sereebe.

[8] For five Maria Theresa dollars (1l.) I bought two fat bullocks.

[9] The accompanying illustration represents a similar canoe, weighing about 40 lbs.

[10] The illustration represents the different well-like Shadoofs used for irrigation.

CHAPTER III.

Camp of the Mudir. A negro king. Campaigns. Future of the country. A wise judge. The shrieking priest. Gum-arabic. The melodious tree. Mohammed Aboo-Sammat. Boats on the flight. Treachery of the Shillooks. General market. Excuse for plunder. First papyrus. Cæsar among the pirates. Useless attempts to proceed. A world of grass. Hippopotamuses in a fright. The last obstacle. Depreciation of the Gazelle stream. Bon-mot of the Viceroy. Ghattas’ namesake. The slipper-shape. Description of the Nueir. Analogy between man and beast. Cactus-type of Euphorbiæ. The Bahr-el-Arab a mainstream. Vallisneria meadows. Arrival in Port Rek. True nature of the Gazelle. Discovery of the Meshera. Deadly climate and its victims. Le Saint. Features of the scenery. The old queen and her prince consort. Royal gifts. Fishes and birds.

I remained nine days in Fashoda, a residence to which the non-arrival of the boats bound for the Gazelle River compelled us, because our force was not sufficiently numerous to overcome by ourselves the obstacles which the “Sett,” or grass-barrier, would present, and also inadequate for protection against an attack, which was not improbable, from the hitherto unsubdued residents.

A wider ramble, in which I inspected several Shillook villages, led me farther into the country, and gave me some conception of its thronging population. The Turkish officer, who welcomed me like a countryman because I was European, attended me, followed by a number of soldiers, all of us being mounted. Although throughout this tour, I was not offered even a bowl of fresh milk, and saw little beyond what had already come under my observation, viz., grey and rusty-red beings, innumerable conical huts, and countless herds of cattle; yet I could not be otherwise than impressed by various details which appeared characteristic of
this people, now incorporated as Egyptian subjects, and which I shall proceed to relate.

SHILLOOK STATISTICS.

The Shillook tribe inhabits the entire left bank of the White Nile, occupying a territory about 200 miles long and about ten miles wide, and which extends right to the mouth of the Gazelle River. Hemmed in by the Baggara on the west, it is prevented by the river from extending itself farther eastward, and only the lower course of the Sobat has any of the Shillooks for its denizens. Their subjection to Egyptian government, which was completed in 1871, has caused a census to be taken of all the villages on the left bank of the Nile, which resulted in an estimate of about 3000. Taking the character of the villages into account this would give a total of above a million souls for this portion of the Shillooks alone. Now the Shillook land, which lies upon the White Nile, has an extent of hardly less than 2000 square miles, and when the number of heads upon this is compared with those in the populous districts of Europe we are justified in reckoning from 600 to 625 to a square mile; a result altogether similar is arrived at from a reckoning based on the estimate of there being 3000 villages, each village having huts varying in number from 45 to 200, and each hut averaging 4 or 5 occupants; this would give a total of about 1,200,000. This, in fact, is an estimate corresponding entirely with what the Mudir of Fashoda, who was conversant with the details of all state affairs, had already communicated to me in 1869.

No known part of Africa, scarcely even the narrow valley of the Nile in Egypt, has a density of population so great; but a similar condition of circumstances, so favourable to the support of a teeming population, is perhaps without a parallel in the world. Everything which contributes to the exuberance of life here finds a concentrated field—​agriculture, pasturage, fishing, and the chase. Agriculture is rendered easy by the natural fertility of the soil, by the recurrence of the rainy seasons, by irrigation effected by the rising of the river, assisted by numerous canals, and by an atmosphere ordinarily so overclouded as to moderate the radiance of the sun, and to retain throughout the year perpetual moisture. Of fishing there is plenty. There are crocodiles and hippopotamuses in abundance. Across the river there is a free and open chase over wildernesses which would advantageously be built upon, but for the hostility of the neighbouring Dinka. The pasture lands are on the same side of the river as the dwellings; they are just beyond the limits of the cultivated plots; occasionally they are subject to winter drought, and at times liable to incursions from the Baggara; but altogether they are invaluable as supplying daily resorts for the cattle.

Still further proof of the superabundance of population of the Shillooks is manifest from the emigration which goes forward in a south-westerly direction, where considerable numbers of them, the Dembo and Dyoor, have settled on the border-lands between the Bongo and Dinka. Of these, however, I will speak hereafter; I will only pause now to remark how, in vivid contrast to the monotonous uniformity of nature which ordinarily asserts itself throughout vast tracts of Central Africa, there are even exhibited diversities of human development, differences of dialect, and peculiarities of bodily conformation. In the Shillook territory there are probably no less than 600 residents to the square mile, whilst in Bongo-land, within 180 miles to the south-west, there would be found hardly a dozen occupants on an equal area. Again, between lat. 5° and 1° N., within a range of not more than 300 miles, are to be found examples of the largest and of the smallest races of mankind—​the Bari and the Akkah, of which the former might rival the Patagonians in stature, the latter being scarcely taller than Esquimaux, and considerably below a medium height.

SHILLOOK VILLAGES.

It should be appended to what has been said about the villages, that the entire west bank of the Nile, as far as the confines of the district reach, assumes the appearance of one single village, of which the sections are separated by intervals varying from 300 to 1000 paces. These clusters of huts are built with surprising regularity, and are so closely crowded together that they cannot fail to suggest the comparison with a thick mass of fungus or mushrooms. Every village has its overseer, whilst the overseers of fifty or seventy, or sometimes of 100 villages, are subject to a superintendent, who has the control of what may be called a “district,” and of such districts there are well nigh a hundred, each of them distinguished by its particular name. One of the descendants of the ancient kings had been reduced to entire subjection under the Government; another at the period of my first visit was still resisting to the utmost.

In the centre of each village there is a circular space where, evening after evening, the inhabitants congregate, and, either stretched upon hides or squatting down on mats of ambatch, inhale the vapour from burning heaps of cow-dung to keep off the flies, or from pipes with enormous clay bowls smoke the tobacco of the country.

In these spaces there is frequently erected the great stem of a tree, on which according to common African usage kettledrums are hung and used for the purpose of warning the inhabitants of any impending danger, and of communicating intelligence to the neighbourhood. Most of the negro tribes are distinguished by the form of their huts. The huts of the Shillooks are built with higher walls than those of the Dinka, and, as an ordinary rule, are of smaller circumference; the conical roofs do not rise to a peak, but are rather in the shape of flattened domes, and in this way it is that they acquire the singular resemblance to mushrooms of which I have spoken. The villages are not enclosed externally, but are bounded by fences made of straw-mats running between the closely-crammed houses, and which serve for shelter to the cattle of individual householders. Great grazing-plots, such as the larger villages combine to provide for the benefit of the community, and exist amongst the Dinka, cannot be secured for the Shillooks, because they are comparatively limited for space.

Now although these savages are altogether unacquainted with the refined cosmetics of Europe, they make use of cosmetics of their own; viz., a coating of ashes for protection against insects. When the ashes are prepared from wood they render the body perfectly grey, and hereby are known the poor; when the ashes are obtained from cow-dung they give a rusty-red tint, the hue of red devils, and hereby can be recognised the landowners. Ashes, dung, and the urine of cows are the indispensable requisites of the toilet. The item last named affects the nose of the stranger rather unpleasantly when he makes use of any of their milk-vessels, as, according to a regular African habit, they are washed with it, probably to compensate for a lack of salt.

The external appearance of the Shillooks, therefore, is by no means agreeable, but rather offensive to the beholder, who will hardly fail to notice amongst all the negro people who dwell in the plains of the Upper Nile a singular want of the lower incisor teeth, which in early life are always broken off. Their physiognomy hardly offers that decided negro type which their swarthy complexion would lead one to expect. To judge by the shape of the skull, this people belongs to the less degraded races of Central Africa, which are distinguished from other negro stocks by a smaller breadth of jaw and by a less decided narrowness of head. A comparison which I made with the skulls which I had collected and some which were taken from ancient Egyptian graves, and with the heads of living fellahs, established the fact of a remarkable resemblance. According to Professor R. Hartmann of Berlin, the similarity between the heads of ancient Egyptians and the Shillooks rests on the projection of the nasal bones; to have these so deeply set as to appear compressed by the forehead, would seem to be discordant with the general type of negro races. Without pronouncing any decided opinion as to the actual relationship of the Egyptian to the Shillook, that eminent savant thinks that he at least discerns a fresh proof of an unquestionable African origin of the latter.

SHILLOOK MEN.

Entirely bare of clothing, the bodies of the men would not of themselves be ungraceful, but through the perpetual plastering over with ashes, they assume a thoroughly diabolical aspect. The movements of their lean bony limbs are so languid, and their repose so perfect, as not rarely to give the Shillooks the resemblance of mummies; and whoever comes as a novice amongst them can hardly resist the impression that in gazing at these ash-grey forms he is looking upon mouldering corpses rather than upon living beings.

The stature of the Shillook is very moderate, and, as a general rule, is short compared with that of the lank, and long-legged Dinka.

Like most of the naked and half-naked Africans they devote the greatest attention to the arrangement of their hair; on every other portion of the body all growth of hair is stopped by its being all carefully plucked out at the very first appearance. As has been already observed, amongst the men the repeated application of clay, gum, or dung, so effectually clots the hair together that it retains as it were voluntarily the desired form; at one time like a comb, at another like a helmet, or, it may be, like a fan. Many of the Shillook men present in this respect a great variety. A good many wear transversely across the skull a comb as broad as a man’s hand, which, like a nimbus of tin, stretches from ear to ear, and terminates behind in two drooping circular lappets. Occasionally there are heads for which one comb does not suffice, and on these several combs, parallel to one another at small intervals are arranged in lines. There is a third form, far from uncommon, than which nothing can be more grotesque. It may be compared to the crest of a guinea fowl, of which it is an obvious imitation; just as among ourselves many a way of dressing the hair would seem to be designed by taking some animal form for a model.

Every now and then, however, one meets with heads of which the hair is closely cropped. However it may have happened, whether from illness or from some misadventure in dressing the hair, or perhaps from a fall of which the consequence has been an accident to the ponderous head-gear, I hardly know how, but something always seems wanting to such heads. In such cases there is frequently seen a comical-looking bandage fixed over the brow, forming a shade for the eyes, and which is made of a giraffe’s foxy-red mane clipped short. This has been elsewhere observed, and is not unknown amongst the Kaffirs of South Africa. Thus much for the men.

As far as regards the women—​I saw none except those whose short-cropped hair appeared stippled over with fresh-sprouting woolly locks, and resembled the skin of a new-born lamb, like the “Astrachan” of commerce. The women do not go entirely naked, but wear an apron of calf-skin, which is bound round their loins, and reaches to their knees.

Just like the Dinka, whose external habits, apart from their hair-combs, they would appear almost entirely to follow, every man amongst them ordinarily carries a club-shaped crutch, nearly three feet in length, with a heavy round knob at its upper end, but which tapers down to a point at the other extremity, so that it resembles a gigantic nail. Their only arms are their long spiked lances, of which (to judge from the equivalents taken in exchange) one is valued at a Maria Theresa dollar. Bows and arrows are just as unknown amongst them as amongst the neighbouring Dinka, whilst, on the contrary, amongst the Nueir they are the chief weapons.

SHILLOOK ANIMALS.

The domestic animals which the Shillooks breed are oxen, sheep, and goats, the same kinds as hereafter we shall find amongst the Dinka; besides these, they keep poultry and dogs; other animals are scarce, and probably could not endure the climate. Throughout the country dogs abound, in shape like greyhounds, but in size hardly equal to our pointers. They are almost always of a foxy-red colour, with a black muzzle, much elongated; they are short-haired and sleek, and have long tails, smooth as those of rats; their ears are tolerably long, the upper portion being flabby and ragged, and therefore drooping forward. Almost beyond example in their activity in leaping and running, so fleet are they that with the greatest ease they outrun the gazelle, and are everywhere of service in the chase; over the earth-walls ten feet high, and over ant-hills, they bound with the celerity of cats, and can jump three or four times the length of their own slim bodies. I kept a number of genuine Shillook dogs, which subsequently did very well in the farther interior, and increased considerably. Like all dogs of the Nile district, from the Egyptian pariah to the village cur of the Soudan, this breed is always found to be deficient in the dew-claws of the hind foot, which always exist in our European dogs. As a general rule, it may be said that the Shillook dog differs little from the races of the Bedouins of Kordofan and of Sennaar.

The only conception which the Shillook entertain of a higher existence is limited to their reverence for a certain hero, who is called the Father of their race, and who is supposed to have conducted them to the land which they at present occupy. In case of famine, or in order that they may have rain, or that they may reap a good harvest, they call upon him by name. They imagine of the dead that they are lingering amongst the living and still attend them. It is with them as with other uncultivated children of nature, that old traditions and veneration of ancestors supply the place of religious legends or ethic system.

Late in the evening of the 1st of February we left Fashoda, and proceeded, without using the sail, for the greatest part of the night along the left bank. At daybreak we arrived at the Egyptian camp. We were received with singing, shouting, and the braying of trumpets. I was conducted by the Governor to his tent, and whilst, hour after hour, we smoked our pipes in company, I related to him the most recent events in the political world. After talking to him about the sources of the Nile, and the campaign of the English in Abyssinia, I told him of the events of the “Seven Days’ War,” in return for which I was presented with a fine bullock and several sheep and goats. The encampment, as I found, consisted of some huts erected with straw in a very off-hand way, the irregular forms of which contrasted very disadvantageously with the symmetrical regularity which is so conspicuous in the dwellings of the Shillooks. Military tents and awnings of sedge completed the equipment of the camp. An ordinary thorn hedge with two loopholes, in which a cannon was always placed, protected the spot, which was close to the left bank of the river. In the Mudir’s verandah I also made acquaintance with the Shillook chief, to whom I before alluded, who had entirely surrendered to the Egyptian Government, and was now, as the Governor expressed himself, “coming to his senses.” There was no external indication whatever of his rank, except a miserable rag which hung about his loins, or the common sandals which he wore, might be considered such. His short-cropped hair had no covering; his neck had a row of beads, such as the heads of families are accustomed to wear, worth about a couple of groschen; and this was all the decoration he displayed. He retained now but a shadow of his former power; his better days were gone, days in which, attended by a council of ancestral state, he had swayed the sceptre of patriarchal dignity. Of all the negro races which occupy the entire district of the Nile, the Shillooks used to uphold the most perfectly regulated government, and to appreciate them thoroughly it is necessary to refer back to the earliest registries, which those who accompanied the expedition of Mehemet Ali left on record. But now this condition is all changed, and everything has disappeared which gave this independent and primitive people their most striking characteristics.

SHILLOOK SUBMISSION.

In the immediate proximity of the camp all was generally at peace; the Shillooks apparently submitted tamely enough to a Government which did not exercise any very tyrannical power, and which contented itself with demanding a supply of bullocks and a stated levy of provisions to maintain the troops. Notwithstanding this usual semblance of concord, the Governor was notoriously on terms of open enmity and feud with the Shillooks in the south. Kashgar, another descendant of the ancient reigning family, still maintained himself as an uncontrolled sovereign, and was able to render that part of the river extremely unsafe for navigation. Ever and again the Governor with his force, never more than 600 strong, was undertaking expeditions against them; but, as he himself told me, they never came to an actual engagement. Although the blacks, he said, might muster 20,000 or 30,000 strong, the second cannon shot was quite enough to make them scamper off, and leave their flocks and herds in the lurch; upon these the mounted Baggara, in the service of the Government, descended and made them an easy spoil. This nomadic race, from time immemorial, has ever, as I have already mentioned, been addicted to the plunder of cattle, and has always exhibited a preference for that occupation.

In another respect the situation of the Government here is far from easy. Not only are the Shillooks at heart at enmity to it, but it excites the hostility of the trading companies who ascend the river. Nothing indicates the circumstances better than the expression of a member of one of these companies. “The Mudir,” he said, “doesn’t like to attack the Shillooks; he takes care of them, and only wants a few of their bullocks; but we—​we should just like to annihilate them, devil’s brood as they are.” In fact, as the Mudir said to me, he only wanted the best of the Shillooks; the Shillooks know well enough that their “best” is their cattle, and this they are not really resigned passively to surrender, and so they go on and continue to be defiant, till they feel the grenades and rockets scorching their skins. For the future fortune of this favoured country I cannot anticipate much that is good. Whilst the Viceroy refuses to appoint Europeans as governors, like Munzinger in Massowa, his officers must fail in those qualifications which would be adequate for the successful administration of a newly-acquired negro territory. The visible retrogression of the Egyptian Soudan with respect to cultivation, confirms this unfavourable foreboding. Ismail Pasha centres all his hope upon the stimulating influence of a railway which shall connect Egypt with Khartoom, and very likely he may witness commerce enlarged to an unsuspected magnitude; one thing, however, there is which he cannot prevent, and that is the depopulation of the Shillook lands. Since they remain closed to European civilisation, and since the husbandmen in Egypt are sufficiently engrossed in acquiring fresh soil for their own tillage at home, there is no prospect whatever for any advantage to these lands, except it can be found in a large immigration of labourers from Asia.

JUDICIAL VERDICT.

The Governor was a remarkably intelligent Kurd, and great was my regret that I could not spare a longer time to listen to the interesting information that he gave me about the habits of the Shillooks, which he knew accurately from many years’ experience. I accepted all that he said with the greater confidence, because it had seldom occurred to me to meet a Turkish officer, who could fluently speak the dialect of the country. He was continually being called upon to adjust the disputes of the natives, who appealed to his judgment, even in their most private concerns. One young girl there was who, abashed and dejected, had been crouching in a corner, and then ventured to present herself before him as adjudicator. With her speech half-choked by emotion, she besought him to interpose his authority to set aside the obstacles which her parents threw in the way of her completing her marriage engagement with a young Shillook, whose name was Yōd. The hindrance to the wedding was simply the fact that the young man possessed no cattle. The Mudir inquired whether Yōd was not the owner of some cows. Her reply was, “No; Yōd has no cows; but Yōd wants me, and I want Yōd.” Although she urged her point over and over again, and pressed the Mudir to pronounce in her favour, because his judgment would constrain her parents, the Mudir did not yield. The girl kept saying “we must,” and “we will;” the judge could speak only of bullocks. There seemed to be no settling the matter, when he said, “You must go and wait: wait till Yōd has bullocks enough to satisfy your parents.” This was not a very comforting decision, but it showed me plainly how that it was ever his rule to recognise the customs of the country.

In order to attend to my European correspondence, which had fallen somewhat into arrears during my voyage, I prolonged my stay for three days. Pine forests of gum-acacias encompassed the spot as far as the extensive Shillook villages allowed them space, whilst the opposite shore presented an unreclaimed desert. At this season, when the waters had nearly reached their lowest level, the banks of the river were everywhere enlivened by numerous kinds of water-fowl. Ducks and geese did not preponderate, as in the northern districts, but the bird most frequently seen was the crowned crane. Thousands of these in swarms were to be seen upon the level banks, nor was there much difficulty in getting at them. Protected by the tall grasses on the slopes of the bank, one had but to discharge a load of good-sized shot, and the destruction was marvellous. Besides the black and rose-coloured storks there is occasionally found the common stork, familiar to us at home; deeper onwards in the interior I have always looked for this in vain. In every region throughout Africa there exists the rapacious hawk, whilst the graceful grey falcon is not at all uncommon. The most remarkable bird of prey, however, is the large whitey-brown eagle (Haliaëtos vocifer), which, sitting apart on trees and shrubs in the proximity of the waters, startles the passer-by by its peculiar shriek.

The noise of this bird is very singular, and is unlike any other known note of the feathered race; its cry ever comes unexpectedly, and is prolonged on the waters. Sometimes it makes one think that it must be the cry of frightened women which alarms him; or sometimes it appears as if a lot of shouting boys were rushing from their hiding-place. The illusion is so perfect, that, for my part, I never failed to hurry off in the direction of the sound, whenever I chanced to hear it. The peculiar cry of the bird is so characteristic, that the inhabitants of the Soudan have given it the expressive name of Faki, the shrieking priest.

Of birds which attach themselves to inhabited parts, the white-breasted Abyssinian raven is most abundant; the trees around Fashoda are full of them. This species dwells in pairs, which are continually hacking away at the tree stems, the raven not unfrequently coming to associate with them. The Rahama, consecrated (as an emblem of parental affection) amongst the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, collects in considerable numbers in Khartoom, where it does duty as a scavenger; but although it is ever to be found in the towns of Egypt and Nubia, it is never met with here; it shuns the wilderness, and only feels at home in civilised places. In this district its place is supplied by the little carrion vulture (Neophron pileatus), which the people of the Soudan call “Nisr,” although this is only the ordinary Arabian appellation of an eagle. The heaths, broken as they frequently are by low shrubs, notwithstanding the nearness of so many dwellings, afford a suitable resort for whole coveys of guinea-fowls. The herbage on the steppe itself appears for miles together to be covered with the Bamia (Hibiscus esculentus), a species of marsh-mallow, the seed-pods of which form a favourite vegetable amongst the Nubians. By the White Nile it grows perfectly wild, whilst in the north it requires to be cultivated.

ACACIA-GROVES.

The acacia-groves produce gum in such unlimited quantities that, in the interests of commerce, they are specially worthy of regard. In the winter time, with the greatest ease in the course of a day a hundredweight of this valuable article could be collected by one man. Not once, however, did I see anyone gathering the gum, although the merchants of Khartoom are never in a position to supply sufficient to meet the demands of Europe. The descriptions of gum, which are hence brought to the Khartoom market, are those known as Sennaari and Talha, and are, in truth, only of a mediocre quality. Yet they do possess a certain marketable value, and through their abundance could be made to render a very large profit. The acacia-groves extend over an area a hundred miles square, and stretch along the right bank of the stream. The kind which is most conspicuous is the A. fistula, and which is as rich as any other variety in gummy secretions. I choose this definition of it from its Arabian appellation “soffar,” which signifies a flute or pipe. From the larvæ of insects which have worked a way to the inside, their ivory-white shoots are often distorted in form and swollen out at their base with globular bladders measuring about an inch in diameter. After the mysterious insect has unaccountably managed to glide out of its circular hole, this thorn-like shoot becomes a sort of musical instrument, upon which the wind as it plays produces the regular sound of a flute; on this account, the natives of the Soudan have named it the whistling-tree. It yields a portion of the gum known on the exchange as gum of Gedaref. It is often found in lumps as large as the fist; it is rarely colourless, and more frequently than otherwise tinged with the hue of amber.

Very striking is the sight afforded by the wood of acacias in the months of winter; the boughs, bare of leaves and white as chalk, stretch out like ghosts; they are covered with the empty pods, which cluster everywhere like flakes of snow; whilst the voices of a thousand flutes give out their hollow dirge. Such is the forest of the Soffar.

Prickles of Acacia.

The peculiarities which affect the growth of the acacia appear to be transmitted to a very remarkable extent. On a former journey I took some seeds to Cairo, which already had produced some trees of a very considerable size. These trees exhibited the special appearances of the parents; below the prickles were the same excrescences and insect-borings; not only was this the case in the park of Esbekieh in Cairo, but it also occurred in several other situations, which left the problem to be solved, how was it that the insect survived in the seed, or how did it contrive to get to its tree in Cairo?

ABOO SAMMAT.

On the 5th of February we finally left the Egyptian encampment, and directed our course up the stream towards the region of the papyrus. After sailing all night we stopped just short of the mouth of the Sobat, on the right bank close to a forest. The progress of the coming days would lead us through an insecure territory; we wanted to make up our supply of wood, and knew that the hostility of the Shillooks would, in many places, render any attempt at landing on our part quite unadvisable. Of the boats which were bound for the Gazelle, only one had arrived. In order to render us assistance, the Mudir had charged the owner not to leave my party in the lurch. This circumstance had a very important effect upon my whole journey, as it was the means of introducing me to Mohammed Aboo Sammat, who was proprietor of the boat. This magnanimous Nubian was destined to exercise a very considerable influence on my undertaking, and, indeed, he contributed more to my success than all the satraps of the Soudan. During my land journey I had first made his acquaintance, and now he invited me to be his guest until he should have accompanied me to the remotest tribes, a proposal on his part which made my blood tingle in my veins. A native of Dar-Kenoos, in his way he was a little hero. Sword in hand he had vanquished various districts large enough to have formed small states in Europe. A merchant full of enterprise, he avoided no danger, and was sparing neither of trouble nor of sacrifice; in the words of the Horaz, “he explored the distant Indies, and compassed sea and land to escape poverty.” Yet all the while he had the keenest sympathy with learning, and could travel through the remotest countries at the bidding of science to see the wonders of the world.

Far as eye can see, the Sobat flows between level banks bounded by unlimited steppes; where it joins the Nile it is about half as broad as the main stream. For a considerable distance the cloudy milk-white waters, which indicate the mountain stream, can be distinguished as they roll into the deep azure of the White Nile. The Sobat water is, however, far preferable to the Nile water, which, after being strained as it were, through a filter of grass, emerges transparent in colour, but with a flat, earthy flavour, which is highly disagreeable to the palate. The effect of the commingling of the two streams can be distinctly traced as far as Fashoda, where the inhabitants fancy they enjoy some consequent sanitary advantage.

We kept quite close to the right bank of the uninhabited quarter, but on the same day we found ourselves in full flight before thousands of the native Shillooks, who, with their light canoes of ambatch, hastened to the bank, and in thick troops prepared to displace us. As fate would have it, just as we were within sight of the dreaded Shillooks, our sailyard broke, and we were compelled to seek the land. Soon rose the cry, “They are coming! they are coming!” for in fact we could see them dashing over the stream with incredible celerity, and crowding their canoes as thick as ants. Hardly had we regained our craft, and made some speedy preparations for defence against an attack, when the foremost of the Shillook men, equipped for war, carrying their tufted lances in their hands, showed themselves by the banks which only now we had quitted. Apparently they came to offer some negotiation with us in the way of traffic; but ours was the ancient policy, “Danaos timentes,” and we pushed on.

Although, including Aboo Saramat’s party, we numbered full eighty armed men, we could not help suspecting that as soon as the north-east breeze should drop, by whose aid we were going along the stream without a sail, the savages would take advantage of our bad situation and inadequate fighting force to make an attack upon us.

IN FULL FLIGHT BEFORE THE SHILLOOK CANOES.

A HASTY RETREAT.

This fear was not without reason; there were here, at a guess, at least 10,000 Shillooks on their legs and 3000 ambatch canoes in motion on the river. Accordingly we pushed up the stream, and had an opportunity, from a more secure neighbourhood, to observe the Shillooks more accurately. My telescope aided me in my investigation. I saw crowds of men violently gesticulating and contending; I saw women burdened with baskets loaded with poultry clapping their wings. After a while the Shillooks, disappointed, began to vacate the bank which we had left, and on the river could now be seen a redoubled movement of the canoes, whilst opposite fresh multitudes poured in, and gave to the whole scene the appearance of a general emigration of the people.

Within the last three years the boats had been permitted with reluctance, and only when several were together, to approach the shore at this part of the stream, for here it had happened in one single season that five vessels, the property of Khartoom merchants, as they were coming down the river laden with ivory, were treacherously attacked one after the other. The stratagem was employed of diverting the attention of the crews by an exhibition of attractive merchandise; while the Nubians were off their guard, at a given signal the Shillooks fell upon them and butchered them without exception. Gunpowder, rifles, and valuable ivory, all fell into their hands; the vessels they burnt. Ghattas himself, the merchant who owned the vessel by which I was travelling, suffered the loss of a costly cargo, while eighty men on that occasion met with a violent death. Only the Reis and one female slave escaped to Fashoda. Betimes they threw themselves into the water, and concealing their heads with some water weeds, floated on till the stream carried them out of the reach of harm.

On the following morning, after we had passed the mouth of the Giraffe river, we were joined by a flotilla of six boats. As we reckoned now nearly 350 armed men, we felt that we could venture without risk to enter upon commercial transactions with the Shillooks. The disturbed condition of the country had interfered to prevent them carrying about their merchandise as usual, and they now were collected in unusual numbers at the mart.

A mile away from the river-bank there were rows of dome-palms bounding a broad level, on which was exhibited all the liveliness of ordinary market-clatter. Busy and bustling, there were thousands congregated together; but the fear this time was not on our side. From far and near streamed in the natives; many brought baskets full of corn, eggs, butter, beans, and ostrich-feathers; others offered poultry, tied together in bunches, for sale: there was altogether the bustle of such a market as only the largest towns could display. The area was hemmed in by a guard of armed men, whose lances, like standing corn, glittered in the sun. The sense of security raised the spirits of the light-hearted sailors, and their merry Nubian songs rose cheerfully in the air. Two hours slipped quickly away, while the necessary purchases were being made, the medium of exchange being white or red glass beads. Soon afterwards a favourable breeze sprung up. Everything was still active in the market; fresh loads came teeming from the villages; the outcry and gesticulations of the market people were as excited as ever, when suddenly there boomed the signal to embark. The confusion, the noise, the hurry which ensued baffle all description; the Shillooks were in a panic, and, imagining that it must be all up with them, scampered off and jostled each other in every direction.

NUBIAN LOGIC.

The propitious wind did not, however, prevent our people from finding time to make a little détour into the country, where they had the luck to find some herdsmen who were trying to conceal a heifer amongst the grass. There was a report of a gun, and the beast was stretched upon the ground. A few minutes sufficed to quarter its carcase, and the hide and the pieces were conveyed on board. Half-a-dozen kids and some sheep were added to the stock, and so we proceeded on our way. In the eyes of the people such plundering is deemed to be perfectly legitimate for various reasons: first, because the Shillooks are heathen; secondly, because some years before they had burnt five Nubian vessels; thirdly and chiefly, because mutton and beef are very choice eating, particularly after having been limited for a time to durrapap. My tawny companions seemed to think that they knew a fourth palliation for their proceeding, which consisted in this, that none but themselves were capable of making a proper use of the goods of the blacks. In the districts of the Upper Nile, wherever the breeding of cattle is carried on, it is a custom of the negroes never to kill an animal, but only to consume those which die naturally; the reason obviously being, that they look upon the possession of living cattle as the main object of their existence. With them, steers do the duty of guineas and napoleons; the Nubians, therefore, jocosely affirm that they swallow the guineas, which in the keeping of the heathen are nothing better than so much dead capital.

We were not long in leaving the Shillook villages far behind. The inhabited region seemed to recede as our boat made its way along the water-course. The stream divided itself into a multitude of channels, which threaded their way amidst a maze of islands. The distant rows of acacias on either side were the only tokens to indicate the mainland. This was the day on which we first saw the papyrus. To me, botanist as I was, the event elevated the day to a festival. Here at a latitude of 9° 30´ N. are we now first able to salute this sire of immortal thought, which centuries ago was just as abundant in Egypt as at present it is on the threshold of the central deserts of Africa. I was quite lost in admiration at the variety of production of the surface of the water, to which the antique papyrus gave a noble finish. It strikes the gaze like the creation of another world, and seems to inspire a kind of reverence: although for days and weeks I was environed by the marvellous beauties which enrich the flora of the Nile, my eye was never weary of the vision of its graceful form.

The hindrances to our progress caused by the excessive vegetation began now to give us some anxiety. All day long we were bewildered not only by the multiplicity of channels, but by masses of grass, papyrus, and ambatch, which covered the whole stream like a carpet, and even when they opened gave merely the semblance of being passages. It is quite possible that the diversion of its course to the east, which, for sixty miles the Nile here takes, may check the progress of the stream, and be in a measure the cause of such a strange accumulation of water-plants. Certain it seems that neither any exceptional depth of water, such as may occur in particular years, nor yet any general overflow wider than usual, avails to exercise the slightest influence upon this exuberant vegetation. Were it a coating of ice it would split itself into fragments under the pressure of the stream, but here is a real web of tough tangle, which blockades the entire surface. Every here and there, indeed, the force of the water may open a kind of rift, but not corresponding at all with the deeper and true channel of the stream. Such a rift is not available for any passage of the boats. The strain of the tension, which goes on without intermission, has such an effect in altering the position of the weedy mass, that even the most experienced pilot is at a loss how to steer, consequently every voyage in winter is along a new course, and through a fresh labyrinth of tangle. But in July, when the floods are at their highest, navigation can be carried on along well nigh all the channels, since the currents are not so strong, and the vessels are able to proceed without detention to their destinations.

GRASS TANGLE.

Thick masses of little weeds float about the surface of the water, and by forming a soft pulp, contribute an effectual aid to bind together the masses of vegetation. Like a cement this conglomerate of weeds fills up all the clefts and chasms between the grass and ambatch islands, which are formed in the back-water where the position is sheltered from the winds and free from the influence of the current.

There are two plants, at a superficial glance hardly distinguishable, which perform the largest share in the formation of this compact web. One of them is the thin-membraned water-fern, the Azolla; the other (which is quite familiar to every visitor to the tank of the Victoria regia) being the Pistia, which can hardly fail to recall a head of lettuce. The sailors of the White Nile call it the “negro tobacco,” probably with reference to the dwarfed growth of the two kinds of tobacco in the negro lands. Besides these, our duck-weeds (Lemna) and Tussieua of various sorts intertwine themselves with the mass, and the different African representations of our commonest water-plants play a part by no means unimportant.

It is remarkable that in Egypt nearly all the species of water-plants which abound in the stream of the White Nile are wanting entirely; whilst, on the other hand, all the shore-shrubs, which had their native home in the neighbourhood of the Equator, pass over the intervening districts and there find a settlement. Even the conspicuous ambatch is, in Egypt, not known by name; and it is quite an event when any of the fragments of the papyrus find their way so far north. Every bit of wood which the river carries in its flood is collected by the inhabitants of the Nubian valley, and not a scrap escapes the keen look-out of the people, who are eager to compensate for their lack of firewood. At the season when the waters are at their height, the chase after floating wood is a daily occupation and a favourite engagement of the boys.

On the 8th of February began our actual conflict with this world of weeds. That entire day was spent in trying to force our boats along the temporary openings. The pilots were soon absolutely at a loss to determine by which channel they ought to proceed. On this account two vessels were detached from the flotilla to investigate the possibility of making a passage in a more northerly direction. Two hundred of our people, sailors and soldiers, were obliged to lug with ropes for hours together to pull through one boat after the other, while they walked along the edge of the floating mass, which would bear whole herds of oxen, as I subsequently had an opportunity of seeing.

Very singular was the spectacle of the vessels, as though they had grown in the place where they were, in the midst of this jungle of papyrus, fifteen feet high; whilst the bronzed, swarthy skins of the naked Nubians contrasted admirably with the bright green which was everywhere around. The shrieks and shouts with which they sought to cheer on their work could be heard miles away. The very hippopotamuses did not seem to like it; in their alarm they lifted their heads from the shallows in which they had stationed themselves for respiration, and snorted till the gurgling around was horrible. The sailors, concerned lest by their bulk these unwieldy creatures should injure the boats—​not an unknown occurrence—​gave vent to the full force of their lungs. This unearthly clamour was indeed the solitary means of defence at their command; in such a turmoil—​men and boats in every direction—​firing a shot was not to be thought of.

THE VESSELS IN THE GRASS-BARRIER.

EL SETT: THE GRASS-BARRIER.

This extraordinary grass-barrier had already been met with at the time of Miss Tinné’s expedition in 1863; here again in the summer of 1872 was it found, strong as ever, offering for months its serious impediments to navigation, and threatening to expose the crews to destitution, if their provisions should fail. The enterprising expedition of Sir Samuel Baker, in 1870-71, suffered repeated hindrances at this spot. An attempt was made to employ machinery to penetrate the mass, but steam-boats proved to be even less successful than the ordinary boats in making any headway. The conflict in these waters by means of wind and steam recalls what is not unfrequently seen in Egypt when a lot of men try to drag a donkey through the mud.

In this laborious fashion we had to toil on for several days. It was only by one of the side-arms of the blockaded mainstream that it was possible to reach the mouth of the Gazelle River. To this backwater the sailors give the name of “Maia Signora,” because the access to it is stated to have been discovered by the pilots who conducted Miss Tinné. Ever since the formation of the grass barrier (el Sett) there has been no approach to the river of Gondokoro, the Bahr-el-Gebel, except by a long side-arm called the Giraffe River, which is itself almost equally blocked up. Upon the whole we were more fortunate than our predecessors of previous years, because our journey chanced to fall during one of the periodical seasons when the growth of the ambatch is at a standstill. It happened therefore that of the three obstacles which (besides the current and the shallows) are generally to be expected, viz., grass, papyrus, and ambatch, one of the most important did not occur. The close of our first day’s exertion found us at night-fall on the southerly side of an island in mid-stream, whence we witnessed a spectacle striking in its way. Through an immense grove of acacias seventy feet high (A. verugera), which were remarkable for their resemblance to pine-trees, there gleamed, with the glare of day, the light of huge bonfires of faggots, which the Shillooks had kindled on the opposite bank, and which gave to the tall trees the effect of being truly gigantic.

Here on the 9th we tarried, and as it was the last woody district upon which we could reckon until we arrived at the mouth of the Bahr-el-Arab, we set to work to repair our broken sailyard. We were close now to the region of the Nueir: and on the steppes beyond the wood, we could see troops of them moving backwards and forwards; but they kept at a distance, and showed no disposition to open any negotiations with us. Footprints and various other indications leave no doubt but that this district is the playground of elephants, giraffes, wild buffaloes, and hyenas. Maraboo storks were abundant, and would often come tolerably close to the resorts of men, but as soon as they found themselves observed were careful to keep at a safe distance. During our progress along the river I brought down very many of these birds, and secured a quantity of their valuable feathers. These I sent to Europe, and at a bazaar for the benefit of the sick and wounded they realised a considerable sum. Maraboo feathers fetch higher prices than ostrich feathers, yet it is very remarkable that they are quite unknown in the commerce of Khartoom.

NUBIAN SONGS.

The temperature of the preceding days had been singularly fresh, and consequently the plague of flies, from which previous travellers had had to endure so much, did not at all molest us. We were, however, provided on board with all the appliances to protect ourselves from this nuisance, in case of need. Far into the night after these days of prolonged exertion resounded the songs of the Nubians, and the gourd-shells of merissa beer went round amid the native strains of Berber and Dongola. As I did not thoroughly understand the dialect of Dongola, I continually lost the exact purport of the words which were sung. One with the other the Nubians often use this dialect, although they just as frequently speak Arabic. Every now and then as they sung I made them tell me the sense of separate sentences; my listening to them seemed to delight them all, and I heard them saying behind my back, “Pity that the man is not a Mussulman, or at least a Turk, then what a capital fellow he would be!” To which another replied, “Turk, indeed! who ever heard of a Turk troubling himself about our songs? The Franks are worth a thousand of them!” The flattery took its effect upon me, and I was moved at once to deliver a regular homily to my people. Feeling like Cæsar among the pirates, I proceeded to say, “Did you ever hear, you rascals of cow-stealers, about those ancestors of yours, the Ethiopians of Meroë?” “Yes, indeed,” rejoined the Nubians, “for many and many a verse did our ancient poets compose about them, to celebrate their virtue; and they used to declare about the ruler of the gods (for at that time we believed in many gods) if he couldn’t be found in heaven it was because he was lingering amongst his darling Ethiopians on earth. But now, we have Allah, the great Allah; besides Allah we care for no other.”

“All very well;” I replied; “but where is the poet who can sing about his love to you, incorrigible thieves as you are? Just mind then what you are about for the future, and try to show that you are not unworthy of your great ancestors.”

The next day was again employed in unrelaxed endeavours to penetrate the grass-bound channels. The patches of papyrus became at once more frequent and more extensive, and here once again, after being long missed, is found the genuine Nile reed, the “shary” of the ancient Egyptians—​the same as the soof of the Bible—​which always grows on the shores of the mainland. Somewhat strangely the prevailing river-grass in the upper waters, the Vossia procera, is called in Arabic “Om-Soof,” the mother of wool. This appellation it derives from the peculiar hairy character of its leaf-sheaths. These have the disagreeable quality of covering the entire bodies of those who may be at work in the grass with a thick down of adhesive bristles. The sharpness of these and the scratches they inflict increase the irksomeness of the daily labour at the grass barrier. Still the great prairies amidst which the flood pursues its course afford an inexhaustible pasturage; cattle, sheep, and horses, all graze upon them, and no herbage is there that they prefer to the “Om-Soof.” At the close of the day, we again arrived in open water, and laid up for the night by the left bank, which presented a wide steppe entirely bare of trees.

Up with the sun, with sails hoisted with a moderate breeze in our favour, off we were on the following morning; short-lived, however, was our propitious start. Too soon the open water branched out into a labyrinth of channels, and the bewildered navigators lost all clue as to the actual direction of the stream. The projections of the green islets were always crowned with huge clumps of papyrus, which here grows in detached masses. It probably delights most in quiet waters, and so does not attain to the form of a high unbroken hedge, as on the upper banks of the Gazelle, for here, on account of the numerous stoppages, the stream flows through the narrow channels with extraordinary violence. The strength of the stream often makes towing impracticable, and the sailors often have considerable difficulty in sailing through it to the papyrus bushes, when they want to attach to their solid stems the ropes which are thrown out from their boats. This was the way in which we from sheer necessity sustained the resistance of the current. The depth of the channel was quite sufficient in itself to allow us to proceed, as our vessels drew only three feet of water; but the passage had become so contracted that at sunset we fastened ourselves to the papyrus-stems, quite despairing of ever being able to make further progress in this direction.

HIPPO-
POTAMUSES.

It was one of those marvellous nights when the unwonted associations of a foreign clime seem to leave an indelible impression on the memory of the traveller. Here were the dazzling sparks of the glow-worm, glaring upon us like a greeting from our far-off home, and in countless masses glittering upon the dewy stalks of the floating prairie. In the midst of these were fastened our boats, hemmed in as firmly as though they were enclosed by polar ice. Loud was the rushing of the stream as it forced a way along its contracted course; but louder still was the incessant splashing of the emerging hippopotamuses, which had been driven by the vessels, as it were, into a corner, and were at a loss, like ourselves, how to go on or to retreat. Until daybreak their disquietude continued, and it seemed as though their numbers kept increasing, till there was quite a crowd of them. Already during the afternoon they had afforded a singular sight: whilst about half of our men were wading in shallow water and straining at the ropes, they found that they had entirely enclosed no less than six hippopotamuses, whose huge flesh-coloured carcases, dappled with brown, rose above the surface of the water in a way but rarely seen. A cross-fire was opened upon them from several vessels, but I could not make any use of my elephant rifle, because about 200 of our men were towing upon my line of sight. The clumsy brutes snorted and bellowed, and rolled against each other in their endeavours to escape; their ponderous weight bore down the tangle of the water-growth, and the splashing was prodigious.

Four days had now been consumed in this strain and struggle; after a final and unavailing effort on the fifth day, there seemed no alternative but to go back and make trial of another and more northerly branch of this bewildering canal-system. We succeeded in our retrograde movement so far as to attain an open basin, and found that we had only the distance of about 200 feet to get over, in order that we might reach the spot whereat the various streams of the Upper Nile unite. This place on the maps is distinguished by the name of Lake No, but the sailors always call it Mogren-el-Bohoor, i.e., the mouth of the streams. The difficulties which met us here were apparently quite hopeless. Our boats were not only heavily laden with corn, but, formed of the heaviest wood, their build was unusually broad and massive. Yet heavy and unwieldy as they were there was no alternative than literally to drag them over the grass. By dint, however, of main force, before the day was out the task was accomplished. The grass mass itself was lifted and pushed in front, whilst the men turned their backs against the sides of the boats, and pressed them on from behind. I was the only passenger to remain on board, because being fearful of a chill which might result in fever, I could not venture into the water.

What the maps call Lake No is merely the expanded mouth of the meeting waters. The current flowing from the south from the Bahr-el-Gebel passes along its apparent shores, which are projecting masses of papyrus. In order to reach the Gazelle it is necessary to bend westwards along the gradually narrowing lake-basin. At no season of the year is this water otherwise than shallow; even at the time of our retrograde voyage, when the floods were highest, we stranded more than once. Floating islands of papyrus of considerable extent were visible every here and there, and broke the uniformity of the expanse.

The passage which leads to the Gazelle has the essential properties of running water, although the stream itself is in winter scarcely perceptible. The river, however, is surrounded by such a multiplicity of backwaters and waters remaining in old river-beds, that the united volume of such a number of streams as I saw emptying themselves into it, at various times, through some hundreds of miles, could not possibly find its exit through this single channel alone. Petherick, in 1863, at the period when the water-floods were as low as possible, estimated the volume of waters to be rolling on at the rate of 3042 cubic feet a second; but he must have referred simply to the navigable channel at the mouth, without intending to represent that the calculation referred to the entire mass of the waters.

It remains still a matter of dispute which of the two currents should be considered as the main stream. According to analogy, as the Sobat is related to the Blue Nile, so the Bahr-el-Gebel is to the Bahr-el-Abiad, just as the Blue Nile is to the Nile of Egypt.

THE GAZELLE.

One of the objects contemplated in my journey was to show the importance of the western affluents of the Nile which unite in the Gazelle; and I have given evidence that, one way and another, they traverse a region of not less than 150,000 square miles. When I mention that in 1863 Speke called the Gazelle “an unimportant branch,”[11] and moreover that Baker has spoken of its magnitude with great depreciation, in reply, I might allude to another interesting fact in geographical annals. Not only did Bruce, a hundred years ago, suppose that he had discovered the sources of the Nile in Abyssinia, just where a hundred years previously they had been marked upon the Portuguese maps; but he represented the Bahr-el-Abiad as an inconsiderable stream, which joined the stream of his discovery at Halfaya, Khartoom at that time being not in existence. But it is absolutely impossible that Bruce could have returned from Sennaar to Berber along the left bank of the Blue Nile, and could have crossed at its mouth from the very spot where Khartoom now stands, without being aware that close behind him there was rolling its waters a stream as broad again as the Blue Nile. The record of his travels does not contain one word about the White Nile. The plain truth is that the White Nile was overlooked and disparaged, because it would have thrown his Blue Nile in the shade.[12] Ismail Pasha was quite right in saying that every fresh African traveller had his own private sources of the Nile; but for my part I am not at all ashamed to confess that I have not found them.

The wind was favourable, and so long as the course maintained a north-westerly direction we made a rapid progress. The main channel gradually contracted, however, and deviated into many abrupt meanderings, which had to be traversed by pushing and driving with poles. Here, too, the apparent banks consisted of floating grass-tangle, though further off the pasturing herds of the Dinka showed the true position of the mainland, whilst the ridge of forest beyond indicated the limit to which the inundations had extended. North of the mouth of the Gazelle the boundaries of the Shillooks and the Dinka meet each other, and the intervening territory is inhabited by the Nueir.

A GHATTAS BIRD.

In some places amongst the grass-tangle I made an attempt to botanize, and out of the numerous holes I fished up a variety of most interesting plants. The Gazelle is specially noted for the beauty of its water-lilies (Nymphæa stellata and N. lotus). Blossoms of these, in every variety of hue—​white, blue, and crimson—​well-nigh everywhere adorn the surface of the water; rooted below they project their long stalks and leaves through the apertures, like fishes, in the winter, to catch the air through holes in the ice. Should any one make a grasp at a blossom and fail to make good his hold, it may happen that the entire plant will make an elastic rebound and disappear beneath the grass. During the afternoon our course was N.W. and W.N.W., which is the general direction of the Gazelle throughout its lower half. The stream became wider again, the banks continuing to be lined by an impenetrable grass jungle. Remarkable dark-coloured water-birds (Plotus melanogaster) are found in considerable numbers upon the shores, intent upon making prey of small fishes. They settle upon the bushes, and one may every now and then be seen to make a sudden dive into the water, bring up a little fish in its beak, and resume its previous perch. Amongst the people of Khartoom this bird is called the “Ghattas,” a name which invested it with a special interest to me as being the name of my temporary protector.

For some few days past, just before sunset, great masses of tiny green flies had made their appearance. Although these were in no respect injurious, yet the buzzing they made and the choking cough which was caused by their numbers were anything but agreeable. Shortly after dark they retreated, only to appear again in the early dawn. Much more pertinacious were the spotty-legged gnats, which now began to torment us when the nights were not cool enough to disperse them. Everybody on board had provided himself for protection with a sack made of calico in which he slept, the result of which was ordinarily a temperature of some 80° Fahr., about the same as a regular vapour-bath. These gnats did not buzz about with so loud a noise, but their sting was much more decided. They might not cause such a lasting itching as some of their northern kindred, but the knack they had of finding a way for their proboscis through the thickest cotton till it reached one’s skin, made it only possible to keep them off by means of mosquito-nets. But altogether I reckoned this visitation as hardly worth the notice of a traveller who had grown up amongst the gnats of the teeming marshes of the north.

The Bahr-el-Ghazal may in some respects be compared to the Havel as it flows between Potsdam and Brandenburg; the two rivers are not dissimilar in their excess of floating vegetation, composed of plants which, to a great extent, are identical in their generic character. Frequently the breadth is not more than enough for a single vessel, but the depth could not be fathomed by our longest poles, and so revealed what was the enormous volume of water concealed by the carpet of grass for two hundred paces on either hand. What ordinarily appears to be land assumes at high water the aspect of an extensive lake. The general uniformity of level prevents any extensive range of vision; but I had only to mount the roof of my cabin, and, by observing the distance between the woods that skirted the prospect, I could approximately estimate the width of the river-bed. Nowhere did it appear to me to extend, like the valley of the Egyptian Nile, to a breadth of eight miles; and certainly, without further evidence, I cannot agree with former travellers, who describe it as being a lake or marsh of which the boundaries are unlimited.

Balæniceps Rex.

BALÆNICEPS REX.

Neither crocodiles nor hippopotamuses are here to be observed. The absence of settled river-banks prohibits the Upper Nile from being the resort of the former; the deficiency of sand-banks would permit no life to the latter, which therefore make good their retreat to the narrower streams of the interior.

The second day of our voyage along the river brought us to the district tenanted by the Nueir. We found them peacefully pasturing their flocks and herds beside their huts, and betraying nothing like fear. They had been represented to me as an intelligent people; seeming to know what they had to expect or to dread, they were disposed for friendly intercourse with the Khartoom people, who, in their turn, were not inclined to commit any act of violence upon their territory. Two years and a half later, at the period of our return, all this was unfortunately changed, and landing was impossible.

Most of the Nueir villages lie on a spot where the Gazelle makes a bend from a north-east to a south-westerly direction. As we were making our way past the enclosures which lie on either side of the stream, my attention was arrested by the sight of a number of some of the most remarkable birds that are found in Africa. Strutting along the bank, they were employing their broad bills to grope in the slimy margins of the stream for fish. The bird was the Balæniceps Rex, a curiosity of the rarest kind, known amongst the sailors as the Abu-Markoob (or slipper-shape), a name derived from the peculiar form of its beak. It scientific name is due to the disproportionate magnitude of its head. Before 1850 no skins of this bird had been conveyed to Europe; and it appeared unaccountable to naturalists how a bird of such size, not less than four feet high, and of a shape so remarkable, should hitherto have remained unknown; they were not aware that its habitat is limited to a narrow range, which it does not quit. Except by the Gazelle and in the central district of the Bahr-el-Gebel, the Balæniceps has never been known to breed.

The first that appeared I was fortunate enough to hit with a rifle ball, which wounded it in its back, and brought it down: we measured its wings, and found them to be more than six feet across. Another was struck, but although it was pursued by an active party of Nubians, it effected an escape. As generally observed, the bird is solitary, and sits in retired spots; its broad beak reclines upon its crop, and it stands upon the low ground very much as it is represented in the accompanying illustration: it rarely occupies the ant-hills which every here and there rise some feet above the vegetation. The great head of the bird rises over the tall blades of grass and ever betrays its position. Its general structure would class it between a pelican and a heron, whilst its legs resemble those of a maraboo; it snaps with its beak, and can make a clattering noise like the stork. This Balæniceps would seem to furnish a proof that not everything in nature is perfectly adapted to its end, for when the birds are full grown, they never have their beaks symmetrical. The upper part does not correspond with the lower; the two members fall apart, and, like an old woman’s jaws, go all awry. The colour of their plumage in winter is a dingy light brown, their wings are black, and they seem to fly with difficulty, carrying their ungraceful heads upon their necks at full stretch, like a heron. They build in the rainy season, always close to the open water, forming their great nests of ambatch-stalks.

At the next groups of huts we made a stop, and did some bartering with the Nueir, who brought sheep and goats for exchange. Here, in the heart of the Nueir population, in a district called Nyeng, we fixed our quarters until the 16th. I made use of the time to spend the whole day in my ambatch-canoe, collecting the water-plants from the river.

THE NUEIR.

The Nueir are a warlike tribe, somewhat formidable to the Dinka. They occupy a territory by the mouths of the two tributaries of the White Nile, and are evidently hemmed in by hostile neighbours. In most of their habits they resemble alike the Shillooks and the Dinka, although in their dialect they differ from both. The pasturage of herds is their chief pursuit. The traveller who would depict their peculiarities must necessarily repeat much of what he has already recorded about the other tribes. With regard to apparel it will suffice to say that the men go absolutely naked, the women are modestly girded, and the girls wear an apron formed of a fringe of grass. Their hair is very frequently dyed of a tawny-red hue by being bound up for a fortnight in a compo of ashes and cow-dung; but occasionally it is cut quite short. Some of them weave cotton threads into a kind of peruke, which they stain with red ochre, and use for decoration where natural locks are not abundant. Their huts resemble those of the Dinka; always clean, the dwellings are surrounded by a trampled floor; the sleeping-place inside is formed of ashes of cow-dung, burnt perfectly white, and is warmer and better than any mosquito-net.

Nowhere in the world could a better illustration be afforded of the remarkable law of Nature which provides that similar conditions of existence should produce corresponding types amongst all ranks of animal creation. It does not admit of a doubt that men and beasts in many districts of which the natural features are in marked contrast to the surrounding parts do exhibit singular coincidences, and that they do display a certain agreement in their tendencies. The confirmation of this resemblance which is offered by the Shillooks, the Nueir, and the Dinka is very complete; these tribes, stationed on the low marshy flats which adjoin the river, are altogether different in habit to those which dwell among the crags and rocks of the interior. “They give the impression,” says my predecessor Heuglin, “that amongst men they hold very much the same place that flamingoes, as birds, hold with reference to the rest of the feathered race;” and he is right. The dwellers in these marsh-lands would probably have a web between their toes were it not compensated by the flatness of their feet and the unusual prolongation of the heel. Another remarkable similarity is the way in which, like the birds of the marshes, they are accustomed for an hour at a time to stand motionless on one leg, supporting the other above the knee. Their leisurely long stride over the rushes is only to be compared to that of a stork. Lean and lanky limbs, a long, thin neck on which rests a small and narrow head, give a finishing touch to the resemblance.

Leaving the last dwellings of the Nueir behind us, we arrived on the following day at the first wood which is to be observed on the banks of the Gazelle. Ant-hills of more than ten feet high are here scattered in every direction, and alone break the universal levelness of the plain. They are not unfrequently found in the heart of a thicket, because originally the stem of a tree served as the central axis of the earthy structure. Dead and withered though this had been, it sprouted out afresh from the roots, provided that these had been uninjured by the passages of the ants. Vestiges of the floods are traceable upon them, and show that the average difference between the highest and lowest level of the water is from three to four feet.

ALONG THE GAZELLE.

The river wends its way through charming wood-scenery, meandering amidst groves gay with the red bindweed (Ipomæa), amidst which now and then a tall tamarind uprears itself. Here I met with a fresh representative of the flora of Central Africa in the tree-like Euphorbia with its arms outspread like candelabras. This can be distinguished from the Euphorbia of the Abyssinian highlands, mentioned in Chapter I., by the involved confusion of its branches. Its eccentric shapes would seem to fill a place in Africa which in America is supplied by the order of the Cactaceæ; it also serves like the Mexican Cereus for the enclosure of estates, as slips taken from its branches readily take root in the ground. The sportsman could here reckon on a good bag, for the widow-ducks which swarmed upon the papyrus were brought down at every shot, and were serviceable for the table. Our people were all expert swimmers, and they continually fished out of the stream the birds which were struck, while their sport in no way ever hindered the progress of our craft.

The wind next day was not propitious, and the boats were obliged to stay beside a grass tangle by the bank. I made use of the detention to enjoy a little fishing for water-plants. The water-lilies surpassed all description, and would adorn any Victoria-house. Unfortunately I could not succeed in transferring to this region the queen of the waters. The Victoria regia seed, which I had brought for the purpose in pots, would never germinate; perhaps, although it was preserved in water, the heat of my cabin during my voyage was too great and destroyed its vitality. I can only boast of having naturalised in this district of Central Africa two plants as representatives of culture in Europe—​the sun-flower and the tomato. The river, which is ordinarily about 300 feet wide, abounds in thick masses of potamogeton, trapa, and yellow ottelia. The seeds of this last plant much resemble the sesamum, growing like the seeds of the Nymphæa in a slimy gelatinous mass; they are collected by the natives, and, after being dried, are pounded down into a sort of meal, which the sailors of Khartoom assured me was a wholesome and excellent remedy for indigestion. It surprised me very much to learn that the eatableness of the water-nut (Trapa) was unknown to the Dinka, although it grew in such abundance on the river.

We landed, towards evening, close below the mouth of the Bahr-el-Arab in a forest of lofty trees, where the West African Stephegyne appears to find its extreme eastern limit. The wood of this species of Rubiaceæ is somewhat soft and light, but its branches make masts for the boats of a strength and straightness unequalled by any other growth in these countries, where wood adapted for erections of any sort is so notably scarce.

The Gazelle, at the place where the Bahr-el-Arab empties itself, has a width of about 1000 feet. This mouth is itself not much less, but just above the mouth the condition of the Gazelle is so different that it must be evident to every sailor that the Bahr-el-Arab plays a very important part in contributing to the entire system.

What the sailors mean by the Bahr-el-Ghazal is really only the channel as far as they navigate it; to them it is not a stream, in a hydrographical sense, such as either the Bahr-el-Arab or the Bahr-el-Dyoor. It is only at the mouth of the Bahr-el-Arab that there first appears a measurable current, and the fairway, which up to that point is not above 15 feet deep, is subsequently never less than twice that depth. After getting every information I could in the remotest west, I come to the conclusion that the Bahr-el-Arab is the main stream. Even at a distance of 300 miles above its mouth it is found throughout the year as a stream which cannot be forded, but must be crossed in boats, whilst the Bahr-el-Dyoor cannot be traced at all at so great a distance from its union with the Nile. The plains through which the Gazelle flows are too level to allow of any recognition at first sight of the true limits of the territory subject to its inundations. Any one, however, who is familiar with the character of the vegetation of the country, will easily detect symptoms from which he could form a tolerably correct opinion. Accordingly, on my return journey in 1871, I gathered ample evidence to satisfy myself that the Gazelle, associated as it is with the Bahr-el-Arab and the Bahr-el-Dyoor, is a river just as truly as either of the others. The fall of the water in the Gazelle is only produced by the torrent driven from the south and west, and may hardly admit of being estimated, since the entire difference measured between Khartoom and the Meshera (the termination of the navigable course) does not altogether amount to 100 feet.

STREAM OF THE GAZELLE.

An important change in the scenery of the shores supervenes upon a further progress. The lake-like surface of the water gives to the Bahr-el-Ghazal the semblance at first sight of being merely an extensive backwater. That just above the mouth of a stream so considerable as the Bahr-el-Arab there should be this abundance of water at the very time of the year when it is at its lowest ebb, is a circumstance which cannot fail to confirm the supposition which I entertained when I entered the Gazelle: I was certain that the narrow channel through which we travelled in the district of the Nueir could not possibly be the entire river; and there surely must exist to the north of the river other not inconsiderable arms, which are inaccessible on account of the denseness of the river grass.

Unhindered by any material obstacles, our course now lay between floating islands, which were partly adorned with variegated blossoms, and partly loaded with a luxuriant growth of splendid ferns. The poles sufficed to keep the boats from the floating vegetation, the masses of which were as unyielding as though they had been sheets of ice. It was evident by the motion of these masses, that the current, though it flowed languidly, had a continued progress towards the east. The river only varies in depth from about 8 to 14 feet. The bed presents the appearance of a meadow, in which little bright tortoises enjoy their pasture. This submerged sward is composed exclusively of the Ethiopian vallisneria, of which the female blossoms, affixed to spiral peduncles, rise from a fathom deep to the surface of the stream, their coiling stalks extending far and wide. Very wonderful is this plant in its sexual development; its northern sisters haunt the waters of the Po and of the Rhone, and have furnished a theme for the admiration of the poet.

Far away, on either side, beyond the flooded borders of the grassy river-bed could be discerned, at a distance of a league or two, large tracts of forest land; and between the river and the line of woods which stretched to the horizon there could be observed the cumbrous shapes of elephants going to and fro, and demonstrating that there at least the land was firm.

The channel, which we rapidly passed along under favourable breezes, became continually broader, and the nearer we approached the river source, the more the banks seemed to recede from each other. The sight of men, fishing out of canoes formed by a couple of hollow stems being fastened together, made us aware that we were approaching the dwellings of the Dinka, and soon after we came upon the enclosures for cattle surrounded by low thatch huts upon the left bank. Sailing on towards the south and south-east, we approximated to the limit of our voyage. A great cracking up in the air revealed to us that the sailyard had once more broken, so that it was only by main force, by pushing and pulling, that we managed to reach a large Dinka village, which lay on the west, almost at the extremity of the stream. Here was the cul-de-sac, to which the Dinka have given the name of the Kyt. We had quite recently passed the mouth of the Dyoor, which appears to separate into several streams; but if my attention had not been called to this circumstance by the Reis, I should certainly never have observed it, on account of the uniform features of that watery region. In our delight at having so quickly, and without misadventure, accomplished our passage up the Gazelle, we had a night of feasting and merry-making.

MESHERA ON THE GAZELLE.

The remainder of the journey was soon completed, and in the early morning hours of the 22nd of February we found ourselves at the Meshera, the landing-place of all who resort to the Gazelle. This place is marked in the maps as Port Rek, called so from the Rek, a section of the Dinka. These Rek people were the first allies among the natives that the new comers had acquired, and they had been accustomed to provide them with bearers long before the Khartoom merchants had established any settlements in the interior. Deducting the days on which we had not proceeded, our boats had taken thirty days in going from Khartoom to the Meshera. I had been anxious to make a good investigation of the river banks; otherwise the voyage might easily be accomplished in twenty days.

Above the mouth of the Dyoor, so difficult of access, the deep channel is continued for a space of sixteen miles, when it forms the cul-de-sac which I have mentioned: there is not the least current when the waters are all at their height; but in March and April there may at some places be observed a retrograde motion of the stream. It is manifestly an ancient bed of the Dyoor, or of some river which in the lapse of time has changed its course. It is not easy to explain it, but the stream seemed to me, as I think I could farther demonstrate, the navigable overflow of some inland liman, that is, the receptacle of a number of considerable rivulets meeting together, something like what the delta of the Canton river would be, if it could be levelled, filled up, and carried away inland. The uniform depth of the channel might seem to originate in some freak in the conformation of the ground, or of the masses of vegetation, which are irregularly scattered about; but really it is only an indication of a condition of things long passed away, when the mainstream flowed through better defined and more contracted borders.

Let us for a moment review the impressions we have gained. The volume of water brought by the Gazelle to swell the Nile is still an unsolved problem. In the contention as to which stream is entitled to rank as first-born among the children of the great river god, the Bahr-el-Ghazal has apparently a claim in every way as valid as the Bahr-el-Gebel. In truth, it would appear to stand in the same relation to the Bahr-el-Gebel as the White Nile does to the Blue. At the season when the waters are highest, the inundations of the Gazelle spread over a very wide territory; about March, the time of year when they are lowest, the river settles down, in its upper section, into a number of vast pools of nearly stagnant water, whilst its lower portion runs off into divers narrow and sluggish channels. These channels, overgrown as they look with massy vegetation, conceal beneath (either in their open depth, or mingled with the unfathomable abyss of mud) such volumes of water as defy our reckoning. The Gazelle then it is which gives to the White Nile a sufficient impetus to roll its waters onward; subsequently the Bahr-el-Gebel finds its way and contributes a more powerful element to the progress of the stream. It must all along be borne in mind that there are besides two other streams, the Dyoor and the Bahr-el-Arab, each of them more important than any tributary of the Bahr-el-Gebel; and these bring in their own influence. To estimate aright the true relation of all these various tributaries is ever opening up the old question in a new light.

THE KYT.

The ramifications above the mouth of the Bahr-el-Arab are very complicated, and must be very imperfectly traced on our present maps. The map issued by Lejean has many details, but must be accepted with caution, and requires us to remember that paper is patient of error as well as of truth. Whoever has traversed the lakes (so to call them) to the west of the Bahr-el-Arab, has, almost immediately beyond the mouth of the Dyoor, come upon the winding channel known as “the Kyt.” The shores of the Kyt are firm; there are detached groups of papyrus driven by the wind sometimes to its one bank, and sometimes to the other: its waters rise and fall, but have no other apparent motion; it widens at its extremity into a basin of papyrus, which was now open, but which in 1863 was entirely choked by ambatch. Heuglin, at that date, discerned, as he thought, in the dwindled and distorted stems a prognostication of an approaching disappearance of the ambatch; and from 1869 to 1871 there was no trace of it, Various openings are made by the water towards the west among the masses of papyrus, which enclose a labyrinth of little wooded islets.[13] One of these islands is the resting-place for the boats, and close at hand the voyagers establish their temporary camp. Being surrounded on every side by the water, all is secure from any hostile attack. The regular landing-place is on the southern shore of the basin, and thence commence the expeditions to the interior.

Such is the channel which, from the times of the earliest explorers, which appear to extend from the date of Nero’s centurions, mentioned by Seneca, up to the mercantile enterprises and voyages of discoveries of the last ten years, has always brought boats to that cul-de-sac, called by the Nubian sailors their Meshera. The first boat, which actually entered the Gazelle, was that of a Khartoom merchant, named Habeshy, in 1854; two years later followed Consul Petherick, the first to open mercantile transactions with the tribes resident in these remote regions.

At that time, when nothing was known either of the Dyoor or of the Bahr-el-Arab, it must have been no small surprise to the first explorers to see a stream so large suddenly end amongst a labyrinth of small islands, without any navigable affluent. Only by the help of a native pilot was such a discovery possible.

The Meshera.

MALARIOUS ATMOSPHERE.

I was compelled to linger out the remainder of February and the greater part of March in camp upon the little island, pending the arrival of the bearers who were to help me onwards to Ghattas’s Seriba. I was happy in escaping any ill effects such as might be dreaded from a protracted residence by this unhealthy river. I attributed my immunity in great measure to the precautionary use of quinine. Although by my daily occupations, botanising in swamps and continually wading amongst papyrus clumps, I had been more exposed to malaria than many others, I experienced no sickness. I swallowed every day, in three doses, eight or nine grains of quinine, enclosed for that purpose in gelatine capsules; this method is to be strongly recommended to every traveller, since the intense bitterness of the medicine taken in its undisguised form may excite a degree of nausea which, I can well believe, may contribute its part to a liability to fever. This treatment I continued, without its having any ill effect upon my constitution, until I could dispense with it in the purer air of the interior. I suppose, since this is not an universal experience, that the effects of the alkaloids may vary with different patients, and therefore it would be well for every one first to test the susceptibility of his individual constitution.

It is only too well known how many victims this treacherous climate has already claimed; it may without exaggeration be maintained, that half the travellers who have ventured into the swamps have succumbed to fever. The highest mortality was in the settlements of the Austrian mission in Gondokoro and St. Cross, now long since abandoned. Miss Tinné’s expedition of 1863 suffered the loss of five out of its nine European members, among them my unfortunate predecessor in the botanical investigation of this district, Dr. Steudner, who died suddenly quite at the beginning of the journey. Heuglin, too, lost the greater part of his valuable time in continual relapses of fever. The foundations of these miserable attacks had probably been laid in the miasma, of which the traveller had inhaled the poison during a protracted sojourn in the Meshera. The latest Job’s comfort, which had most unnerved me, had come just as I was embarking at Trieste. The French Geographical Society had, a few months previously, sent out Le Saint, a naval officer, on a voyage of discovery, having for its object the same district as myself, viz., the Niam-niam countries. His outward journey had been much lengthened by the grass obstruction in the Giraffe stream, and he died before he entered the country in which his more extended wanderings were designed to commence.

Before quitting the Meshera (the only landing-place for expeditions starting from the Gazelle) I will make a few observations on the natural character, scenery, and inhabitants of the region of this unique island world.

The Meshera had been reached by eighteen different boats belonging to Khartoom merchants, and these now lay, half-buried in mud and clay, firmly wedged in the jungle of papyrus. Every new comer could only by great exertions procure a fresh resting-place. For that purpose they proceeded in the following way: they backed their boat a little into the open water, and anchored; then a rope was fastened to a strong mass of papyrus-roots, which it towed with its loosened clods attached into open water, until the breeze carried over the entire floating mass to the opposite side of the basin. Thus was obtained one artificial Delos after another. The access to the bank is, however, still left blocked up by the compact border of papyrus thus conveyed across. By means of fire and hatchet avenues are then opened, and the long roots of papyrus are piled upon the elastic sward of its stubble until an available pathway is complete.

Most of the islands are adorned by graceful masses of bushes and by light groves of the larger trees, but the hatchet of strangers every year is altering this condition of things. In spite of all the uniformity of the tall papyrus bushes, and notwithstanding the burnt and dry appearance of the steppe-grasses, there is no lack, even in the mild winter of this little island-world, of the charms of scenery. The dark crowns of the evergreen tamarind stand out in sharp outline against the bare rugged branches of the acacias in their grey winter garb, between which the eccentric shapes of the candelabra-euphorbiæ, closely interlaced, bound the horizon in every direction, and form, as often as the eye wanders over the neighbouring islands, a fine gradation of endless shades of colour. This is especially noticeable in the early morning, when at sunrise a heavy mist hangs over the damp flats, and sometimes here, sometimes there, sets limits to the prospect, in a way that would lend enchantment to any scenery.

SECURITY IN THE MESHERA.

Protected by the endless ramifications of the marshes against any attacks of dangerous quadrupeds from the mainland, the sojourner here had only the most determined of all depredators to fear, namely, man himself. But even this fear was not really great. Nowhere on the face of the earth is a country more surrendered to robbery and lawlessness than this district of Africa; but still, as ever, one form of mischief balances another: man is a match for man; and so it results that the stranger may find repose and security here as much as elsewhere. The natives, who occupy the entire land in a wide circumference from the Meshera, form a portion of the great Dinka family, whose extreme outposts extend eastwards towards the Egyptian borders of Upper Sennaar, and whose tribes are counted by the hundred.

One of the most influential personages of the neighbouring race of the Lao was a woman, already advanced in years, of the name of Shol. She played an important part as a sort of chief in the Meshera, her riches, according to the old patriarchal fashion, consisting of cattle. As wealthy as cattle could make her, she would long since have been a prey to the Nubians, who carry on their ravages principally in those regions, if it had not chanced that the intruders needed her for a friend. They required a convenient and secure landing-place, and the paramount necessity of having this induced them to consider plunder as a secondary matter. They provided in this way, that single boats, even after all others had taken their departure, could safely remain in the Meshera throughout the rainy season without incurring any risk from the natives. The boatmen accordingly respect the bank of the river which is the resort of Shol’s herds; whilst Shol, on her part, uses all her influence to retain her tribe on friendly terms with the strangers. The smallest conflict might involve the entire loss of her property.

The old Shol did not delay, but the very first day came to my boat to visit me. On account of the colour of my skin, the Nubians had told her that I was a brother of the Sigñora (Miss Tinné). My pen fails in any attempt to depict her repulsiveness. Her naked negro skin was leathery, coarse, and wrinkled; her figure was tottering and knocked-kneed; she was utterly toothless; her meagre hair hung in greasy locks; round her loins she had a greasy slip of sheepskin, the border of which was tricked out with white beads and iron rings; on her wrists and ankles she had almost an arsenal of metal, links of iron, brass, and copper, strong enough to detain a prisoner in his cell; about her neck were hanging chains of iron, strips of leather, strings of wooden balls, and heaven knows what lumber more. Such was old Shol.

A soldier, who had formerly been a Dinka slave, acted as interpreter. For the purpose of impressing me with a due sense of the honour of the visit and in the hope of getting a present, he began to extol Shol and to enlarge upon the multitude of her cattle. All the sheep-farms, of which the smoke rose so hospitably to the stranger, were hers; hers were all the bullock runs along the river banks; the murahs which extended in every direction of the compass without exception, were hers; she had at least 30,000 head of cattle; in addition to which I could form no conception of the iron and copper rings and chains which filled her stores.

After this introduction the conversation turned upon Miss Tinné, who remained fresh upon the memory of all. Her liberality in making presents of beads had secured her a fame like Schiller’s “Mädchen aus der Fremde,” the spring, who brought a gift for every one. The old Shol could not refrain from expressing her surprise that Miss Tinné should be unmarried; as an African she could not comprehend how a lady that was rich could be without a husband.

THE OLD SHOL.

Very strange were the domestic and family relationships of Shol when considered in contrast with her public position, her present influence, and her excessive wealth. After the death of her first husband she had become the wife of his son by a previous marriage. She had thus raised this man, who was younger than herself, to the rank of prince consort. His name was Kurdyook. I had a visit from him on the following day. From his intercourse with the traders he could speak Arabic intelligibly. Like the rest, he was loud in his praises of Miss Tinné, and in her honour he had called the child of one of his concubines “the Sigñora.” Plainly there was a longing after the culture of European refinement, and let us hope that it will not stop at the name.

The old Shol.

Of course, in comparison with his wife, he was quite destitute of lands; he was a mere cypher as far as any influence on the tribe was concerned, but yet he exercised a terror over Shol, which, under the circumstances, was quite incredible. He was accustomed to chastise this dame, who was at once his stepmother and his spouse, and to act towards her in the most brutal manner, although she was herself in the habit, perchance as a token of her dignity, of carrying in her hand several knotted thongs like a cat-o’-nine-tails.

With rambles in the neighbourhood and in receiving a succession of visitors, I found the days pass pleasantly away. On the mainland towards the north there were several more important villages, composed of permanent dwellings and fixed enclosures for oxen. To these I constantly resorted, and the concourse of so many men coming out of curiosity to look at me, entertained me very much. Failure alike both of water and food during the dry season had driven old Shol herself to one of the islands adjacent to the landing-place; here in some wretched huts not far from our boats she had taken up her residence in the midst of a quantity of her cattle. I occasionally paid her a visit, for the purpose of penetrating to the mysteries of her dairy.

INTERCHANGE OF PRESENTS.

On the 26th of February the old queen came to the tent which I occupied on the island, having been informed that the presents designed for her majesty there awaited her. On this occasion she had a costume somewhat different. She had made a fresh selection of her paraphernalia from her iron rings and chains, and so arrayed herself anew. I had prepared everything for a stately reception, as I was anxious to leave behind me an impression as favourable as Miss Tinné. There were beads as large as eggs, such as never before were seen in this country; there were marbles of green and blue from the Oriental plains: she was told they were for her. Next there were chains of steel; these, too, were hers: then that majestic chair of plaited straw; she could scarcely believe that she was to have it for her throne. But the crowning charm of all was an immense bronze medal, with a chain of plated gold, which she could hang about her neck; it was in fact, a commemoration of a German professor’s jubilee, with the Emperor’s likeness upon it; but no one can conceive the admiration it excited. She was really touched, and the sailors and soldiers seemed to like the medal as much as she did. The gifts which were made to me in return consisted of a calabash full of butter, a goat, a sheep, and a splendid bull of a peculiar breed, without horns.

The most remarkable plant amongst the islands of the Meshera is a climbing passion-flower—​the Adenia venenata, the bright green leaves of which are applied by the natives of Central Africa for the purpose of drawing blisters. These leaves have, however, a poisonous property, which has proved fatal to camels. Camels have but a feeble faculty of smelling, and eat freely of whatever looks green, so that all attempts to acclimatise them here have been without success. It is the same plant which deprived Sir Samuel Baker of his pack-ass in Latuka. The most noticeable thing about the plant is the large development of its stem, which grows half under the soil, and projects with a strange protuberance some cubic feet in content. At the end of this the stem breaks out into a number of long climbing stalks, which mount upwards to a considerable height. One example of these stems I packed in linen and sent to Berlin, where, after a period of ten months, it was found to retain its vitality, and in a palm-house soon developed a number of young shoots.

The waters furnished a variety of fishes; amongst these few were more frequently seen than a sort of harness fish (Polypterus bichir), of which a representation will be given in a later chapter. But the creature which most particularly arrested my attention was the salamander-like fish of Gambia (Lepidosiren), which, with its four slim feet projecting from its fish-like form, had a mouth like that of a shark. I saw specimens between three and four feet long. Its flabby slimy flesh is disgusting to the Nubians, although Sir Samuel Baker, who found the same species in the Albert Nyanza, could not sufficiently praise its flavour. The whole family of the Siluridæ is here represented as much as in other sections of the Nile. Many of them share with the fish-salamander the practice of burying themselves in the bank, that they may await in the dry the rising of the stream; in the same way as an eel they can wriggle themselves through the soil, and even make a way over the dry ground.

Considering the circumscribed limits of land, the feathered race were found in great variety. I saw at least sixty kinds of birds upon the four or five islands which were nearest us. Conspicuous above all was the graceful rail (Parra africana), with its spreading claws and wiry legs stalking proudly, as if on land, upon a carpet of water-lily leaves. And not unheard were the familiar notes of our own home birds. Sparrows innumerable thronged about the papyrus plants, on which they settled for their evening roost. All this, however, is but the old story of ornithological travellers who have been before me, and hardly needs to be repeated here.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Speke, p. 609: “We found only a small piece of water, resembling a duck-pond buried in a sea of rushes.”

[12] The words of the far-famed traveller are:—​“It runs from Sennaar past many considerable villages, which are inhabited by white men of Arabia. Here it passes by Gerri [now Khartoom], in a north-easterly direction, so as to join the Tacazze.”—​Bruce. b. vi. c. 14.

[13] In the accompanying plan it is attempted to give some general idea of this confusion.

VIEW ON THE MESHERA (PORT REK).

CHAPTER IV.

Start for the interior. Flags of the Khartoomers. Comfortable travelling with bearers. The African elephant. Parting from Shol and Kurdyook. Disgusting wells in the district of the Lao. Wide sandflats. Village of Take. Fatal accident. Arabian protocol. Halt in the village of Kudy. Description of the Dinka. Peculiarities of the race. Dyeing of the hair. Nudity. “The Turkish lady.” Iron age. Weapons of the Dinka. “People of the stick.” Weapons of defence. Domestic cleanliness. Cuisine. Entertainment of the ladies. Snakes. Tobacco-smoking. Construction of the huts. Dinka sheep, goats, and dogs. Reverence for cattle. Degeneration of cows. Intestinal worms. Deficiency of milk. Large murahs. Capabilities of the Dinka. Warlike spirit. Treatment of enemies. Instance of parental affection. Forest district of the Al-Waj. Arrival at Ghattas’s chief Seriba.

It was not until the eighteenth day of our sojourn in the Meshera that Ghattas’s second boat arrived, conveying the remainder of the newly-enlisted mercenaries and a year’s provisions for the Seriba. The agent on board was commissioned to procure for me from the interior whatever porters were requisite for my progress. The shortest possible time that must elapse before he could get to the Seriba and back was eleven days; punctually at the end of that period he returned, and placed at my disposal seventy bearers. Thus fortunately I had time enough and to spare before the commencement of the rainy season to start for the interior.

By the 25th of March all arrangements for setting out were complete, and we were ready to turn our backs upon the damp air of the swamps with its nightly plague of flies.

Several smaller companies having joined Ghattas’s expedition, the number of our caravan was a little under five hundred. Of these the armed men alone amounted to nearly two hundred; marching in single file they formed a long column, and constituted a force with which we might have crossed the largest State of Central Africa unmolested. Our course for six days would be through a notoriously hostile country, so that this protection was quite necessary; but the caravan, extending fully half a mile, was of a magnitude to require great order and circumspection. Each division had its banner, and to each was appointed its proper place in the procession. The different companies of the Khartoom merchants were distinguished by the colour of their banners, all emblazoned by the star and crescent of Islam. Instead of this, Ghattas, as a Christian, had a white flag, on which were worked the crescent and a St. Andrew’s cross. This compromise between the crescent and the true cross did not, however, exclude certain passages from the Koran, relating to the conquest of unbelievers, and which could not be permitted to be wanting on any Khartoom banner. The handsome flag of my own boat was lying wrapped away in a box. I confess I had no desire to make a display of it among savages, and in a region where its meaning could not be comprehended; but even if I had wished to exhibit it, I subsequently discovered that any attempt to do so would have been quite a failure. No Nubians would on any account have followed a flag which did not bear the crescent and the passages from the Koran. The boats on the Nile, it is true, when they carry or belong to Europeans, do not despise the European colours; but in the heart of the negro country, where no Egyptian authority exists, it is different, and consequently all European flags are worthless. The banner of Islam is to them a talisman, and they would consider it as sacrilege to replace it by the banner of any Christian country. Even the trading expeditions conducted by European merchants from Khartoom have conformed to this rule, and I have myself witnessed the flag waving on the Rohl River at the last settlement maintained by the brothers Poncet.

TRANSPORT OF BAGGAGE.

To a naturalist on his travels, the employment of men as a means of transport appears the perfection of convenience. Apart from the despatch and order in starting, and the regular continuous progress, he enjoys the incalculable advantage of being able to reach his baggage at any moment, and to open and close again without loss of time any particular package. Any one who has ever experienced the particular annoyances of camel-transport will be quite aware of the comparative comfort of this mode of proceeding. A few asses accompanied the caravan, and the governor of Ghattas’s Seriba had been courteous enough to send me his own saddle-ass, but I preferred to trust myself to my own legs. Riding a badly-saddled donkey is always infinitely more fatiguing to me than any exertion which may be requisite to keep up with the forced marches of the light-footed Nubians; besides, I had other objects in view than mere progress: I wished to observe and take notes of anything that came in my way, and to collect plants and whatever else might be of interest. Thus entirely on foot I began the wanderings which for two years and three months I pursued over a distance of more than 2000 miles. Neither camels nor asses, mules nor horses, teams of oxen nor palanquin-bearers contributed their aid. The only animal available, by the help of which Central Africa could be opened to civilisation, is exterminated by fire and sword; the elephant is destroyed mainly for the purpose of procuring for civilised nations an article wherewith to manufacture toys and ornaments, and Europeans still persevere in setting the savages a pernicious example in this respect.

There is sufficient evidence to show that the African elephant, which at the present time appears to surpass the Indian species as much in wild ferocity as in size, was formerly tamed and trained in the same way as the elephant in India. Medals have come down to us which portray the considerable differences between the two species. They show the immense size of the ear of the African elephant, and prove beyond a doubt that it was once employed as a domestic animal. The state of torpor to which, since the fall of the Roman Empire, all the nations of the northern part of Africa have been reduced, is sufficient explanation why the worth of this animal should have been suffered to fall into oblivion. The elephant takes as long as a man to grow to maturity, and it could hardly be expected of the Arabs that they should undertake the tedious task of its training; and certainly it could not be expected of Turks, who have hardly patience to wait for the fruits of one year’s growth, and who would like the world to have been made so that they could pick up their guineas already coined on the mountains. It would be no unfortunate event for Africa if some of the European philanthropists, who now squander their homœpathic charities on the welfare of the negroes, were to turn their sympathy a little to the pitiable lot which has befallen the elephant. The testimony of Burton in his ‘Nile Basin’ is, that not only might elephants be made useful to man, but that they appear to possess an instinct which is quite a match for the reason not only of the natives of Africa, but of some other of the bipeds who visit its inhospitable shores.

Extremely toilsome, I must own, were the first few hours of the march. After being for months limited to the boat’s deck and to short excursions from my little island, I now found myself forced to keep up with the sharp pace of the negroes, which would be a matter of difficulty to any one but a member of the Alpine Club. Towards evening, after a two hours’ march, we made our first halt in Shol’s village. Near the huts some giant Kigelia, in full flower, displayed their purple tulip-like blossoms; they still stand as landmarks on the spot, although the old Shol has gone to her rest and the last fragments of her burnt huts have vanished. This Kigelia is common throughout Africa, and is distinguished for its remarkable fruit, two feet long, which hangs from the boughs like a string of sausages. The leaf is somewhat similar to our walnut, and in its tout ensemble the tree may bear comparison with a majestic oak. Trees of such marked peculiarity cannot do otherwise than make an impression on the memory of every traveller in equatorial Africa.

ACROSS THE DINKA LAND.

Shol had come expressly from her island to take leave of us, and to offer her hospitality to the caravan. Our course now lay in a tolerably straight S.S.W. direction across the western district of the extensive territory of the unsubdued Dinka. We rested occasionally in the deserted villages and amidst the empty cattle-pens belonging to the natives, who made their escape as we advanced. By their continual cattle-stealing, the Nubians have caused all the Dinka tribes to consider foreign interlopers as their bitter enemies; the intercourse, therefore, with the settlements in the Bongo and Dyoor countries, which are separated from the river by the Dinka district, can only be maintained at the expense of keeping an adequate number of armed men to protect the porters. Agriculture, although it is carried on to a certain extent, is quite a secondary consideration. The Dinka often possess large quantities of sheep and goats, but principally they are breeders of cattle. The number of cattle in the country is astounding, and seems as if it must be inexhaustible, even when it is remembered that thousands are stolen annually by the Nubians. There are tracts of grazing ground which take a whole day to cross; murahs are scattered throughout the land like villages in Germany, and many of them would contain 10,000 beasts, unless I err in my computation, which is made by reckoning the pegs to which the animals are tethered.

Before I parted from my old friend Shol I had to make one more offering of gratitude for the hospitality I had enjoyed; this consisted of an amulet which I had to compose at Kurdyook’s request. I wrote him as a testimonial a recommendation to any future visitor to the country. The Nubians and true Arabs, in a way that is not seen in Egypt, often wear round their neck and arms a number of ornamental leather sheaths, which contain passages from the Koran; on being asked what is inside they reply, “It is the name of God.” Such amulets are even bound round the necks of horses and valuable asses. It would never occur to a Nubian to ask a Frank for an amulet; they have their Faki, who make a harvest of the business. But Kurdyook was no Mohammedan; he was a pure, uncontaminated heathen, and Mohammedan prejudice had no part in his superstition; in his eyes the white man was a being of a higher order, and was accordingly in a position to exercise greater authority over the invisible powers of fate than the swarthy priest of Islam.

We now passed on through a country covered by farmsteads, repeatedly crossing fields of sorghum-stubble. The stalks, fifteen feet in length, which lay everywhere scattered on the ground, were a great impediment to our progress. The corn here cultivated is the largest form of the species; it takes nine months to ripen, and the stem in consequence becomes so hard and woody that it is no more like our European straw than their stubble-fields are like ours. At other places at this season the nature of the ground generally offered no hindrance, the clayey swamps being dry and hard as stone; the high grass of the steppe trodden down by men and cattle, the woods everywhere thin as in Southern Nubia, and consisting of isolated thickets or scattered trees of no great size.

For the purpose of geographical investigation a journey in the rainy season would be more advantageous, because it is only then that the actual limit and importance of the periodical currents are to be estimated. The term periodical, however, so frequently used in connexion with the hydrographical conditions of Africa, perhaps hardly gives a correct impression, since the brooks and streams which more or less are dried up after the rainy seasons are over, still exercise their influence on the conformation of the land, just as truly, if not so obviously, as our perpetual rivers, which are permanently limited to their proper channels. Many of the rivulets in this extensive level have no apparent bed; for in proportion as the water decreases, the bed by degrees resumes its aspect of being covered with grass; the turf rapidly grows afresh as the water recedes, and, independently of this, much of it is able to endure a flood of several months without rotting or dying away. This is a circumstance which quite easily explains the misconceptions to which various travellers in the dry season have been liable, who have gone along without recognising any river-beds at all. It is not in any way surprising that they have crossed the beds of even considerable streams without perceiving in them anything different to ordinary undulations of the ground, for there is nothing to arrest the attention but the same uniform growth of grass, the same dry stubble, the same scorched, trampled stalks. Ten miles from the Meshera we reached the first watering-place in the centre of the Lao district, an open cultivated plain, several miles in extent, diversified with numerous farms and hamlets. Two fine sycamores seemed to beckon from afar and invite us to the spot.

HALT AT LAO.

The water had to be drawn from a depth of fifteen feet, from wells which contained nothing better than a stinking, impure pulp. These wells are the residue of great pools formed in the rainy season, and subsequently developing a wonderful abundance of animal life, although they produce nothing in any way adapted for culinary purposes. Large water-scorpions (Belostoma), beetles, and other creeping things that are ever at home in stinking pools, whirl about in these muddy depths. Here it is, apparently, that the Dinka cows and sheep renew annually their progeny of intestinal worms (Amphistoma) and cercariæ, of which the filthy beds are most prolific. Such was the drinking-water of Lao.

The natives had imagined that we should pass the night at the well; anxious, however, to take advantage of the coolness of the air, we resolved, by a forced night-march, to get quickly over the district, void of water, that lay before us. Marching on through the adjacent farms we noticed old and young hurrying off into the adjacent thickets, our arrival being unexpected. Many a smoking porridge-pot had been forsaken, and now fell into the hands of the greedy bearers, making them still more desirous of tarrying here for the night; but the orders were peremptory which had been given to our people to push forward without delay.

To the south the ground stretched uniformly for ten miles in sandy plains bare of grass, pleasantly broken at intervals by bushy shrubs and single trees. Onwards we went for five hours of the night over moonlit sands, the imagination giving a weird aspect to all around. The region strongly reminded me of the acacia-woods of Taka and Gedaref in South Nubia, which are seen in crossing the forests at the foot of the Abyssinian highlands. The character of the vegetation approximates to that of Kordofan. The commonest trees are the Seyal-acacia, hegelig, tamarind, Christ’s thorn, capparis, and that remarkable thorn, the randia, the branches of which serve as models for the pointed lances which the inhabitants of Central Africa employ. One of the trees of Southern Kordofan finds here its southern limit: this is the Albizzia sericocephala, a tree of moderate size, of which the finely-articulated, mimosa-like leaf consists of from 5000 to 6000 particles; the thick clusters of blossom gleamed out from the obscurity like snow, and the air was laden with their balmy fragrance. Thus we wandered on as through a cultivated garden, our path as smooth as if we were on gravelled walks. Reaching at length a considerable village, we encamped on the deserted site of a large cattle-park. A sudden storm of rain put the caravan into a commotion, and forced me to retire with my bedding into one of the wretched huts, which are not really dwellings, but are used for the nightly shelter of the cow-herds. Imbedded a foot deep in fine white ashes, and enveloped in a cloud of dust, I passed the remainder of the night, alternate coughing and sneezing making all sleep simply impossible.

VILLAGE OF TAKE.

On the following day we had to march for five hours without a draught of water, until a hospitable asylum was opened to us in a village of Take. We were now in the district of the Rek, a locality which formerly made a hitch in the traffic with the natives, before Petherick broke a way to the south through the Dyoor and Bongo, and opened a trade with the Niam-niam.

This Take was an old friend and ally of the Khartoomers, and had attired himself in honour of the occasion in a figured calico shirt, without regard to the prejudices of his countrymen, who despise all clothing as effeminate. Near this village in 1858 there existed a temporary establishment from in which the brothers Poncet started on their elephant hunts the Dinka territory. They called the place Mirakok, but Mirakok and its elephants are now alike unknown in this land of the past, where (transient as a shower or a tide) all the lives and deeds of men have been long forgotten. It has been a land without chalk or stone, so that no permanent buildings could be constructed; it has consequently only reared a people which have been without chiefs, without traditions, without history. Detached fan-palms (Borassus), 100 feet high, in default of anything more lasting, mark the abode of Take, a shelter which was destined to have its sad associations for the travellers.

Ghattas’s standard-bearer, a most courageous fellow and the best shot among all our Nubians, killed himself on a hunting excursion, which he had undertaken with me and my servant. I had contented myself with bagging a lot of remarkably plump wild pigeons, but he was resolved to get at some guinea-fowl; for this purpose he made his way into a thicket, where, as he was loading his piece, it accidentally went off, the charge entering his breast. This accident befell the one who was supposed to be incomparably the most skilful of our party in handling his weapons, and it may be imagined what was to be expected of the rest. Blundering accidents and wounds were of perpetual occurrence, so that I should only weary the reader by recounting them. The traveller who has to march with these so-called soldiers must be content to know that he could not anywhere more thoroughly be exposed to the danger of being killed by a chance shot; and I do not exaggerate the truth when I affirm that my life was over and over again seriously threatened.

The unfortunate Soliman, who was thus the victim of his own mischance, was the man who had saved my servant Mohammed when he had his encounter with the wild buffalo. Half the camp hastened to the ill-fated spot, to be enabled to testify to the accidental death of Soliman by his own hand. So quietly had he fallen that even my servant Osman, who was near, ascertained quite casually that he was dead; a dark mark, caused by the smoke from the powder, at the orifice of the gaping wound, showed that his gun had gone off while he was holding it. Sobbing and weeping, his friends and countrymen stood round his body, and even the stony-hearted cattle-stealers seemed as if, after all, they were not utterly devoid of all human emotion. One of them was touched with a strange remorse, the reason of which I afterwards discovered. It appeared that Soliman owed him a debt, which he declared he had paid; on the previous day, while Soliman had been emphatically persisting that the debt was discharged, his accuser, in his rage, cursed him with the heaviest imprecation he could command: “The dogs devour thee!” The disaster, therefore, was a manifest punishment from heaven; the man would indeed gladly have never uttered the curse, but yet he could not be reconciled with the dead. On the very next day, as we were about to start, another man shattered the upper part of his arm by carelessly taking his gun from a bush where he had laid it.

We left the unlucky spot, and proceeded two miles further to the village of Kudy, also an old friend of the Turks, as the Khartoomers are everywhere termed by the natives. Here we made another halt, in order to pass the day in slaughtering some cattle, in feasting on beef and goat’s flesh, and in laying in a store of corn for our large party of bearers.

LEGAL AFFIDAVIT.

Here also a kind of affidavit or protocol, strictly conformable to Mohammedan rule, was taken of the previous day’s accident, in order to be able to produce legal evidence at Khartoom, where the deceased Soliman had left a wife and child. The chief part of this important business was performed by the Faki, who accompanied the party as private slave-dealers, enacting at the same time their legal character as scribes. After the protocol was drawn up, it was sealed, according to Oriental custom, by the agents who were present. This was not done without great prolixity and circumstantial debate. The formality of the document was curious; its opening words were: “Osman the agent asks Osman the servant of the lord Musyu the question: Where is Soliman?” Osman in his turn had to give an account of the accident: “As we were hunting in the thicket, I heard a shot,” and so on. They did not expect to be cross-examined; they did not look for even such mild reproach as the king gave Hamlet when he inquired, “Where’s Polonius?” but they considered it quite as well to keep up the old-established form.

With Kudy I found a good opportunity of prosecuting my study of the Dinka, which I had already taken up in earnest during my stay in the Meshera. My relations with this strange pastoral people were, throughout the two years which I spent in the interior, but rarely discontinued. Dinka were my cow-herds, and Dinka provided me with all the requirements of my cuisine as long as I stayed in Ghattas’s Seriba; and even in the remotest limits of my wanderings I had dealings with them. I am only acquainted with the western branch of this people, whose territory altogether extends over an area of from 60,000 to 70,000 square miles, of which the length is close upon 400 miles; my knowledge, however, is accurate enough to enable me from my own observation to add much that is new to the descriptions which previous travellers have given of this people.

Although individual tribes of the Dinka, with regard to height and bodily size, stand pre-eminent in the scale of the human race, the majority of this western branch of the nation rarely exceeds a middle height. Of twenty-six representatives that were measured, the average height was about 5 ft. 7 in. According to this, the average size of the Dinka is inferior to that of the Kaffirs, but it exceeds that of Englishmen.

NEGRO PHYSIOGNOMY.

In their figure they are like the swamp-men, if such an expression may be allowed, presenting the same lankiness of limb which has been already noticed as characteristic of the Shillooks and Nueir. The upper part of the body appears shorter than among the less swarthy and more robust races who inhabit the rocky hills of the interior. The outline of their sinewy frame is very decidedly marked in the horizontal, angular shoulders; a long neck, slightly contracted at the base, corresponds with the head, which also gradually contracts towards the top and back, and which is generally somewhat flat and narrow. Ordinarily there is a strongly developed width of jaw. Altogether there is a general harmony pervading the whole figure, and the scientific student will hardly fail to recognise the evidence that nature has pursued a definite end in the development which here exists. The Dinka must be reckoned amongst the darkest of races, but the deep black of their complexion gives place to a manifest tint of brown when the ashes are washed off with which they delight in rubbing themselves. When they have smeared themselves with oil, or taken a bath, their skin shines like dark bronze. The dull polish of chocolate may be taken as descriptive of the brighter hue; this, however, is seldom seen even when the ashes are cleared away, because the removal of the dead scales of cuticle, which then takes place, is followed by a greyish tint which spreads over the skin.

The blue tinge which has been attributed to the negro’s skin is entirely a matter of imagination; it may be confidently asserted to be solely the reflection of the sky. This result of reflection is especially to be observed when we chance to see one of these swarthy fellows standing at the aperture of his gloomy hut, which gets no light but what enters by the door.

Profiles of the Dinka.

Any apparent uniformity of physiognomy is all an illusion: it originates more in the inexperience of the eye than in any positive resemblance of feature. The three profiles of which illustrations are given show a marked variety in form between nose and nose. Generally, however, according to our conventional æsthetic notions, the men are more comely than the women of the same age. Pleasant, not to say ordinarily human features, are rare: hideous contortions, increased by the grimaces to which the short eyebrows contribute by reducing the shallow foreheads to a mere nothing, give the majority an expression scarcely better than a baboon’s. Still there are exceptions, and with regard to these it must at times be owned that they present a regularity of feature with which no fault could be found.

The hair of the Dinka is nearly always very meagre; it is generally closely shorn, except at the crown, where a tuft is left, which they ornament with ostrich feathers, in imitation of a heron. The helmet-shaped combs of the Shillooks are never seen, but tufts of woolly locks are much in fashion. Occasionally, but not often, the hair is plaited in fine braids, which run in parallel lines across the head. The women wear their hair either closely shaven or as short as possible.

The accompanying portrait represents what might be styled a Dinka dandy, distinguished for unusually long hair. He must be classed as belonging to that finer-formed race which has been mentioned. By continual combing and stroking with hair-pins, the hair of the negro loses much of its close curliness. Such was the case here: the hair, six inches long, was trained up into points like tongues of flame, and these, standing stiffly up all round his head, gave the man a fiendish look, which was still further increased by its being dyed a foxy red.

This tint is the result of continual washing with cow-urine; a similar effect can be produced by the application for a fortnight of a mixture of dung and ashes. The beard never attains sufficient growth to be worth their attention. Their razors are of the most primitive description, consisting simply of carefully ground lance-tips.

A Dinka Dandy.

HAIR AND TEETH OF THE DINKA.

Both sexes break off the lower incisor teeth, a custom which they practise in common with the majority of the natives of the district of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The object of this hideous mutilation is hard to determine; its effect appears in their inarticulate language, of which I suppose we could not imitate the sound, unless we submitted to the same ordeal. Some Africans file their incisor teeth to a point; others, like the Batoka of the Upper Zambesi, break out those of the upper jaw. The former of these practices appears comprehensible as increasing their capability for defence in single combat; and the latter is perhaps an imitation of their deified ruminants; but the reason why the Dinka should absolutely disfigure their lower jaw is quite beyond my comprehension. The African races have commonly been reported as distinguished for their fine rows of teeth, and it was accordingly a matter of surprise that bad teeth were so often conspicuous. The aged on this account are little short of disgusting, for the upper teeth, from the deficiency of opposition from the lower, project far from the mouth and stick out like a finger-joint. So marked is this peculiarity that some of the people have acquired from the Nubians the soubriquet of Abu-Senoon, father jut-tooth.

Men and women alike pierce their ears in several places, and insert iron rings or little bars with iron tips. The women also bore the upper lip and fit in an iron pin, running through a bead, a custom which is common among the Nueir. Tattooing is only practised by the men, and always consists of about ten radiating strokes, which traverse forehead and temples, having for their centre the glabella, or base of the nose: it is a symbol by which the Dinka are recognised at once.

The observation of Barth,[14] that many heathen tribes consider clothing more necessary for men than for women is not applicable to the Dinka or any of the natives of the river plains. According to Dinka notions of propriety, it is becoming for none but women to wear any covering; any attire, even of the most moderate description, is considered unworthy of the men. The Nubians, who are always called Turks, do not certainly belong to the most carefully clothed of the human race, yet the Dinka always term them women, a designation which in this sense is quite common. I always appeared in a complete suit of clothes, and my apparel accordingly gained for me the ironical title of the “Turkish lady.”

DINKA ORNAMENTS.

On the other hand the women here are scrupulously clothed with two aprons of untanned skin, which reach before and behind from the hips to the ankles, and are trimmed round the edges with rows of beads, small iron rings, and little bells. At that time, white beads, as large as peas, with blue spots, called “Genetot ahdah” in the Khartoom market, and others an inch in diameter, called “Barrad” or hailstones, which were principally worn by the men as necklaces, were all the rage, every other description being contemptuously rejected. In the course of a few years the fashions in beads change, and the store-houses in the Seribas of the Khartoomers get overstocked with supplies that are old-fashioned, and are consequently worthless.

The Dinka live in a veritable iron age—​that is to say, they live in an age in which iron has still a high value; copper is not esteemed of corresponding importance. The wives of some of the wealthy are often laden with iron to such a degree that, without exaggeration, I may affirm, that I have seen several carrying about with them close upon half a hundredweight of these savage ornaments. The heavy rings with which the women load their wrists and ankles, clank and resound like the fetters of slaves. Free from any other domination, it is remarkable of this people how, nevertheless, they are not free from the fetters of fashion. The favourite ornaments of the men are massive ivory rings, which they wear round the upper part of the arm; the rich adorn themselves from elbows to wrists with a whole series of rings, close together so as to touch. An adornment for the neck of less distinguished character is formed of strings of plaited leather; the bracelets are cut out of hippopotamus hide; and the tails of cows and goats, in which every Dinka exquisite arrays himself, and with which he trims his weapons, are in common use.

Since the Dinka cannot do much with his miserable crop of hair, he turns his attention to caps and perukes in a way not unfrequent among Africans. Whilst I was with Kudy I often saw those strange specimens of head-gear which, in the shape of a Circassian chain-helmet, are formed exclusively of large white bugle-beads, which in Khartoom are called “muria.” This decoration is especially common amongst the Nueir.[15] Another kind of head-dress is composed of ostrich feathers, and forms a light and effectual protection from the sun.

According to the custom, which seems to belong to all Africa, as a sign of grief the Dinka wear a cord round the neck; but amongst other nations we shall have occasion to notice several additional tokens to denote the loss of a member of a family.

Since the western territories of the Dinka in the alluvial flats nowhere produce any iron, their modes of manipulation of this metal are not so highly developed as among some other tribes which will subsequently come under our observation. Before the appearance of the Khartoomers, the Dyoor, who had settled within the limits of the Bongo and Dinka, in the vicinity of the soil which produced iron-ore, had performed all the smith’s work which was required by the Dinka. At that time these Dyoor seem to have been brought by the Dinka to a similar state of vassalage as that in which they themselves now stand to the Nubians. The Bongo, although their land produces iron, were far too hostile to their neighbours to furnish them with a supply of iron in the way of commerce. The Dinka themselves, being exclusively occupied with their cattle-breeding, have no taste and find little time for any arduous work of the smithy; hence it happens that although their iron ornaments are numerous, the workmanship of them all is of the most primitive character.

DINKA WEAPONS.

The most important weapon of the Dinka is the lance. Bows and arrows are unknown: the instruments that some travellers have mistaken for bows are only weapons of defence for parrying the blows of clubs. But really their favourite weapons are clubs and sticks, which they cut out of the hard wood of the Hegelig (Balanites), or from the native ebony (Diospyrus mespiliformis). This mode of defence is ridiculed by other nations, and the Niam-niam, with whom the Dinka have become acquainted by accompanying the Khartoomers in their ivory expeditions, deride them as “A-Tagbondo,” or stick-people.

Dinka Instruments for parrying club blows.

Similar conditions of life in different regions, even among dissimilar races, ever produce similar habits and tendencies. This is manifest in the numerous customs which the Dinka possess in common with the far-off Kaffirs. They have the same predilection for clubs and sticks, and use a shield of the same long oval form, cut out of buffalo hide, and which, in order to insure a firmer hold, is crossed by a stick, secured by being passed through slits cut in the thick leather. But the instruments for parrying club-blows depicted in the accompanying illustration are quite peculiar to the Dinka. As far as I know, no previous traveller has drawn attention to these strange contrivances for defence. They are of two kinds. One consists of a neatly-carved piece of wood, rather more than a yard long, with a hollow in the centre for the protection of the hand: these are called “quayre.” The other, which has been mistaken for a bow, is termed “dang,” of which the substantial fibres seem peculiarly fitted for breaking the violence of any blow.

Everywhere, beyond a question, domestic cleanliness and care in the preparation of food are signs of a higher grade of external culture, and answer to a certain degree of intellectual superiority. I have travelled much in Europe, where the diversity of the external conditions of life is greater than in any other quarter of the world; I have had much opportunity of observation, and I am sure that I do not err in the conclusion that I draw. Not the size of the houses, nor the dimensions of the windows (for these are variously influenced by climate), not the clothing (for Sards, Dalmatians, and Albanians, incontestably the least civilised of Europeans, are the most magnificently attired of all), but cleanliness and choice of food not only at once disclose a real distinction between nation and nation, but constitute a measure of the degrees of civilisation in individual provinces and districts. Now both these qualities, I aver, are found among the Dinka to a greater extent than elsewhere in Africa. First, as to the food.

DINKA MEALS.

In culinary matters the Dinka are certainly superior to the Nubians, and I should have little hesitation in pronouncing them even more expert than either the Arabs or the Egyptians. Their farinaceous and milk foods are in no way inferior to the most refined products of an European cuisine. The reaping, threshing, and sifting of the sorghum and penicillaria grain (the durra and dokhn of the Arabs) are brought to perfection by their female slaves, who subsequently granulate the meal like sago. In seasons of scarcity their talent for cooking has led them to the discovery of various novelties in the way of food. Like the tribes of Baghirmi, the Musgoo, and Adamawa, they make a preparation, very much in the Indian fashion, from the farinaceous germs of the Borassus palm. They extract all its native bitterness by soaking and washing, and succeed in producing a fine meal, which is purely white. The substance procured from these germinating seeds has a look very similar to the root of the Florentine iris. They treat the tubers of the Nymphæa in very much the same way, and render them quite edible.

With the choice cookery corresponds also the decorum of their behaviour at meals. They certainly, in this point, more resemble ourselves than any Orientals. They do not all dip their hands at once into the same dish, like the Turks and Arabs, but assist themselves singly. A large dish of cooked farina is placed upon the ground, around which the guests recline, each with his gourd-shell of milk, or, better still, of butter, at his side; the first pours his milk only on the part which he touches, and when he has taken enough, he passes the dish to the next, and thus they eat in succession, but quite separately. The Dinka repudiate the Oriental superstition that envious looks can turn the food to poison, and have no fear of the “evil eye.”

At times it greatly amused me to entertain Dinka ladies of rank in my tent, in order to pay them the compliment of my admiration of their perfection in the arts of cookery. On my folding table I laid out for them some European dishes, and they sat on my chairs. I was astonished at the readiness with which they fell into our mode of serving, for they handled our spoons and forks as if they were perfectly accustomed to them; but they nearly always carefully washed everything they had used, and returned it to its place.

In the interior of their dwellings, the Dinka are as clean as the Shillooks, sharing the same partiality for ashes as a bed. It ought to be mentioned that the traveller in this part of Africa is rarely troubled with vermin or fleas, which everywhere else, like desolation and slavery, seem invariably to have followed the track of Islam. In the Western Soudan the torments of the night are represented as insupportable, so that the huts of the Hottentots are not worse. Among the Dinka it is entirely different. The only disquietude to a stranger in their houses arises from the snakes, which rustle in the straw roofs, and disturb his rest. Snakes are the only creatures to which, either Dinka or Shillooks pay any sort of reverence. The Dinka call them their “brethren,” and look upon their slaughter as a crime. I was informed by witnesses which I had no cause to distrust, that the separate snakes are individually known to the householder, who calls them by name, and treats them as domestic animals. Their abundance here seemed to me very remarkable. Among the Bongo, on the other hand, I spent six months before I saw a single specimen, and it appears to be an established fact that, upon the whole, they are not generally common in Tropical Africa. Perhaps the species which is most frequent is the giant python (Sebæ). Those which inhabit the Dinka huts are, as far as I could learn, not venomous; and, as evidence that they are harmless, I cite the scientific names of the three species: Psammophis punctatus, Ps. sibilans, and Ahaetuella irregularis.

The Dinka are far more particular than any other tribe in the choice of their animal food. There are many creeping things, which are not rejected by the Bongo and Niam-niam, which they loathe with the utmost disgust. Crocodiles, iguanas, frogs, crabs, and mice they never touch; but, connoisseurs of what is good, they use turtles for making soup. It is scarcely necessary to say that the accounts of the cannibalism of the Niam-niam excite as much horror amongst them as amongst ourselves. Nothing, likewise, is more repulsive to them than dog’s flesh, which is enjoyed by the Mittoo—​a fact which justifies us in the supposition that that tribe is addicted to cannibalism. Dinka, as well as Bongo, have declared to me in the most decided manner, that they would rather die of hunger than eat the flesh of a dog. But a delicious morsel to the Dinka is the wild cat of the steppes, which is often found in this part of Africa, and is the origin of our domestic cat, to which it bears no slight resemblance. But more delicious than all they esteem the hare; and in order to illustrate their appreciation of it, a Dinka, to whom I was talking, naïvely asked me whether I knew what a Dinka did when he managed to kill a hare on the steppe by a lucky blow of his club? “He makes a fire,” he added, “and roasts his game and eats it quietly, without saying anything about it at home.”

Even before they had any intercourse with Mohammedan countries, a love of tobacco-smoking had been one of the traits of the Dinka, who use the same huge pipe-bowls as we have already observed amongst the Shillooks. A strong stem opens into a small calabash, which serves as a mouth-piece, and is filled with fine bast, to intercept the narcotic oils. Denarcotinizing, as it is termed, is quite an old African invention. Here, where tobacco does not grow at all plentifully, the process answers a double purpose, for, by taking off the top of the pipe, the bast can be removed, and, impregnated as it is with tobacco oil, it is subsequently chewed. The smoking apparatus is so ponderous that every one is obliged to sit down while he smokes.

DINKA DWELLINGS.

The Dinka dwellings consist of small groups of huts clustered in farmsteads over the cultivated plains. Villages in a proper sense there are none; but the cattle of separate districts are united in a large park, which the Khartoomers call a “murah.”[16] The accompanying drawing represents a Dinka farm surrounded by sorghum fields. Of the three huts, the one in the centre, with a double porchway, is set apart for the head of the family; that on the left is for the women; whilst the largest and most imposing hut on the right is a hospital for sick cows, which require, to be separated from the throngs in the murah that they may receive proper attention. Under an awning in the centre of the huts is the fireplace for the cooking, sheltered from the wind by a semicircular screen of clay. The goats are kept within a small thorn fence, so that the daily supply of milk may be always at hand.

As a rule the huts of the Dinka are spacious, and more durable than those of other tribes who build their dwellings in the same conical form. They are not unfrequently 40 feet in diameter; their foundations are composed of a mixture of clay and chopped straw, and the supports of the roof are made of branches of acacia and other hard woods. Not content with supporting these with a single central prop, the Dinka erect a trunk with its spreading branches in the middle. The roof is contrived out of layers of cut straw. These buildings endure for eight or ten years, and decay at length mainly through being worm-eaten. The huts of the Bongo, on the contrary, are built up much more rapidly, but rarely last as much as three years.

Sectional View, showing
construction of Dinka Hut.

The principal plants that are here cultivated are sorghum and penicillaria, three kinds of beans, earth-nuts (Arachis), earth-peas (Voandzeia subterranea), sesame, yams, and Virginian tobacco; but we shall have a more ample opportunity of entering into the details of these crops when we speak of the Bongo, who cultivate nearly the same products of the soil.

DINKA CATTLE.

The domestic animals are oxen, sheep, goats, and dogs; poultry was never to be seen, and the cause of its absence is inexplicable. The cattle belong to the Zebu race, and are smaller than those of the Baggara and Hassanieh; they have a hump, their horns are slender, the fore part of the body prevailing so in size as to resemble an antelope. As to colour, the majority are nearly white, but it would be incorrect to say that either the speckled or the striped, the tawny or the brown, are wanting. The Dinka have separate expressions to denote every shade of colour of the breed, and, indeed, their vocabulary for all that relates to cattle and cattle-breeding is more copious than that of any European tongue.

Dinka Bull.

The sheep are of a peculiar breed, which is unique amongst the Dinka, Nueir, and Shillooks; farther on in the interior of the equatorial districts it is not known. Its chief characteristic consists of a shaggy appendage to the shoulders, breast, and neck, like a mane, whilst on the rest of the body, and on the meagre tail, the hair is quite short. This mantle of hair gives them an appearance like diminutive buffaloes, whilst their plump bodies and short legs increase the resemblance. Generally white, they are occasionally brown or spotted, and in some rare cases I have seen them of quite a reddish hue.[17] Like the pastoral people of Southern Africa, the Dinka have acquired the art of splitting the horns in their early growth, so as to increase their number at will.

Dinka Sheep.

The continual dampness of the pasture, especially throughout the rainy season, favours the development of revolting intestinal vermes, and the rain-pools in the dry months become most prolific as breeding-places for Cercariæ. I have frequently seen sheep suffering under disease, their ailment arising from their liver and gall-ducts being choked up by these worms. The distoma, which is a denizen of every zone and extends even to Greenland, is found here an inch long.

The race of goats bred by the Dinka does not differ materially from the Ethiopian form, which we have already noticed[18] among the Bedouins of Nubia; its only distinction is being somewhat larger; in appearance it is always meagre, and its prevailing colour is that of a young grey colt, occasionally inclining to a dark iron-grey.

Dinka Goat.

DINKA DOG.

The dogs closely resemble the common village curs of Nubia, a cross between the greyhound of the Nubian steppes and the pariah of the streets of Cairo. It is not unusual for their colour to be brown, but by far the larger number are a tawny yellow.

Every idea and thought of the Dinka is how to acquire and maintain cattle: a kind of reverence would seem to be paid to them; even their offal is considered of high importance; the dung, which is burnt to ashes for sleeping in and for smearing their persons, and the urine, which is used for washing and as a substitute for salt, are their daily requisites. It must be owned that it is hard to reconcile this latter usage with our ideas of cleanliness. A cow is never slaughtered, but when sick it is segregated from the rest, and carefully tended in the large huts built for the purpose. Only those that die naturally or by an accident are used as food. All this, which exists amongst most of the pastoral tribes of Africa, may perchance appear to be a lingering remnant of an exploded cattle-worship; but I may draw attention to the fact that the Dinka are by no means disinclined to partake of any feast of their flesh, provided that the slaughtered animal was not their own property. It is thus more the delight of actual possession, than any superstitious estimate, that makes the cow to them an object of reverence. Indescribable is the grief when either death or rapine has robbed a Dinka of his cattle. He is prepared to redeem their loss by the heaviest sacrifices, for they are dearer to him than wife or child. A dead cow is not, however, wantonly buried; the negro is not sentimental enough for that; such an occurrence is soon bruited abroad, and the neighbours institute a carousal, which is quite an epoch in their monotonous life. The bereaved owner himself is, however, too much afflicted at the loss to be able to touch a morsel of the carcase of his departed beast. Not unfrequently in their sorrow the Dinka remain for days silent and abstracted, as though their trouble were too heavy for them to bear.

The only domestic animal which is slaughtered amongst them is the goat, which scarcely represents the thirtieth part of the value of a cow. A heifer has three times the value, and a cow that has calved double the value of a steer. In common with the other tribes of this part of Africa they use rather a singular method of butchering their cattle, proceeding, whenever it is practicable, by the way of making a violent stab in the nape of the neck by means of a spear. This causes immediate death, and is a method which gives but little trouble.

DEGENERATION OF CATTLE.

It is not difficult to understand how people like the Dinka should make their whole delight to centre in having thriving cattle-farms, but to us their profitless practice of emasculation must remain incomprehensible. The herdsmen cut their bulls and bucks with the mere intention of feasting their eyes upon a development of fat which is always obnoxious to the stomach. Almost the third part of their bulls are submitted to the knife, and the same proportion of their goats and rams, and even their dogs, with the design of rendering them more agile, more, enduring, and fitter for the chase; this also being the reason why their ears and tails are clipped. Ask the Dinka what good they get from their possessions of oxen, and they have ever the answer ready that it is quite enough if they get fat and look nice. Such is the way in which they express their satisfaction and their pride.

The failure of the beard amongst the male cattle so treated is a topic that suggests some observations. In spite of the anxiety and care which the Dinka bestow upon their herds, there is no mistake about the degeneration of the race. The way in which I chiefly account for this is that there is not enough crossing of breeds—​in fact, that there is almost a total exclusion of any strange stock. I should say that hardly one in a hundred of the beasts is capable of either bearing a burden or going a journey, a purpose, however, to which none of the negroes of the Upper Nile ever seem to put them. But nothing is more remarkable than the entire absence of fat which characterises them; a single pound of fat could not be obtained from a whole ox; and not only does this deficiency extend to the parts that are ordinarily plump and fleshy, but the spinal marrow itself is so utterly dry that in a stewpan it runs off like white of egg, without depositing a particle of grease. Eye-witnesses have assured me that Miss Tinné, during her residence here, although she had whole herds at her command, could never get her supply of pomade replenished.

Again the cattle of the Dinka are not provided with salt in any form whatever, which may in a measure account for the degenerating; it may explain the prevalence, all but universal, of the worms known as “kyatt,” which cover the first stomach or paunch, of nearly all their cattle. These worms in Europe are included in the genus of the Amphistoma; they are like an oval bag, something under half an inch long, and generally as red as port wine.

“Kyatt” Worm.

The sheep and he-goats that are left are quite devoid of fat; their flesh when it is cooked has an odious soapy flavour, and is altogether more repulsive than the rankest roast antelope.

As an illustration of the degree to which the Dinka devote all their attention to cattle-breeding, and find their chief delight in it, it may be mentioned that the great amusement of the children is to mould goats and bullocks out of clay. Travellers have related the same fact about the children of the Makololo; and, for my part, I could not help having a kind of satisfaction when I saw these first efforts at sculpture in a land where there are no pictures and no images of deities.

DINKA CATTLE-PARK.

The accompanying illustration is designed to exhibit something of the daily routine of the Dinka. It represents one of those murahs or cattle-parks, of which I have seen hundreds. It depicts the scene at about five o’clock in the afternoon. In the foreground there are specimens of the cattle of the country. The men in charge are busied in collecting up into heaps the dung that has been exposed during the day to be dried in the sun. Clouds of reeking vapour fill the murah throughout the night and drive away the pestiferous insects. The herds have just been driven to their quarters, and each animal is fastened by a leather collar to its own wooden peg. Towards the left, on a pile of ashes, sit the owners of this section of the murah. The ashes which are produced in the course of a year raise the level of the entire estate. Semicircular huts erected on the hillocks afford the owners temporary accommodation when they quit their homes some miles away and come to feast their eyes upon the goodly spectacle of their wealth.

DINKA POPULATION.

The milking is performed in the morning hours. Truly miserable is the yield, and the most prolific of the cows does not give as much as one of our ordinary goats. This deficiency of milk is another witness of the deterioration of the breed, and no one would believe the quantity of milk it takes to produce a single pound of butter. The dew hardly goes off before ten o’clock, and it is not until that hour that the herds are driven out. It is quite rare for a murah to hold less than 2000 beasts, and some, as I have mentioned, are capable of holding 10,000. Upon an average I should reckon that for every head of the population there would be found at least three of cattle; of course, there is no lack of the poor and the destitute, and these obviously are the slaves and dependents of the rich. So large are the numbers of the Dinka, and so extensive their territory, that it must be expected that they will long perpetuate their existence amongst the promiscuous inhabitants of Africa. So far as regards their race, their line of life, and their customs, they have all the material of national unity; but where they fail is that their tribes not only make war upon each other, but submit to be enlisted as the instruments of treachery by intruders from outside. That the Khartoomers have not been able hitherto to make good their footing upon Dinka soil is due more to a general resistance to external control than to any internal condition of concord. Every attempt to bring this people into subjection has been quite a failure, and not at all the easy matter it proved with the Bongo and some other communities. The southern people are emphatically agricultural, for the most part devoted to peaceful pursuits, and so they are wanting in that kind of organisation which could unite them into a formidable body for mutual resistance. The marked peculiarity of the Dinka, as well as their adherence to all their wonted habits, renders them thoroughly useless as far as regards the slave traffic. Although the people of Khartoom for fifteen years or more have traversed their country, they have never been able in any way to make use of the material which might be afforded by a regulated commercial intercourse.

The Bongo and the Niam-niam are alike greedy of bits of clothing, but the Dinka are utterly indifferent to anything of the sort. The women, on account of their proficiency in housekeeping, play a large part in the Khartoom slave-trade, but they give their masters infinitely more trouble than the slaves of any other race. The men that were captured, in days now gone by, were one and all converted into soldiers by the Government, and, even to this date, so large a majority of the dark-skinned troops of Egypt consists of men of the Dinka, that their well-formed persons, their tall stature, and their innate courage, would be missed very considerably from the ranks. Adam Pasha, who at the time of my visit had the military command in the Soudan, was himself a Dinka by birth.

I must be allowed to pass lightly over, as an equivocal topic, the religion of a people whose dialect I was unable adequately to master. It seems to me like a desert of mirages, or as a playground, where the children of fancy enjoy their sport. The creed of the Dinka apparently centres itself upon the institution to which they give the name of the Cogyoor, and which embraces a society of necromancers and jugglers by profession. Other travellers have recorded a variety of marvels about their sleight of hand, their ventriloquism, their conjurations, and their familiarity with the ghosts of the dead; but of these I shall defer all I have to say till I come by-and-by to speak generally about casting out devils.

DINKA CHARACTER.

Before we leave the Dinka we must not omit to recall their virtues, in order that we may fairly estimate the charge that has been laid against them of cruelty in war. It is affirmed that they are pitiless and unrelenting in fight, that they are never known to give quarter, and revel in wild dances around the bodies of their slaughtered foes: a whole village will take their share in the orgies which one of the community will start, whenever, either by lance or club, he has prostrated an antagonist. But, for my part, I am ready to certify that there are Dinka whose tenderness and compassion are beyond a question. One of the Bongo related to me, as a matter of his own experience, that he had been severely wounded upon an expedition which the Nubians had set on foot against the Dinka to steal their cattle: he had laid himself down just outside a Dinka’s house, and the owner had not simply protected him against all his prosecutors, who considered themselves amply justified in proceeding to every extreme of vengeance, but kept him till he had regained his health: not content with that, he provided him with an escort back, and did not abandon him till he was safe and sound again amongst his own people.

Notwithstanding, then, that certain instances may be alleged which seem to demonstrate that the character of the Dinka is unfeeling, these cases never refer to such as are bound by the ties of kindred. Parents do not desert their children, nor are brothers faithless to brothers, but are ever prompt to render whatever aid is possible. The accusation is quite unjustifiable that family affection, in our sense, is at a low ebb among them. In the spring of 1871, whilst I was staying in the Seriba of Kurshook Ali on the Dyoor, I witnessed a circumstance which I may relate as a singular corroboration of my opinion. A Dinka man, who had been one of the bearers who had carried my stores from the Meshera, was about to return to his own home in the territory of Ghattas, but he had been attacked by the guinea-worm, and his feet were so swollen that it was with the utmost difficulty that he could proceed a step, and he was obliged to remain behind alone. Everything was excessively scarce and dear, and he was glad to subsist on a few handfuls of durra and on what scraps we gave him from our meals; in this way he dragged on, and, with a little patience, would have been all right: however, he was not suffered to wait long; his father appeared to fetch him. This old man had brought neither cart nor donkey, but he set out and carried away the great strapping fellow, who was six feet high, for a distance of fifteen or sixteen leagues, on his own shoulders. This incident was regarded by the other natives as a mere matter of course.

In what I have said, I have attempted to describe the leading features in the life of the Dinka, being desirous to exhibit such details as may allow a correct judgment to be formed of the true relations which exist between the Khartoomers and this people, who are at once so pastoral and yet so prepared for war.

Here, at the village of Kudy, our caravan had accomplished about half its journey, which was altogether a little over 90 miles. It was on the afternoon of the 28th of March that we started afresh towards Ghattas’s Seriba, immediately after the gun accident which I have related. On account of their late liberal diet, our bearers did not advance with their usual alacrity. We proceeded for three hours, and at a well called Pamog, 20 feet deep, we halted for the night.

On the next day our route led through forests, and we entered upon the territory of the Al-Waj. The inhabitants regarded us as enemies, and, seizing their bows and arrows, left their dwellings and, like frightened game, flocked to the adjacent woods. According to our Dinka interpreters, the Al-Waj do not belong to the Dinka race, but form an enclave, or isolated community, of unknown origin. As we entered the wood, for the purpose of botanising, the savages were continually starting up before us, causing no little uneasiness to my companions, who suspected a flight of arrows from every thicket. To say the truth, the natives had been so hardly treated that it could not be expected of them to meet their oppressors very hospitably.

ARRIVAL AT GHATTAS’S SERIBA.

We should have proceeded far more quickly, but that we were under the necessity at every halt to send to a distance all round to procure a fresh supply of corn for our numerous party. This continually caused the delay of several hours, as the farms were often very desolate and ill supplied. The Al-Waj district is an almost unbroken forest in the midst of open flats. Throughout the rainy season it is hardly better than one vast puddle. The vestiges of elephants are frequent at all times; and both right and left were giraffes trotting over the rugged grass and wagging their tall heads. The appearance of giraffes when they are running is very extraordinary, and, as they are seen through the grey twilight of the morning, they have a look half spectral and half grotesque; they seem to nod and bow like figures in the ill-managed drops of a second-class theatre.

After leaving the village of the Al-Waj we proceeded for three leagues through the forest, and found ourselves again on the extensive steppe. At noon on the following day we reached the district of the Dyuihr, a clay flat, devoid of trees. The Khartoomers cannot pronounce the native names correctly, and call this people the Dyeraweel. The large villages were now deserted, the population, on account of the scarcity of water and pasturage, having gone to the river-banks. For two nights we sacrificed our rest and hurried onwards by forced marches. It was just before sunrise that we reached the first rocky irregularity in the soil, a general ascent in the ground being quite perceptible. Bush-forests now took the place of the steppes, which we had long found to be but scantily relieved by thickets. A luxuriant foliage revealed itself, presenting one of those striking limits of vegetation which are so rarely to be met with in Africa. From this interesting locality I proceeded for another three leagues, thus accomplishing the preliminary object of my journey. I was in the chief Seriba of Ghattas, which for some months to come I proposed to make my head-quarters.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Barth, vol. ii. p. 475.

[15] In Wood’s ‘Natural History of Man,’ p. 522, there is an accurate illustration of these ornaments.

[16] The derivation of “murah” would seem to be from “rah,” rest, “merah,” a resting-place for cows, or “menah,” a resting-place for camels.

[17] The illustration gives a likeness of a Dinka sheep, which must not, however, be confounded with the maned sheep of Morocco.

[18] Vide [Chap. I., p. 33.]

CHAPTER V.

Reception at the Seriba. Population. Fertility. Salubrity. Management. Poor prospects of the ivory trade. Failure of European firms in Khartoom. Idrees, the chief agent. Domestic arrangements. Beauties of spring. The daughter Seriba Geer. Bit of primeval forest. Giraffe-hunt. Bamboo jungle. Negro festival and music. Trip to the Dyoor and to Wow. Desertion of bearers. Good entertainment. Marquis Antinori and Vayssière. Old servant of Petherick’s. Hornblende. Height of the water of the Dyoor. Apostrophe to the river. A model Seriba. First acquaintance with Niam-niam. Trader from Tunis. The Wow River. Seriba Agahd in Wow. Edible fruits of the country. Wild buffaloes. Instability of dwellings. Caama and Leucotis antelopes. Numerous butterflies. Bear-baboons. Pharaoh palms. Daily life of the Dyoor. Their race. Iron-smelting. Formation of huts. Idyll of village life. Hunting with snares. Women’s work. Graves. Care of young and old.

Of the character of the buildings, the arrangements and mode of life in the settlements of the Khartoomers, I had been able from hearsay to form a very imperfect idea. My curiosity was therefore very considerably awakened as our caravan approached the Seriba of Ghattas. Half a league from the place we came to a halt in order to give the customary warning by firing a salute, and without farther delay started afresh. Mounted on a donkey, and surrounded by my attendants, I went at the head of the cortége. All round the settlement for some distance the land is entirely cultivated, and the view as we proceeded was only broken by large trees dotted here and there, which in their summer verdure stood out in charming contrast to the cheerless grey of the desert steppe. Soon rising from the plain appeared the tops of the conical huts embracing nearly the whole horizon. I looked in vain for either fortifications, walls, bastions, or watch-towers, with which I had imagined that a Khartoomer’s Seriba must be provided. In fact, there was hardly anything to distinguish it from any of the villages of the Dinka which are scattered over the cultivated flats.

RECEPTION AT GHATTAS’S SERIBA.

A motley crowd, relieved by many a bright bit of colour, presented itself and formed a lively spectacle such as was scarcely to be expected to break in upon the monotony of an African landscape. We were received with a rattling salute from a number of rusty rifles, and there was every disposition to do the honours of our arrival in a becoming manner. Elegantly attired in an Oriental costume, Ghattas’s agent approached with the gestures of welcome, and proceeded to conduct me to the hut which for some weeks already had been prepared for my reception. For the first time I now observed that the area in the centre of the huts was surrounded by a lofty square palisade; through the narrow gateway of this, with lowered banners and amidst the sound of gongs and kettle-drums, our cavalcade passed on.

With this chief Seriba are associated five smaller settlements in the adjoining Bongo country, and four more in remoter spots. It lies on the border-lines of the three races, the Dinka, the Dyoor, and the Bongo. From an insignificant beginning it had, in the course of thirteen years, increased to its present importance. A number of Gellahba, Nubian, and other merchants, had taken up their abode on large estates within its precincts; and here it was that they completed their purchases of slaves in order to carry them on to Darfur and Kordofan. The garrison was composed almost exclusively of natives of Dongola; there were, however, a few Sheigeah and men of Kordofan among them, and these, including the numerous employés of Ghattas, made the resident armed force not much under 250 men. To these should be added some hundreds of slaves reserved for the market, or divided as part of their pay amongst the soldiers, and several hundreds more, male and female, who are in actual service. The aggregate population therefore of this establishment almost equals that of a small town, and amounts to at least 1000 souls.

For two miles round the Seriba the land is partitioned into fields. Enclosed by dense bush forests, of which the trees rarely exceed forty feet in height, this wide expanse is industriously tilled by the natives who have settled in the vicinity, and furnishes the greater part of the annual supply of sorghum necessary for the garrison. Numerous little villages belonging to the three adjoining people are scattered all about, the fertility of the soil, so much above the average of the district, causing the proximity to the settlement to be held in high estimation. The surface-soil above the iron ore has a depth of three to four feet. The extreme productiveness of the luxuriant tropics is well exemplified in these fields, which for thirteen years have undergone continual tillage without once lying fallow and with no other manuring but what is afforded by the uprooted weeds. A like luxuriance is characteristic of the forests, which year after year, from the immediate vicinity, continue to supply the spreading colony with abundance of fuel.

In the rainy season the place is surrounded by pools, which disappear completely during the winter months; parts of the soil in and about the fields become for the time quite marshy, and at intervals large tracts of the lower steppes, for miles together, are little better than swamps. The Seriba is not elevated more than 100 feet above the mean level of the Gazelle, but in spite of everything the climate is far more salubrious and enjoyable than in many districts of the Egyptian Soudan. This may partly be accounted for by the fact that very few domestic animals are kept, so that the air is uninfected by their carcases, whilst the reverse is generally the case in the large market towns of the Soudan. Camels, as I have said, are never seen; horses and mules are only used as signs of special luxury on the part of the Seriba authorities; the ass alone manages to drag out a precarious existence in the unfavourable climate, and to defy the fate which has hitherto attended all efforts for its acclimatisation. Fevers indeed are common, though they rarely carry off new comers. Hitherto but few white men have come to make experience of the climate in this portion of Africa; and up to the time of my sojourn the visits of either Turks or Egyptians had been almost as rare.

UNREMUNERATIVE IVORY TRAFFIC.

The district between Ghattas’s six Seribas in the northern Bongo country and immediately under his authority, extends over an area of about 200 square miles, of which at least 45 miles are under cultivation. The total population, to judge by the number of huts and by the bearers stationed in different parts, can hardly amount to much less than 12,000. This domain, worth millions of pounds were it situate in Europe, might, I believe, at any time be bought from its owner for 20,000 dollars: and this I mention as a proof of how small is the profit actually yielded by these settlements, which have been started by so magnificent a spirit of enterprise. I could show by reliable statistics that in some years the returns from the ivory have fallen far short of the expenditure. The year of my arrival may perhaps be considered as an average season, and in this the ivory sent to Khartoom realised scarcely 10,000 Maria Theresa dollars. The expenses of keeping up two or three well-manned boats, so as to insure uninterrupted intercourse with Khartoom, are considerable, while from any traffic in slaves the owner of the Seriba has little to expect. In one way, however, slaves do occasionally contribute a secondary profit to the expeditions. In times when hostilities break out and the proper stores from Khartoom cannot be obtained, the agents are induced to part with whatever slaves they have to the Gellahba for a mere bagatelle; they exchange them for calico or anything else they can get, and make use of the proceeds to pay the soldiers.

When affairs are prospering, a month’s pay for a soldier is five Maria Theresa dollars. One of the great points with the agents is to spare the merchant any outlay of ready money: he therefore, as often as he can, pays the mercenaries in goods, charging them exorbitant prices for any articles obtained from his stores; on the other hand, he makes this up to them in a measure by allowing them a share in the plunder of slaves or of cattle; the soldiers in their turn can dispose of what booty they may get, all negotiations being generally conducted by the regular slave-dealers. It is very seldom that the men are wary enough to keep independent of the agent in their requirements, or are able, even in the course of many years, to lay by in Khartoom any considerable amount of money. The majority are pledged beforehand to continual service; nevertheless not unfrequently they contrive to escape and, without any intimation, join the company of some competitor, who (in the lawless condition of the country) quietly scorns all efforts to reclaim them. Such cases as these inevitably give rise to repeated contentions between the various Seribas. The annual cattle-plunder, moreover, does not nearly suffice either to attract or adequately to repay the hard services of the Nubian soldier, nor does it go far to remunerate the native bearers, who perform all the transport from the Niam-niam countries to the river. All matters of commerce even in these remote regions are ostensibly conducted in a legitimate mercantile way. For the opening of the ivory traffic with the Niam-niam, as well as for the purpose of buying supplies for the people during expeditions which often last six or seven months, huge bars of copper and beads of every description have to be provided. These are dear, on account of the commission which is paid in Alexandria. The bearers, it is true, are subject with the submission of serfs to the authorities at the Seriba; but as an encouragement to them in their work they can claim a stipulated proportion of the goods, and this in the course of the year constitutes no unimportant addition to the outlay.

IVORY TRADE.

Altogether the Upper Nile traffic was carried on at great pecuniary risk, and its prospects were far from favourable. As I saw it, it was dependent for any amount of success upon the plunder which was made alike upon cattle and upon men, and upon the levies of corn and provisions which were exacted from the natives. Without the aid of the Nubian soldiers the expeditions could not be secure. These soldiers only come to escape the rigorousness of the Egyptian Government in their own land; they participate in the profits, and yet without them the monopoly could not be maintained. The Government could avail nothing to protect a legal business; neither could any European enterprise hope, for many successive years, to be able to work a profitable trade.

The few Europeans who ever really opened transactions in these countries did indeed pay their people in hard cash, and refused to have anything to do either with the slave trade or cattle-stealing, limiting their operations exclusively to the purchase of ivory and to elephant-hunting in the districts adjacent to their settlements. Just as might be expected, however, they were soon compelled to withdraw from their undertaking—​either because, on the one hand, the stock of ivory in their immediate vicinity was exhausted, or, on the other, because they found that they could not compete with the native firms, who were backed by the illegal means I have mentioned. Since their withdrawal, no new speculator has attempted to follow in their steps; and as year by year the Khartoom trade loses its European representatives, it appears as though, in course of time, the export business will pass out of European hands. Nothing will prevent this, unless some important modifications should occur in the southern provinces of Egypt. Sanguine of success, Ismail Pasha has projected the formation of a railway to Khartoom; and, considering the general aspect of affairs as I have related them, this great undertaking deserves the unqualified support of all who do not despair of the ultimate victory of right.

A mere slave when at home, Ghattas’s plenipotentiary, Idrees, was here an important personage, invested with absolute power, and swaggered about like an autocrat. By birth a negro, he had not on that account less influence over the Nubians than any other official—​for it is not according to the law of Islam to allow national enmity to be antagonistic to personal rank. I was received with all the courtesy due to my credentials, and for the first few days found myself literally loaded with presents. Provisions of every sort were placed at my disposal, whilst my people had free board for a month in Idrees’s quarters. Two neatly-built huts of moderate size, within the palisade, were prepared for me, but these were not nearly sufficient to accommodate me with all my baggage. The actual Seriba, about 200 paces square, was so crammed with huts, that not a spot could be discovered where it was possible to erect a more spacious residence. Outside the enclosure, where the buildings were more scattered over the fields, I was not permitted to lodge. I was told how it had happened, and was likely to happen again, that the natives skulked about at night and murdered people in their sleep. This statement I was forced, whether I would or not, to accept, and temporarily, at all events, to content myself with my cramped abode, eighteen feet across.

ACCOMMODATION IN THE SERIBA.

The huts are built of bamboo and straw; the conical roof rests on a kind of basket-work of bamboo, which is daubed inside with clay, in a way that is imitated from the almost petrified erections of the white ants. The pagan negroes lavish far more care upon their huts than the Mohammedan inhabitants of the Soudan, who, although the bamboo grows so abundantly among them, do not succeed in giving their “tokkuls” nearly so much symmetry. Here they possess the art of erecting roofs which are perfectly water-tight, and which are so light that they do not require heavy posts to hold them together on the walls. The covering for the roof is formed, in the first place upon the ground, with handfuls of stalks laid side by side and knotted together. These are afterwards plaited into long strips, which are then laid one above the other, like the flounces of a lady’s dress—​a comparison which is further the more appropriate, because the structure of the frame-work is exactly like a hooped petticoat.

I would not allow the walls of the tokkul, in which I generally passed my time, to be cemented with clay, partly because I liked the airiness of the basket-work, and partly because light was necessary for my daily occupations. There seemed to me two other advantages—​first, on dry days, my goods would more rapidly recover the effect of the wet to which they had been exposed; and, secondly, I should be less plagued with rats than those who occupied the plastered huts. In stormy weather, it is true, I had to suffer a certain amount of discomfort. To increase my storage-room I contrived some shelves and stands out of bamboo-canes; I had also brought from Khartoom some deal planks, expressly for the manufacture of the tables which were necessary for my botanical pursuits. A traveller who is in possession of bamboos, cow-hide, bladder, and clay, will find himself not very inadequately supplied with representatives of nearly all the building materials of Europe.

My excursions about the neighbourhood soon began, and these, with the arrangement of my daily collections, occupied the greater part of my time. In unfailing good health, I passed the first few weeks in a transport of joy, literally enraptured by the unrivalled loveliness of nature. The early rains had commenced, and were clothing all the park-like scenery, meadows, trees, and shrubs, with the verdure of spring. Emulating the tulips and hyacinths of our own gardens, sprang up everywhere splendid bulbous plants; whilst amongst the fresh foliage gleamed blossoms of the gayest hue. The April rains are not continuous, but nevertheless, trees and underwood were all in bloom, and the grass was like a lawn for smoothness. In Tropical Africa, after long continuance of rain, the grass may be considered more as a defect than an ornament in the landscape: the obstructions which it interposes to the view of the traveller considerably mar his enjoyment of the scenery; but throughout the period of the early rains its growth is remarkably slow, and it takes some months to attain a height sufficient to conceal the numerous flowering weeds and bulbs which display their blossoms at the same season.

The territory of the Dinka includes nearly the whole low ground, extending right away to the Gazelle. It is a vast plain of dark alluvial clay, of which the uniformity is not broken by a single hill or mass of rock, any tracts of forest being of very limited extent. As they approach the districts of the Bongo and the Dyoor, the Dinka steppes lose much of that park-like aspect which they here present. Indeed, very marked is the contrast in the character of the scenery which appears on entering those districts; for to the very borders of the Dinka reaches that enormous table-land of ferruginous soil which, unbroken except by gentle undulations or by isolated mounds of gneiss, gradually ascends to the Equator. This plain appears to cover the greater part of the centre of the continent, even if it does not extend as far as Benguela and the shores of the Niger. From my own experience, I can certify that the general geological features of the soil, as exhibited as far south as the latitude of 4°, are identical with those which were conspicuous here, where the latitude was between 7° and 8° N.

THE RIVER TONDY.

At the end of a fortnight I made a trip to the south-east, the first of a series of excursions to Ghattas’s different Seribas, which lay four or five leagues apart. On this tour I learnt something of the river Tondy, on which is established the Seriba known as Addai. The river was now at its lowest level, and was flowing north-east in a tolerably rapid current, between precipitous banks fifteen feet in height. In depth it varied from four to seven feet, and it was about thirty feet in breadth; in the rainy season, however, for three miles, the adjacent steppes are covered with its floods, which are always very prolific in fish. Before the Tondy joins the Gazelle, as it does in the district of the Nueir, it spreads irregularly over the low-lying country and leaves its shores quite undefined. In this way it forms a number of swamps, all but inaccessible, to which the Dinka, whenever they are threatened by plundering excursions from the Seribas, lose no time in driving their herds.

Although the Tondy is nearly as long as the Dyoor, it is very inferior in its volume of water. Like several of the less important rivers of this region, it flows for a long distance without any appreciable increase either in size or speed. These streams intersect the country and cut it up into narrow sections, which are rarely designated on the maps.

The second of the Seribas which I visited was called Geer, and was just four leagues to the south of the chief settlement. It was surrounded by bamboo-jungles, and was situated in a prolific corn-valley, watered by a tributary of the Tondy. It contained about 800 huts, occupied by Bongo, who had settled there.

The road to Geer, nearly all the way, was over a firm, rocky soil, through bush forests, swarming with wart-hogs (Phacochærus). About three-quarters of a league on the way, stood a dense mass of lofty trees, not unlike an alder grove. It was traversed by rain-courses, and surrounded by low swampy steppes, which in the rainy season are entirely under water. The wood consisted mainly of tall uncariæ and eugeniæ, 80 feet in height, of which the long, straight stems were crowned by spreading foliage: it was the first bit of the primæval forests which fill up the valleys through which flow the rivers of the Niam-niam. I paid many visits to this interesting spot; by the people in the Seriba it was termed Genana, the Arabic word for a garden. In its grateful shade grew dense thickets of red-blossomed melastomaceæ, intermingled with giant aroideæ (Amorphophallus), and bowers of creepers. The character of the vegetation was in striking contrast to the other forests of the district, and for the first time reminded me of the splendour of our northern woods—​it was like an enclave of the luxuriant flora of West Africa, transported to this region of bushes and steppes.

On the adjacent plains herds of giraffes were very frequently seen. To bring down one of these giraffes was a matter of but little difficulty. They pace unconcernedly from bush to bush, taking their choice amidst the varieties of herbage, and I was surprised to find that it required half-a-dozen shots before a herd of nearly twenty could be started into flight; but, once off, there was no gaining upon them, and, like the fleetest of sailing-vessels, they disappeared on the horizon. I was on this day treated to the rare delicacy of a giraffe’s tongue; there was some trouble in finding a dish on which it could be served, and I suppose that the longest fish-platter would hardly suffice for the display of this dainty. I had formerly tasted the flesh in Gallabat, and as I had abundance of beef in the Seriba, the carcase was distributed between my bearers. Roast giraffe may be reckoned amongst the better class of game, and is not unlike veal.

Geer provides the whole neighbourhood with bamboos. The African species (Bambusa abyssinica) seems to possess a character superior to what ordinarily belongs elsewhere to that useful product of the tropics. It is common on the lower terraces of Abyssinia and in all the rocky parts of the Upper Nile district, where the climate is sufficiently moist; it is found generally on river banks, though but rarely on the open steppes.

FESTIVAL AT SEED-TIME.

The canes grow to a height of thirty or forty feet, and the stoutest specimens that came under my notice were between two and three inches in diameter. They are not so swollen at the joints as the Chinese and Indian sorts; but this is an advantage, since they are more easily split. Even after repeated boiling, the young shoots were never eatable.

For two nights and a day whilst I was in Geer, the natives were abandoning themselves to their wild orgies, which now for the first time I saw in their full unbridled swing. The festival was held to celebrate the sowing of the crops; and confident in the hope that the coming season would bring abundant rains, these light-hearted Bongo anticipated their harvest. For the preparation of their beer they encroached very lavishly on their present corn stores, quite indifferent to the fact that for the next two months they would be reduced to the necessity of grubbing after roots and devouring any chance bird or even any creeping thing that might come in their way. Incredible quantities of “legyee” were consumed, so as to raise the party to the degree of excitement necessary for so prolonged a revel. In honour of the occasion there was produced a large array of musical instruments, a detailed account of which shall be given hereafter, but the confusion of sound beggared the raging of all the elements and made me marvel as to what music might come to. They danced till their bodies reeked again with the oil of the butter tree. Had they been made of india-rubber, their movements could scarcely have been more elastic; indeed, their skins had all the appearance of gutta-percha. The whole scene was more like a fantoccini than any diversion of living beings.

By the end of April the vegetation was so far developed that I might fairly reckon on a larger botanical collection on a longer excursion. Accordingly, accompanied by my servants and a few bearers, I set out towards the west, designing to visit the Seribas belonging to Kurshook Ali and Agahd, and to explore the River Dyoor. I was everywhere received most hospitably, and thus had every encouragement to make similar trips amongst the various Seribas. As a rule I did not produce my letters of introduction to the agents until the second day, that I might prove whether my welcome was a mere official service, or was accorded freely and by good-will. I had never cause to complain: the agents, one and all, showed me the greatest attention, entertained me handsomely, and placed at my disposal all that I could desire. Their courtesy went so far that, although the country was perfectly safe, they insisted on providing me with a guard of soldiers. In addition to this, the local governors of the negro villages always escorted my little caravan from stage to stage. I found that the whole country was occupied, at intervals of five or six leagues, with settlements of the Khartoomers, in their palisaded Seribas. The inhabitants interchange their visits as freely as any gentlemen in Europe.

On the third day after my start all my bearers, who had contracted to serve me for a sum which would be represented by half-a-crown a day, deserted; they were afraid, perhaps not without cause, that their burdens of pickings and pullings would daily increase. This little incident, for which I was quite prepared, had its effect on the remainder of my journey. I for my part was perfectly agreeable to their desertion, for I could obtain gratis as many bearers as I required. Of course, I had nothing to pay the runaways, and was free from all charges to bearers for the future. In this I had no compunction, knowing that I had every right to claim the same assistance and courtesy that is accorded to any ordinary traveller amongst the Khartoomers’ Seribas, and to have my baggage conveyed from one place to another.

My people had glorious times in the Seribas. There was mutton without stint; and whole animals were slaughtered even for my dogs: to my hungry Khartoomers it was literally a land flowing with milk and honey. Reserved for me were all that they considered the greatest delicacies that Central Africa could produce, and in the way of fruit and vegetables I could not catalogue the variety that was served, from the sour Pishamin (Carpodinus acidus) to the horse-bean (Canavalia).

ABOO GUROON.

This excursion lasted from the 27th of April to the 13th of May. After leaving the chief Seriba we proceeded for about three leagues to the north-west, and arrived, first, at the Seriba owned by Abderahman Aboo Guroon. In 1860 this spot was visited by the Marquis Antinori, who, in spite of many privations, remained there throughout an entire rainy season. At that time a French hunter, Alexandra Vayssière, under the protection of the Dyoor chief, Alwal, with whose sons I made acquaintance, had founded a small settlement. Vayssière himself, to whose clever pen the Revue des Deux Mondes is indebted for some valuable articles on Central Africa, died the same year on the Gazelle River, falling a victim to a virulent fever. Aboo Guroon was formerly a servant of Petherick’s, and had faithfully accompanied that praiseworthy traveller in his earliest endeavours to penetrate the Bongo country. He had obtained his name, Aboo Guroon (father of horned-cattle), from his noted courage and love of enterprise, and he was renowned amongst the traders as the first traveller to the Niam-niam.

The governors of the Seribas and the leaders of the Nubian expeditions may be divided into two classes: of these the one are hypocritical cowards, always saying their prayers, and yet always tyrannical to their subordinates; the others are avowed robbers. Far preferable, beyond a doubt, are the latter; they treat those weaker than themselves with a certain amount of generosity, not to say chivalry; to this class belonged Aboo Guroon. Close to his Seriba we had to cross the Molmull stream, which was for a long period represented on maps as an arm of the Dyoor, but I have proved that it is a collateral stream, which rises in southern Bongoland. In the rainy season it is 70 feet wide, and is only passable by swimming, but it was now nothing more than a series of pools, the intervals of which were marked by patches of gneiss.

Ten leagues further west flows the Dyoor. Our route in that direction was in every way tiresome. For four leagues and a half we traversed a barren steppe, without being able to obtain so much as a draught of water, and the rough clods of clay were a continual impediment. We halted for the night in a small Seriba of Agahd’s, called Dyoor-Awet. It lies on the summit of the watershed between the Molmull and the Dyoor, and from the hill towards the west an extensive view of the latter river is obtained. Being still somewhat of a novice in Central African travelling, I resolved, in order to avoid the heat of the day, to take advantage of the moonlight nights for proceeding on our march. In the dark, however, my guides and bearers, inexperienced in their work, lost themselves in such a labyrinth of paths that we were obliged to halt in an open meadow and make inquiries on all sides for the proper route. At length we arrived at some little enclosures of Deemo, a Dyoor chief. The huts were built on the slope of a small eminence of hornblende, a formation that I never noticed elsewhere to the south of the Gazelle; it extended as far as the right bank of the Dyoor, which, now at its lowest condition, was flowing sluggishly towards the north through steppes about a league in width.

The sandy river-bed was bounded by clay banks, from 20 to 25 feet in height, the entire thickness of the alluvium of the valley. The breadth of the bed at this spot was rather more than 400 feet, but at this season the running water was reduced to 80 feet wide and 4 feet deep. I was told that a few days previously the water had been up to a man’s shoulder, and that the stream would not now fall any lower. Ten days later, on my return, I crossed the river about three-quarters of a league to the south, and although I found that the whole bed was covered, yet its depth was not above three or four feet. Heuglin had crossed the Dyoor at a spot about 20 miles north of where I was, and on the 8th of April 1863 he found the stream about 300 paces in width, with a depth varying from one foot to three.

Among the Bongo and Dyoor alike, the river goes by the name of “Gueddy,” whilst the Niam-niam, in whose territory lies the whole of its upper course, call it “Sway.” It is ascertained to be one of the more important tributaries of the system of the White Nile. I found its source in Mount Baginze, in the eastern portion of the Niam-niam country, in lat. 5° 35´ N., and in almost the same longitude as that in which it joins the Gazelle; its main course, omitting the smaller windings, extends over 350 miles.

AN APOSTROPHE.

As we were wading across its clear waters, my servant, Mohammed Ameen, was suddenly attacked by a sentimental fit of home-sickness. He has been mentioned before as distinguished by the nickname of “the swimmer,” and as a former Reis he was always more interested than anybody else in river-systems and hydrographical questions. Stopping midway in the channel, as though lost in contemplation, he suddenly apostrophised the waters: “Yonder lies Khartoom; yonder flows the Nile. Pass on, O stream, pass on in peace! and bear my greeting to the dear old Bahr-el-Nil!” An Egyptian would have been too stolid to be moved like this son of Nubia.

The bush-ranges on the opposite shore were enlivened by numerous herds of hartebeests and leucotis antelopes. I hurried on in advance of my caravan, hoping to enjoy a good chase, but my attempt only resulted in a circuitous ramble and in extreme fatigue. It was not until the middle of the day that I rejoined my people in a little village of the Dyoor, and by that time, inexperienced as I was, the heat, the running, and the fear of losing my way had conspired almost to deprive me of the use of my senses. The numberless herds that, without making a stand, continually scampered across my path, still further increased my bewilderment. I was far onwards on my way back when a flock of domestic goats, startled by the apparition of a stranger came running athwart my way. They were of a reddish colour, and, had they been in the midst of a wilderness, might easily be mistaken for the little bush antelope (A. madoqua), so common in these parts. I was just about to send a last despairing shot amongst the harmless creatures, but discovered my mistake betimes. When I afterwards related my adventure for the entertainment of my people, one of them told a similar anecdote of a previous traveller, who, however, had actually shot a goat, and when the enraged owner insisted upon compensation, could not be induced, even in the face of the corpus delicti, to acknowledge his error. The man who told this had been an eye-witness of the affair, and described in the liveliest manner the contest that had raged over the zoological character of the hapless goat.

Rather more than a league from the Dyoor, in an irregular valley sloping towards the river and surrounded by wooded hills, was situated, but newly built, the chief settlement of Kurshook Ali. Khalil, the aged governor, received me most kindly. After the entire destruction of the former establishment by fire, he had erected in its place quite a model Seriba. This is depicted in the background of the accompanying drawing. In front is a majestic khaya-tree, which in years to come will probably be the sole surviving relic in the landscape. Several of the most important types of vegetation are also represented: on the left are the large candelabra-euphorbia and borassus palms, and on the right appear the little gardenia trees, of which the fruit resembles the wild pear or the crab-apple; by the side of these are two deserted white ant-hills.

THE CHIEF SETTLEMENT OF KURSHOOK ALI. A MAJESTIC KHAYA-TREE.

Some of my most pleasant reminiscences of African life are connected with this spot. Here it was that, two years later, after experiencing the calamity of a fire, I was hospitably received, and passed several months in hunting over the well-stocked environs. In no other Seriba did I ever see the same order and cleanliness. The store-houses and the governor’s dwelling stood alone on an open space within the palisade; around the exterior, at a considerable distance, were ranged the huts assigned to the soldiers and other dependants. The unhealthiness of having a crowd of wretched dwellings huddled together, the contingent danger of fire amongst so many straw huts, and the disadvantageous lack of space in case of an attack, all had their effect in inducing Khalil to make these innovations.

FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH NIAM-NIAM.

On my arrival I was surrounded by a bevy of real Niam-niam,[19] who had been conveyed hither by an expedition lately returned from their country. They stood and gaped at me and my belongings with far more curiosity than had been evinced by the stolid natives of the country. Whilst I was supposed to be listening to the performances of the resident Bongo on the guitar, it seemed as though these Niam-niam would never tire of examining my paraphernalia. My watch, breech-loader, revolver, my clothes, and even my lucifer matches had to be scrutinised separately. Nothing of equal wonder had crossed their experience; and what with my white skin and my appearance altogether, I looked to them like some being from another world.

Amongst the acquaintances that I made here I must not forget to mention a speculative slave-trader from Tunis, who was now making a second journey over Darfoor. He could speak a little French, and, to the astonishment of every one, he could read the names upon my maps. He was the most refined of his calibre that I had ever met, and to me was a sort of deus ex machinâ. Whenever I saw him I had always a vague feeling that he must be some distinguished explorator in disguise—​perhaps a Burton or a Rohlfs. Our complexions were alike, our education had been alike, and so in these distant regions we met like fellow-countrymen. In an unguarded moment I grasped his hand, drew him aside, and begged him privately to tell me who he was and where he came from. His loud laugh of surprise at my inquiry was quite enough, and in an instant completely dispelled any illusion on my part.

The fact of meeting a slave-trader from Tunis in this spot so completely remote corroborates the imputation of an unexpected extent of the slave trade in Africa. This polished Tunisian was, to say the least, in many respects superior to the adventurers who ordinarily come from Darfoor and Kordofan. Of them nothing can be said too bad. They pursue their revolting craft under every pretext; coming as fakis or priests, they make their iniquitous exchanges for that living ebony which consists of flesh and blood, and, altogether, they are as coarse, unprincipled, and villanous a set as imagination can conceive.

It is pleasant to turn from these incarnations of human depravity to the calm undesecrated quiet of the wilderness around. Two leagues to the west brought us to the Wow, a river of inferior magnitude, but which was very charming. Meandering between rocky slopes, overhung with a rich and luxuriant foliage, and shadowed at intervals by stately trees, after a few miles it joins the Dyoor. Its bed, at its full measure, is 150 feet wide; but when I saw it, on the 1st of May, it exhibited merely two little rills trickling merrily over a rough sandy bottom. In proportion to its size it seemed to retain in the dry season less water than the Dyoor. It rises in the heart of the Niam-niam country, where it is called the Nomatilla; as it passes through the Bongo it is termed the Harey; whilst just above its confluence with the Dyoor, to which it contributes about a third of its volume, it goes by the name of the Nyanahm. It divides the people of the Dyoor into the two tribes of the Gony and the Wow.

THE WOW SERIBA.

On the banks of this, stretched beneath a noble tree, of which the age far exceeded any tradition of the natives, I enjoyed a noonday lounge. My dogs were never weary of awakening the echoes of the forest, which would give repeated answers to their cries. I was constrained to move on by the people who had come out to welcome me from the neighbouring Seriba of Agahd, known simply as Wow, at a distance of a league and a half to the west. The possessions of Agahd’s company in this district are much scattered, and are interspersed amidst the territories belonging to other merchants. Their subordinate settlements extend far west into the lands of the Kredy, their expeditions reaching even to the western frontiers of the Niam-niam.

The further the advance towards the west from the Dyoor, the more rapid is the increase in the level of the country. The ascent indicates the progress from the basin of the Gazelle to the central highland. The Wow Seriba occupied the centre of a gentle valley sloping towards the west. The bottom of this valley, at the time of my visit, was traversed by a marshy strip of meadow, which, in the rainy season, forms a running brook that flows into the river. A steep descent of a hundred feet bounds the valley on the south-west. I was struck by the richness and diversity of the foliage—​a peculiarity in this part of Africa, where vegetation seems very much to run to wood, and develops itself in bushes and in trees.

Of the trees which adorn the hanging rocks I may mention a few which are remarkable on account of their fruit. The Göll of the Bongo bears pods which, in appearance and in flavour, resemble those of the St. John’s Bread, and on that account the Nubians, who use the skins as tan, call it the Caroob. Its wood, like palisander, is carved by the natives into pretty stools and benches. Then there was the Oncoba, from which are made the little round tobacco-boxes, known in the Arabian trade on the Red Sea; and there was the Strychnos edulis, of which the fruit is not unlike a pomegranate, containing an edible pulp inclosed in a brittle woody shell. Together with these grew the Ximenia, a shrub common to the tropics of both hemispheres. The blossoms of this emit a soft fragrance as of orange flowers, and it bears a round yellow fruit about the size of a cherry, which is about as sour as anything in nature. The flavour is like a citron, and the soft nut-like kernel is eaten with the juicy pulp. Several kinds of sycamore, apparently of the Egyptian species, bear edible figs, but they are poor and insipid. A beverage refreshing as lemonade is prepared from the great creeper carpodinus. This plant is well known in the Guinea trade for its produce of caoutchouc. Its globular fruit (the sour pishamin of the colonists) contains a large number of kernels embedded in a fibrous pulp; its sourness exceeds that of the citron. The sarcocephalus, the wild original of the species that is cultivated in Guinea, does not here grow larger than a peach; in shape and colour it may be compared to a strawberry, though in flavour it resembles an apple: eaten to excess it acts as an emetic. The white flowers of this Rubiacea smell like orange-blossoms. The pericarp of the cordyla contains a green honey-pulp, and that of the detarium a sweetish yellow powder. Many species of vitex bear an olive-like fruit with a sweet aromatic flavour; and spondias offer great tempting plums of a bright yellow, which, however, leave a harshness in the throat. The ripe berries of the widely diffused vangueria taste like gingerbread, and this peculiarity, in a certain sense, belongs to nearly all the edible fruits of Central Africa: whatever is not sour and astringent, like unripe gooseberries, is somewhat sweet and dry to the tongue. With the exception of the plantain (Musa sapientium), which has every claim to be considered a native of Equatorial Africa, all other fruits are either sour and grating on the palate, or they are sweet with an after sensation of dryness. The most perfect examples of each of these are the pishamin and the date; intermediate to them both is the tamarind.

BUFFALO-HUNTING.

On account of the numerous gnats and gadflies on the west of the Dyoor, cattle-breeding suddenly ceases, and even in the Seribas there are found only a few sheep and goats. On the other hand, wild buffaloes, after being entirely missing for a long way to the east of the river, now re-appear. We had not come across any since we entered the region of the Gazelle, and the first that we now saw were on the southern frontier of the Bongo territory. Only one kind of buffalo is known in this part of Africa, but the difference in the formation of their horns is so remarkable that cows and bulls appear quite like two distinct animals. In the bulls the roots of the horns meet at the top of the head, and cover the whole of the forehead, whilst in the cows they are separated by nearly the entire width of the brow. The habit of this animal is different from what is ordinarily found elsewhere; for in these regions buffalo-hunting is considered by no means a dangerous sport. After my recent experience on the White Nile I was surprised to find so many ready, without hesitation, to accompany me to the chase. For myself I had rather a dread of the animal, as my predecessor, Herr von Harnier, had fallen a victim to a wild buffalo, which had mutilated his body to such a degree that it could not be recognised.

On the morning after my arrival I had the luck to surprise a small herd in a swamp. They immediately took to flight, with the exception of two, a cow and her calf, which looked about, astonished, after their disturber. I and my companion fired simultaneously, and we should have secured the sucking calf, if the swamp had not been in our way.

In flavour, the best parts of the buffalo-meat almost rival that of a fattened ox: it is tougher and more stringy, but, in spite of everything, it is juicy and palatable. The flesh of the tame species of southern Europe is, on the contrary, worse than camel’s flesh, and may indeed be pronounced uneatable.

Gladly I should have extended my tour westward, to the Kosanga mountain, and as far as the Seribas of Zebehr, Bizelli, and some others. The agents were always courteous, and, unencumbered, I could easily have accomplished my desire; but my botanical collection had largely increased, and my supply of paper was exhausted, so that I was constrained to give up my project, and to return. The rapid development of vegetation, moreover, warned me that I ought to be back at my quarters in Ghattas’s Seriba before the beginning of the rains, so that for the whole of the season, after they had decidedly set in, I might concentrate my energies on the investigations which were the proper purpose of my journey. Accordingly, after exploring the immediate neighbourhood of Wow, I returned at once to Kurshook Ali’s Seriba, where I spent a few more days in some brief excursions.

Dense still were the woods around the settlement, although Khalil, in order to obtain arable land, was daily thinning them by fire. The small depth of soil in these parts, often barely a foot, is one of the causes of the instability of the dwellings which are run up on it, and which are also liable to destruction from worms above and from white ants below. When the inhabitants are compelled to rebuild, they prefer to settle on fresh territory—​they choose virgin soil, and hence it arises that not only the villages of the natives, but even whole settlements of the Nubians, are continually changing their sites. Every place bears the name of the native chief; when he dies, therefore, the former name falls into oblivion. In consequence of this, it becomes very difficult to fix on the maps names and localities, which can rarely be permanent beyond a period of at most ten years. The only enduring landmarks are afforded by the water-courses: ages pass on, and these change but little as they fulfil their function in the economy of nature.

THE HARTEBEEST.

The environs of Kurshook Ali’s Seriba abound in every variety of game. Genets, civets, zebra-ichneumons, warthogs (Phacochœrus), wild pigs, cats, lynxes, servals, caracals, and the large family of the antelopes, all find here their home.

Central African Hartebeest.

In this neighbourhood I killed my first hartebeest and a leucotis antelope. The hartebeest (Antilope caama) is common throughout the greater part of the continent, and varies in its form, its colour, and the shape of its horns, according to sex, age, and adventitious circumstances. In zoological collections two specimens are rarely seen exactly like one another.[20] Called “karia” by the Bongo and “songoro” by the Niam-niam, the hartebeest is the most frequent of all the larger game. It is generally found in small herds, varying in number from five to ten, its haunts being chiefly uninhabited tracts of wilderness. In the cultivated districts it prefers the light bush forests in the vicinity of rivers, though it is never seen actually in the river valleys. It takes its midday rest by standing motionless against the trunks of trees; and by its similarity in hue to the background which it chooses, it often eludes all observation. Throughout the rainy season its colour is bright—​a sort of yellow-brown, with a belly nearly white; but in the winter it tones down to a dullish grey. With the exception of the leucotis, its flesh is the best eating of any game in the country.

Leucotis Antelope (male).

The leucotis antelope[21] is the species that congregates in the largest number in any of the districts that have been hitherto explored. In the dry season they are often seen in the wadys in large herds, varying from 100 to 300 head; during the rains they resort to the more elevated forests. That is their pairing time, and they divide into smaller groups. These graceful animals have the same habit as the South African spring-bok; running at full speed, with outspanned legs, they often bound four and five feet high, and jump clean over one another. The female, which has no horns, in colour and size very much resembles the yalo (A. arundinacea), but it can be easily distinguished by the hair on the metatarsus being black, while in the yalo it is grey.

WATERPOOLS IN THE RED ROCK.

Throughout the whole of this neighbourhood are numerous plains of ferruginous swamp-ore; only in the rainy seasons, when the rainfall is at its height, are these covered at all with grass, which at its best, compared to the luxuriant vegetation around, is a meagre down, hardly equal to our poorest pasture lands. On this plateau the rains of March and April begin to fill the numerous clefts and chasms; the pools thus formed contain a variety of interesting water-plants, which disappear completely when the waters again subside. Whereever the red rock is exposed, its surface is adorned by the rosy blossoms of the dianthera, a species of capparis, which here supplies the place of our viscous catch-fly and cuckoo-flower. Nowhere in the exuberant tropics are we more vividly reminded of our own scenery than in such spots as these, where, on the edge of woody precipices and surrounded by the smiling green of the sward, gleam these gay patches of dianthera. The naked stone covered by a low detached overgrowth, in picturesque grouping, rivalled all that I had ever seen. The gardenia trees fill the air with the fragrance as of a bower of orange blossoms and jasmine.

Leucotis Antelope (female).

The month of May here, as in Europe, is a month of flowers, amongst which the world of butterflies pass their ephemeral existence. As a rule, these lepidoptera were not larger nor more diversified in form and colour than the European, but, in their aggregate, they were full of beauty. The dews of night were not sufficient for their thirst, and in motley masses they assembled round every puddle to enjoy the precious moisture. By a skilful swing of the butterfly-net I could catch a hundred at a time. They continue to swarm in this way till the beginning of July. At times I saw them thronging all amongst the foliage, and giving to many a plant the appearance of being covered with the most variegated blossoms; the bare rock, though destitute of vegetation, became as charming as a blooming meadow. The quantities of butterflies in this district are very large in comparison to what are found in the northern regions of Africa at this season.

Two leagues to the south of the new Seriba was the site of the one which had been burnt. But few vestiges remained, for nature here soon effaces what fire may have spared. The only surviving evidence of its ever having been the resort of men was a thriving grove of plantains (Musa sapientum). The shoots had been introduced from the Niam-niam lands. In the meagre households of the Nubians, fruits and vegetables are hardly considered necessaries; indolence and distaste for work cause the gardens to be much neglected. By my own experience, I have found that all garden produce of the southern regions can be cultivated here at the outlay of very little attention. The plantain bears fruit within eighteen months of its first sprouting.

Copious is the river as it flows by the place, shaded by magnificent afzelia, filæa, and syzygium. The impenetrable jungles of bamboo, which extend on either side, are the abode of a large number of bear-baboons. It was in vain that for some hours I pursued one after another of these bellowing brutes: immediately they became aware of my approach, they were knowing enough to quit their exposed positions on the trees and conceal themselves amidst the waving grass. The jungle swarmed, too, with great warthogs (Phacochærus), which appear as ineradicable as the wild boars of Europe. The chase of these had small attraction for me, aware as I was of the extreme unsavouriness of their flesh.

THE RAPHIA VINIFERA.

On my way back to the Seriba I made a slight detour, in order to visit the village of the Dyoor chief Okale. This lies to the east, upon a small stream, the banks of which are shadowed by some splendid woods that display the glories of the Niam-niam wilderness. It was like an enclave of the south transported to the bushwoods of the north. I looked here that I might discover the palm-tree, which the Khartoomers call the Nakhl-el-Faraoon (or Pharaoh’s date-palm), and of which they had given a wonderful description that roused my curiosity. I soon satisfied myself that they really meant the Raphia vinifera, which grows far and wide throughout tropical Africa, although probably, in this direction, this may be its limit. A considerable number of the trees and plants characteristic of the Niam-niam lands occurred to me in my rambles, and amongst them the blippo (Gardenia malleifera), with the inky sap of which the Niam-niam and the Monbuttoo delight to dye themselves.

Whether we advanced through villages or hamlets, we always found the overseers in their full state. Their official costume was everywhere a long chintz shirt. From their sparkling eyes beamed forth the delight with which they regarded my appearance, doubtless to them singular enough. Most readily they admitted me to every corner of their households, whence I procured one curiosity after another, and what I could not carry away I copied into my sketch-book.

Although I could not manage, in the course of an excursion not occupying three weeks, to traverse the entire district of the Dyoor, I nevertheless very much increased my familiarity with their habits, of which I will conclude this chapter with a concise account.

Dyoor is a name assigned by the Dinka, and is synonymous with men of the woods, or wild men. This designation is a name of contempt, and is intended to imply the condition of poverty, in which, according to Dinka ideas, the Dyoor spend their existence. Of course, it refers to their giving their sole attention to agriculture, to their few goats and poultry, and to their disregard of property in cattle. They speak of themselves as Lwoh. They use the Shillook dialect unaltered except in a few expressions which they have adopted, and are anxious to claim a northern origin, specifying their progenitors as O-Shwolo, or Shillooks. The area of their territory is quite small, and their number cannot exceed 20,000 souls.

On the north they are bounded by the numerically large tribe of the Dembo and some smaller kindred clans. Eighty miles to the south of them, but separated by the entire width of the Bongo country, reside the Belanda, a tribe of which the customs are modified by their intercourse with the Bongo, but which still make use, with very minor differences, of the Shillook dialect. These Belanda are partly under the surveillance of the Niam-niam king Solongho, and partly tributary to the intruders from Khartoom.

The chequered map of Africa suggests to every reflective mind many considerations as to how any advance in civilisation can be possible. There is an utter want of wholesome intercourse between race and race. For any member of a tribe which speaks one dialect to cross the borders of a tribe that speaks another is to make a venture at the hazard of his life. Districts there are, otherwise prosperous in every way, which become over-populated, and from these there are emigrations, which entail a change of pursuits, so that cattle-breeders become agriculturists and agriculturists become hunters living on the chase; districts again there are which shelter the remnant of a people who are resisting oppression to the very verge of despair; and there are districts, moreover, which have been actually reduced to a condition of vassalage and servitude; but the case is here altogether without example of a district which, whatever be its other fluctuations, has ever submitted to a change of race or of tongue.

DYOOR DECORATIONS.

Former travellers, although they have found their way to the Dyoor without concerning themselves with the origin of the people, appear to have made the observation that their complexion is a shade lighter than that of the Dinka. For my part I am convinced that this is so; not that I should feel justified in insisting upon this token as showing a difference between Dinka and Shillooks. Probably, the colour of the skin of the Dyoor loses something of its darker hue from their living in the shadows of their woodlands; but this is a question which involves meteorological and geographical considerations which are beyond our grasp.

In spite of their intercourse for many years, and their partial dependence upon the Dinka, the Dyoor have not departed from the Shillook mode of decorating themselves. Just on the extreme borders a few may every now and then be found imitating the radial stripes upon the foreheads; but it is quite uncommon for either sex to tattoo themselves. Neither does their daily familiarity with the Nubians induce them to adopt a modest dress. They only wear round the back of their loins a short covering of leather, something like the skirts of an ordinary frock coat; a calfskin answers this purpose best, of which they make two tails to hang down behind. Anything like the decorations of the hair which have excited our wonder amongst the Shillook and the Dinka is here totally rejected, and the Dyoor, men and women alike, have their hair close cropped.

The favourite ornaments of the men very much resemble those of the Dinka, consisting of a collection of iron rings below the elbow and a huge ivory ring above the elbow. One decoration peculiar to themselves consists of some heavy circlets of molten brass, which are very elaborately engraved. Brass, as known amongst the people, is called “damara,” and is about thrice the value of copper; it had been introduced into their traffic long before the arrival of any Khartoomers, having been brought as an article of commerce by the Dembo, who, as neighbours of the Baggara, were led into business relations alike with Kordofan and Darfoor on the one hand, and with the northern negroes on the other. Our fine metals, one and all, were quite unknown amongst them.

Brass Ornaments of the Dyoor.

Their women, too, in hardly any respect differ from the Dinka women; like them burdening the wrists and ankles with a cluster of rings. Very frequently one great iron ring is thrust through the nose, the hole to admit it being bored indifferently through the base, the bridge, or the nostrils. The rims of the ears also are pierced to carry an indefinite number of rings. These deformities are especially characteristic of the Bellanda, who sometimes attach to their nose a dozen rings at once.

Portrait of a Dyoor.

GLASS BEADS.

One of the iron decorations which is most admired, and which is found far away right into the heart of Africa, I first saw here amongst the Dyoor; I mean the iron beads or perforated little cylinders of iron, strung together. These have some historical interest attached to them in connection with the development of trade in Africa, arising from the fact that they were earlier in use than glass beads, to which they must be compared. Glass beads, obviously, were only brought into the market after it had been proved that the natives would be willing to wear ornaments like in form but of a lighter material than the hard metal which they were wont to forge into shape piece by piece. The Japanese and other inhabitants of Eastern Asia are known to trick themselves out in steel beads, thus evidencing their long exclusion from all intercourse with Europe. In the Soudan these strings of beads were principally made at Wandala, and Barth has specially noticed them at Marghi. Every tribe which I visited in proceeding inland from the Gazelle I found to retain the preference for beads made of iron.

The derivation of the stock from a negro race of the nobler kind, and one which has a small development of jaw, such as the Shillook, may be fairly understood from the accompanying portrait. The sitting figure is a likeness which I took at my leisure of one of my bearers. I thought it would illustrate the graceful slimness of the limbs, which nevertheless are all in due proportion. It may serve, too, in a degree to exemplify the appropriateness of the expression “swamp-man,” which I have several times employed, and moreover may help to justify the comparison which has likened them to a bird.

Portrait of a Dyoor.

In recent times they have lost some of their ancient habits. For instance, the practice of mutual spitting, which was long the ordinary mode of salutation, has fallen into desuetude. Throughout the entire period of my residence in Africa I was never a witness of it more than three times: and in all these cases the spitting betokened the most affectionate goodwill; it was a pledge of attachment, an oath of fidelity; it was to their mind the proper way of giving solemnity to a league of friendship.

The spot which the Dyoor inhabit is the inferior terrace of the ferruginous formation in the district. The consequence is that they are quite at home with all iron work. The Dinka, although they do not settle down close to them, because of the hostility of the Bongo, yet are glad to welcome the Dyoor, in order to avail themselves of their aid in getting at the iron, which would otherwise be unsecured. It might almost be said that every Dyoor is a smith by profession. The result of their toil, however, does not so much find its way to the underground stores of the Dinka as to the magazines of the Khartoom merchants.

Spear Head.

Dyoor Spade.

SPEAR-HEADS AND SPADES.

The accustomed shape in which the raw material is used as a medium of exchange is in spear heads[22] or in spades. Throughout the whole district of the Upper Nile these answer all the purpose of our current coin. Although the superficial veins of iron ore, for hundreds of miles, do not differ much in their appearance, there are only certain localities which produce an ore that, under the primitive mode of smelting, yields a remunerative supply of genuine metal. One of these prolific veins is found in the proximity of Kurshook Ali’s Seriba. With a perseverance for which I could not have given them credit, the natives have dug out trenches some ten feet deep, from which they have obtained a material very like our roe-stone. Considerable quantities of red ochre are discovered, but they are not turned to any account, through ignorance of a proper way of manipulation.

Just before the commencement of seed-time, in March, the Dyoor make a general move away from their huts, partly for the purpose of dragging the rivers for fish, and partly to busy themselves with iron-smelting in the woods. In the shaded centre of a very wooded spot they construct their furnaces of common clay, making them in groups, sometimes as many as a dozen, according to the number of the party. Their wives and children accompany them, and carry all their movables. In the midst of the wilderness, otherwise so desolate, they form a singular picture. The stems of the trees gleam again with their lances and harpoons; on the branches hang the stout bows ready for the buffalo hunt; everywhere are seen the draw-nets, hand-nets, snares and creels, and other fishing-tackle. There is a mingled collection of household effects, consisting of gourd-shells, baskets, dried fish and crocodile, game, horns, and hides. On the ground lie piles of coals, of ore, of cinders, and of dross. Petherick, the first explorer of this Dyoor district, has given a very accurate account of their primitive method of smelting iron, so that I may be repeating in a degree what has been related before: many things, however, there are which appeared to me under a somewhat different aspect.

Dyoor Smelting-furnace.

DYOOR SMELTING FURNACE.

The smelting-furnace is a cone, not more than four feet high, widening at the top into a great goblet shape. So little deviation was there in the form of any that I saw that all seemed to me to be erected on precisely the same model. One obstacle to the construction of larger furnaces is the extreme difficulty of preventing the mass of clay from cracking in the process of drying. The cup-shaped aperture at the top communicates by a very small throat with the cavity below, which is entirely filled with carbons. Into the upper receiver are thrown fragments of ore, of about a solid inch, till it is full. The hollow tunnel extends lower than the level of the ground; and the melted mass of iron, finding its way through the red-hot fuel, collects below in a pile of slag. At the base there are four openings: one of these is much larger than the others, and is used for the removal of the scoriæ; the other three are to admit the long tewel-irons, which reach to the middle of the bottom, and keep the apertures free for the admission of air. Without stoking, the openings would very soon become blocked up with slag. In reply to my inquiry I was told that bellows are never employed; it was said that too fierce a fire was injurious, and caused a loss of metal. A period of a day and a half, or about forty hours, is requisite to secure the product of one kindling. When the flames have penetrated right through the mass of ore until they rise above it, the burning is presumed to be satisfactory.

Amongst the Bongo the furnaces are different, being generally constructed in three compartments, and fitted with bellows. They also place layers of ore and fuel alternately.

The deposit of metal and fuel is heated a second time, and the heavy portion, which is detached in little leaflets and granules, is once more subjected to fire in crucibles of clay. The particles, red-hot, are beaten together by a great stone into one compact mass, and, by repeated hammering, are made to throw off their final dross. Nearly half of the true metal is scattered about during the progress of the smelting, and would be entirely lost if it were not secured by the natives. In regard to its homogeneousness and its malleability, the iron procured in this way is quite equal to the best forged iron of our country.

The Dyoor and the Bongo appear almost equally ignorant about charcoal-burning. They understand very little about the exclusion of air from the furnaces, or of burning their wood in piles: their science seems limited to the combustion of small fragments heaped up over one another till the fire below them is choked, or subdued by pouring water upon the top. I am not aware whether the other negroes have mastered the secret of charcoal-making; but if what has been said about the Dyoor holds good about Africa in general, it accounts at once for the remarkable fact that in spite of the abundance of the crude material, iron is so little employed. There is a universal absence of lime, so that stone erections are quite unknown.

If a comparison might be instituted, I should say that in Africa iron might be estimated to have a value about equivalent to copper with us, whilst the worth of copper would correspond to that of silver.

DYOOR VILLAGE IN WINTER.

DYOOR HUTS.

For fifteen years have the Nubians now been brought into contact with this region, but they have never taught the natives either the way of making bricks or any intelligent conception of the use of charcoal. Themselves too lazy to improve the treasures which a bountiful Nature has flung amongst them, they are too idle and too indifferent to stimulate even the people they have subjugated to put forth any energy at all. And this is but one proof out of many of the demoralising tendency of Islamism, which would ever give a retrograde movement to all civilisation.

Throughout Africa I have never come across a tribe that has not adopted a mode of building huts which, alike with respect to exterior and interior, is not peculiar to itself. The huts of the Dyoor do not resemble the mushroom shapes of the Shillooks, nor are they like the substantial huts of the Dinka, massive and distinguished by small outbuildings and porches. Again, they could not for a moment be mistaken to be dwellings of the Bongo, because they have no straw projections about the top of the roof. In a general way they are a yet more simple and unadorned construction—​not that they are destitute of that neat symmetry which seems to belong to all negro dwellings. The roof is a simple pyramid of straw, of which the section is an equilateral triangle, the substructure being all of wickerwork, either of wood or bamboo, and cemented with clay.

Inside every hut there is a large receptacle for storing whatever corn or other provision is necessary for the household. These are made of wickerwork, and have a shape like great bottles. To protect them against the rats, which never fail to carry on their depredations, they are most carefully overdaubed with thick clay. They occupy a very large proportion of the open space in the interior; very often they are six or seven feet in height, and sometimes are made from a compound of chopped stubble and mud. After the huts have been abandoned, and all else has fallen into decay, these very frequently survive, and present the appearance of a bake-oven gone to ruin. In the Arabic of the Soudan this erection is called a “googah.” It is derived from the Dinka; the huts of the Bongo and the Niam-niam having nothing of the sort, because they build detached granaries for their corn.

The picture which is here introduced is a representation of the rural pursuits of this peaceful tribe. It is presumed to be winter time, when, for some months to come, no rain is to be expected. It may be taken as illustrating what might be witnessed at any time between October and April. The tall erections adjacent to the huts contain the various grain requisite for the next seed time, and may be supposed to be full of the sorghum, the maize, and the gourd.[23] It is better to let these be exposed to the sun rather than to run the risk of having them devoured by rats or vermin in the huts. Underneath these structures the goats are hid; besides these, dogs and some poultry are the only domestic animals they keep.

The open space in front of the huts consists of a plain, most carefully levelled by treading it down. Upon this floor, which is perfectly hard, the corn is winnowed; and it serves as a common area for all domestic purposes. In front of the huts, too, sunk to some depth below the ground, there is a great wooden mortar, in which the corn, after it has been first pounded by the primitive African method of stones, is reduced to a fine meal by rubbing with the hands. The Dinka also use these sunken mortars, which are hewn out of some hard wood; but the Bongo and Niam-niam carry with them movable mortars of a smaller size.

DYOOR PURSUITS.

To the right may be observed a man, who is collecting iron ore, and one of the wicker baskets which belong to the reserve of corn. Great gongs hang upon the posts towards the left, and some of the massive bows, of which the strings are ready stretched by a billet to serve as snares. This artifice is employed by several of the people of this district to facilitate their chase of the wild buffaloes. Very strong straps of hide are strained across the tall grass of the lowlands, where the buffaloes congregate. One end is fastened either to a tree or to a peg driven into the ground, the other end attached to the bow. This forms a kind of noose which, through the rebound of the billet, tightens itself about the legs of the buffalo when it strains it. The startled beast makes a bound, and is immediately fettered. The hunters, who had been lying in wait, seize this moment and, with their lances, strike at the prey, which, if not utterly entangled, is sure by the bow to be obstructed in its running. In a similar way all the larger antelopes are captured, especially the powerful eland, at which it is hard to get, even after it has been driven to the marshy levels.

Good large families have the Dyoor; and were it not that the Nubians come upon the land, and every year carry off at least half the corn that is grown, there would long ago have been, as with their kindred on the White Nile, a dense Dyoor population. They partake also of the skilfulness of the Shillooks in obtaining resources for livelihood in various ways: they pursue the chase, they practise fishing when they have the chance; they are industrious in tillage; they thoroughly appreciate the value of cattle, and would like to possess it, although in their new settlement they can boast little more than a few kids and goats. To have a well-stocked poultry-yard, and to possess that friend of man, a good dog, is essential to the satisfaction of a Dyoor household. Upon these the attention of the men is centred, and on these they make their largest outlay. If they escape servitude to the Nubians, and are not obliged to turn porters to convey their burdens, or builders to erect their dwellings, they employ themselves with their fishing and hunting, or in practising the art of Tubal Cain. Labour in the fields is all done by the women, upon whom also falls the entire domestic superintendence as well as the actual work of the house; they make all the wickerwork and do all the manipulation of the clay; they trample down the level floor and mould the vessels of every size. It is remarkable how they manage with the mere hand to turn out immense vessels which, even to a critical eye, have all the appearance of being made on a wheel. In order to render a clay floor perfectly level and free from cracks they work in a very original way. They procure from the woods a piece of tough bark, about three feet long; they then kneel down upon the clay, and persevere in patting it with their pieces of bark till they make the surface of the soil as smooth as though it had been rolled. In a very similar way they prepare the graves for their dead, which they arrange very close to their huts. A circular mound, some three or four feet high, indicates the situation of the last resting-place of a Dyoor so long as the violence of the rain allows it to retain its shape; but a very few years suffice to obliterate the final vestiges of these transient memorials.

Affection for parents and for children is developed amongst the Dyoor much more decidedly than in any other Central African tribe which I have known. In a way that I have not observed among other pagan negroes, they place their infants in long baskets that answer the purpose of cradles. There is a kind of affection which even brutes can display to their offspring as well as human beings. In the very lowest grades of human society there is ever a kind of bond which lasts for life between mother and child, although the father may be a stranger to it. Such, to say the least, is the measure of affection which the Dyoor show to their little ones. Nor is this all; they have a reverence for age; and in every hamlet there are grey heads amongst them.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The word Niam-niam has the Italian pronunciation of “Gnamgnam.”

[20] It may not be superfluous to give a picture of an old buck, nor to remark that the females also have horns.

[21] Separate illustrations are given of the male and female.

[22] The spear-heads, as represented in the engraving, are about three-quarters of a yard in length.

[23] The Dyoor cultivate very nearly the same crops as the Bongo, and these will be described with reference to that people.