M. Périères, not caring about the society of Miss Beatrice Poles, and abandoned both by Madame de Guéran, who had retired for the night, and by the two inveterate gamblers, took advantage of his isolation to jot down his impressions of the journey. He kept the journal of the expedition, and it is to him, and the information given to us by him, that we owe the greater portion of our information.
At each halting-place, the sort of register kept by M. Périères was placed by him on the camp bedstead in his hut, and in it everybody was at liberty to enter his or her notes, ideas, or reflections. All communications were anonymous; but this mingling of ideas, the various modes of regarding events, the detached phrases and the different circumstances recorded by the several reporters imparted a tone of originality to the journal.
We do not intend to transcribe this register literally, but merely to extract from it a few details of interest, and to follow generally the route taken by the caravan, without stopping with it at every straggling village through which it passed.
To these notes of the journey, written indiscriminately, under the direction of the chief editor, M. Périères, we shall occasionally add a page or two of more private information doe to the pen of one or other of the travellers. Accident has placed in our possession these leaves, torn out, as it were, from the private note-books of the expedition, and we do not think we are guilty of any indiscretion in giving publicity to them.
March, 1873.—For two days we have been passing through the western portion of the territory inhabited by the Dinkas, a numerous people, not only dwelling on the right bank of the White River, but divided as well into various tribes scattered southward of the Grazelle River. To our guide, Nassar, and most of the soldiers this district was quite familiar, and we dreaded lest they should suddenly leave us in the lurch for the peace and quietness of private life.
The habits of these tribes we find to be very similar to what we had already seen. The Dinka, like the Shillook and the Nuehr, plasters his face and body with cinders, but when he does condescend to divest himself of this detestable coating, by taking a bath or smearing himself with oil, his skin has the sheen and polish of dark bronze.
The Dinka betrays his nationality as soon as he opens his mouth, for the incisor teeth of the lower jaw are invariably broken off, a rigidly-observed custom or fashion, the object of which it is impossible to determine.
The male Dinka, too, despises clothing and never puts any on except he is obliged, as, for instance, when accompanying a caravan such as ours. The females, on the other hand, are more scrupulously clothed than all the other black women of the interior, two aprons of untanned skin covering them, before and behind, from the hips to the ankles.
Tattooing is confined to the men, and consists of ten lines, radiating from the base of the nose to the forehead and temple. Heavy rings of ivory, bracelets of hippopotamus hide, and the tails of cows and goats also contribute to the adornment of this tribe.
Extreme cleanliness marks the interior of their dwellings, and fleas and vermin are very rarely met with in this part of Africa. Possibly these insects have a wholesome dread of the snakes, which live on most intimate terms with the Dinkas, who pay them a sort of reverence. Frequently they are treated like domestic animals and called by name, and their slaughter is looked upon as a crime. This veneration for snakes has been inculcated by the priests and sorcerers, who are skilled in the science of divination, in enchantments, and even in ventriloquism.