Ten o’clock. On the left, a little village, with seven well-built tokuls, the indented roofs of which are, however, tolerably flat, and on the whole are low. Close by, a large herdsman’s or pastoral village: the huts are built slightly enough, for they are only inhabited during grazing-time. Some negroes jump and sing; other men of ashes bring a cow and a few goats. The people here appear stronger and more muscular than these high shot-up marsh plants were in other places, and are on an average six Parisian feet[7] and upwards in height. Their sheikh or chief was called Tchinkah, and his village Kuronjah. A piece of white cotton stuff was given him to cover, at least, the nakedness of his shoulders, and some beads. Several negroes presented themselves, and they all now wanted “god” (glass beads). The teeth of the natives are very bad: this is generally the case in fenny countries; and we see it, for example, in Holland, where the women have not only bad teeth, but also very frequently swollen joints. They quarrel here for the beads thrown to them, but without fighting. Though such ornaments may soon lose the charm of novelty, yet they may lay the foundation of future discord, and cause homicide and murder. We saw some strings of blue glass beads on the chief, looking like broken maccaroni, and of which we also had brought a good supply. We could not learn from what country this glass ornament—Vermiglio or conteri di Venezia—had come to them; it was a proof, however, that communications take place between these inner African nations. The beads were very much worn and ground away, and therefore probably an old inheritance of the tribe.
They wear only a single tuft of hair: it is sometimes long, and sometimes short, so that they may shew the distinguishing mark of their race—the incisions running from the forehead in three strokes around the head. Yet there were some who wore their entire hair, which is no more to be called woolly than that of the Arabs in the land of Sudàn. Every one had adorned his head according to his own taste. Many were bedecked with a short ostrich-feather, others with a thong of pelt, or with a wooden ring, and one was covered all over with small burrs. This was that dreadful little burr that used to stick to our stockings and wide Turkish trowsers in Taka, and drew together the latter into the most singular folds. Its hook-formed point or prickle was only extracted from linen with the greatest trouble. Another wore a felt cap upon which was a tassel, as if he had taken a Turkish cap for his model.
Tattooing is called by these Keks garo-ungè: they wear slips of leather round their necks, hands, and also frequently round the hips, and rings of ivory and iron, varying in number, round the arm. If we ask them whence the iron comes, they answer, “From the mountain,” and point to the south. The iron rings are of various forms, furnished at the joints with small bells—that is, with a small hole, in which grains are placed to make a rattling noise; or even with small spikes, in order not to be seized so easily by the enemy. Their points were covered with little wooden heads, to prevent injury to the wearer. The bracelets were also adorned in another manner, or were quite simple, as those on the upper part of the arm,—some narrow, and others broad. They open in one place, so as to pass over the hand; but are so exactly joined together, that the opening is scarcely to be perceived: thus proving the elasticity of iron in good workmanship. Some wore a shoemakers’ or sadlers’ apron, serving to ward off darts rather than as a covering, for they all, in other respects, go naked. The women have a similar apron around the lower part of their body, as I also saw in the village of Pagnaù; and excepting this leathern apron, they have no other attire. The lower part of the back was generally tattooed in many rows by vertical incisions. The Dinkas appear to have a particular dexterity and perseverance in this kind of basso-relievo; for we see the female slaves in Khartùm having their whole thorax covered with such incisions, and even in the form of festoons of leaves—a kind of toilet that might not be very pleasant to the tender skin of our coquettish ladies. We saw also some earrings of red copper, and there was always a hole for these in the ear; often also many holes in the rim of the ear for future trinkets, a small stick being placed in them to prevent them closing. These negroes cross and throw their legs under them in all directions; so that, compared with them, Orientals and tailors are only bunglers. They have generally a flexibility in their limbs, which would not be supposed from the manner in which they tread the ground.
We had made the good Ethiopians comprehend that a few more oxen would be welcome to us; but about eleven o’clock a favourable east wind set in, promising to become still better. We sail to S.S.W.; but in the space of ten minutes put to land again, so that we might not leave in the lurch the promised morsels, costing only a few glass beads. But the people did not shew themselves again; and just as the sails were bent to proceed on our voyage, the wind also veered, and blew from S.E.: therefore libàhn. The hygrometer had at ten o’clock still 58°, whilst this morning it was even 92°. Twelve o’clock.—E.N.E., and soon E.; where, on the left, a lake is seen, about an hour and a half long.
After an hour’s progress, we are towed S.S.E. again, and it seems that we shall follow this direction further. I cannot keep my eyes open, and go to sleep, with orders to wake me at the first bend in the river. At three o’clock from S.E. to E.S.E. Towards S.E. by S. the river makes a bend, and a village extends yonder on the right shore, which brought to my recollection Bonn on the Rhine, as seen from the so-called Obtuse Tower, although neither towers nor high buildings are to be seen there. Close to us, on the left side, we observe a large and long lake, retreating with the river in a parallel direction for about two hours and a half. I had not previously remarked it, owing to the reeds rising so high, for I had now no servant in sufficiently good health to keep a look-out from the mast. Judging from the green reeds, it appears to be connected with the river. At half-past three o’clock we go N.N.E., and at half an hour’s distance over the right shore, a little lake and a village are to be seen. The boundary of the old shore, properly speaking, is not visible from the deck, but a sailor tells me from the mast that trees, three or four hours’ distant, are standing there, up to which all is green. The Haba, or the old shore, runs at the left side of the river, in the direction of the great lake, about one hour distant from us, and approaches near to us, according to appearances, behind the before-named large village, which may be called here a city.
We soon come to a gohr, or canal, apparently feeding the little lake. The current along the shore itself is frequently more unequal in strength than in the centre of the river, owing to such flowings off, and on account of the great depth of three to five fathoms, which is often found directly close to the margin of the new shore, against which the mass of waters is thrown. But notwithstanding this striking disadvantage, we prefer to remain close to the shore, where the crew are obliged to work till they are half dead to gain ground only a little. At five o’clock we come nearer to the great village. My Bonn, with the green of its vinea Domini, and its old custom-house, is turned here into high reeds; its university into tokuls concealed behind them; and its houses into reed huts of various sorts. It was only the position and the winding of the stream itself that could awaken this dear remembrance, with a whole host of half-extinguished pictures; and the more so because we had already seen an Ethiopian Bonn, the bare name of which had excited my imagination.
On all sides the cattle turn to the smoking pastoral city. I hear and see that the village of the women is always separated from that of the men; that the latter possess only the temporary huts, and the former regular tokuls,—the last being only common to both sexes at the rainy season. We pass slowly by, whilst I stand on the deck and write. This Harim village looks, on the whole, very well: the tokuls, indeed, are low, but well built, and, as I have remarked already, the straw upon the roof is laid round in five or six layers, giving it the same number of stories, without having a steep slope. The old women were the first to gratify their curiosity: they dance and jump before their houses, sing bold songs, and beat their breasts up and down, so that it is horrible to see and hear them. Children and maidens appear to be locked up from fear of the “Children of Heaven;” for it was asserted that the white soldiers in the former expedition were looked upon by the negroes of this country as “Children of Heaven.” I scarcely believe that such a compliment was paid to them, for I saw a black soldier pointing to two Egyptians as having come from Heaven; whereupon the blacks put on a silly laughing countenance, and went away, as much as to say, “Children of Heaven ought to fly lightly, like birds, and not crawl heavily on the earth, and draw ships.”
A natural pond was connected by a canal with the river, and closed by a fishing weir of palisadoes. Lumps of earth lay piled up on one another, like pyramids of cannon-balls. They take, perhaps, the slime from the canal with their hands, to plaster round the walls of their tokuls, and also to clean the canal. Even the old women here were ash-grey; therefore it seems as if they make fires in their tokuls, and their beds on the ashes.
The city of these Amazons, numbering forty-two tokuls in a line along the river, was immediately followed, however, by the city, or a village, of the men. These summer huts have partly the form of tokuls, with only slightly elevated pointed roofs; partly they were huts with a mere covering, as a protection against the weather, and frequently so small that they could only be built for the young cattle. The hills of ashes, the real places of rest for the night, were surrounded with a wall of reeds on one side, to shelter them from the wind. The huts might be here about two hundred in number; near them on every side rose the smoke of small piles of dung: close at hand, the stakes stood, to which the oxen were fastened in the evening. The horned cattle, and even the little goats, go cheerfully to the smoke, because they know they are protected there from gnats.
The men here behave very quietly, and do not seem to have known that they would meet us when driving home their cattle. As they do not come to us, we go ashore to them. The sheikh of this tribe visits us in quite a friendly manner; he is invested by us with a red shirt, and with a gay-coloured pocket-handkerchief round his head, as well as strings of beads round his neck. In vain Thibaut and I gave ourselves the trouble of trying to learn, with the assistance of our stupid interpreters, something from these Keks; for they appear to be unwilling to mention names, as if evil might happen to the person whom it concerns.