Of these opportunities of seeing considerable numbers of the natives gathered round me, I made the best use I could to obtain the measurements of their bodies, an achievement on which I had set my mind with some degree of pertinacity. At the end of one year’s residence in the interior I had made a synopsis (under about forty heads) of the measurements of nearly two hundred individuals, but unfortunately very few of my memoranda are now forthcoming. During my intercourse with the natives I very often allowed what pictures I had to be exhibited, in order to satisfy their repeated inquiries. All they saw stirred up their unfeigned delight, and continually prompted them to ask in astonishment why they had not learnt the same things from the “Turks,” and to express their conviction that that must be a wonderful country where tools and guns were made. The indolent Nubians, too, would pay me visits most assiduously till I was absolutely weary of them. They would often make their appearance quite early and I could only disengage myself from them by letting them have my books and pictures about Africa to look through. The illustrations in ‘Le Tour du Monde,’ in Speke’s ‘Travels,’ and in Baker’s ‘Hunting Adventures,’ all alike furnished them with inexhaustible material for question and answer. They shouted their approbation aloud, and crowned their admiring estimate of any picture by crying out “bazyatoo” (the very facsimile), again and again. The name which Speke’s book acquired in the Seriba was ‘The History of King Kamrasi,’ while they called Baker’s work ‘The Book of the Elephant Hunter.’
In the beginning of September I was able to make a despatch to the river of my treasures I had collected, and to forward them by way of Khartoom to Europe. I had upwards of forty packages, and to put them together and make them secure was the business of a good many days. Particularly laborious was it to sew them all upon skins, and still more laborious, I do not doubt, to rip them up again when they reached their destination; for during their transit across the parching desert, the hides are not unfrequently so dried up that they become as hard as tin. For the protection of my packages and to prevent the botanical contents being invaded by insects or gnawed by rats, I had no difficulty in providing the caoutchouc substance of the Carpodinus, the “Mono” of the Bongo. This I obtained in a fresh condition, when it has the appearance of a well-set cream, and washed it lightly over the linen or the paper like a varnish. Not an insect found its way through this coating, and my packages all arrived thoroughly uninjured in spite of their being a twelvemonth on their way. Less adapted for the purpose I found both the milky sap of the fig and of the butter tree, because it is not so uniform in its character and does not admit of being spread so readily.
The produce of Ghattas’s Company was this year four hundred loads, being somewhere about 220 cwt., which would be worth in Khartoom nearly 4000l. In order to reach this amount, certainly not less than three hundred elephants had been destroyed, and probably considerably more.
Although the ants at this spot did not abound in the wholesale way in which they did in many other Seribas, there were nevertheless plenty of inconveniences in my quarters, and like every other traveller I had to get accustomed to them as soon as I could.
My want of space was a great difficulty. I was hardly at all better off in the hut where I ordinarily lived than in an old overcrowded lumber room. I had no cupboards and no small chests, and consequently I was compelled to be ever packing up and unpacking my thousand bits of property. The framework, of my own construction, which reached up into the circular roof did something to increase my accommodation, and I hung bags upon it containing my clothes and my linen, and a whole host of little things besides I stuck into the straw thatch above. Under such circumstances, no wonder that I had perpetual conflict with rats, crickets, and cock-roaches, and that they were a constant source of annoyance.
NOXIOUS VERMIN.
The only method which was really an effectual guarantee for the protection of any articles from being gnawed to bits was to hang them up; but whenever at nightfall I had any packages which could not be suspended there was one device of which I made use, and which was tolerably successful in keeping rats at a distance. One of the commonest animals hereabouts was the wild cat of the steppes (Felis maniculata). Although the natives do not breed them as domestic animals, yet they catch them separately when they are quite young and find no difficulty in reconciling them to a life about their huts and enclosures, where they grow up and wage their natural warfare against the rats. I procured several of these cats, which, after they had been kept tied up for several days, seemed to lose a considerable measure of their ferocity and to adapt themselves to an indoor existence so as to approach in many ways to the habits of the common cat. By night I attached them to my parcels, which were otherwise in jeopardy, and by this means I could go to bed without further fear of any depredations from the rats.
Quite helpless, however, did I appear with regard to the devastations of the crickets, which found their way through my stoutest chests, ate holes into all my bags, and actually fretted my very wearing-apparel and body-linen. Subsequently I received a supply of borax, and this turned out to be an adequate security against their mischief.
The encroachment of the wood-worms in the bamboos which composed my hut developed itself into a nuisance of a fresh sort. To myself it was a matter of great indifference whether the building collapsed sooner or later, but just at present it was a great annoyance to me that all day long there should be an unceasing shower of fine yellow dust, which accumulated on everything till it lay as thick as my finger, and almost exceeded the bounds of endurance.
Another noxious insect which was to be found in every hut was the Pillen-wasp (Eumenes tinctor). This was nearly two inches long, and had a habit of forming its nest in the straw right at the top of the circular roof. Associated with eight or ten others it made a huge cell, and flying in and out through the narrow doorway, which was the only avenue for light, it came into constant collision with my face. Its sting was attended by distracting agony far worse than the sting of any bee. Throughout the entire year I was baffled by these wasps, which were beautiful in colour, having wings of a fine violet blue. I made many attempts to destroy their ingeniously-constructed nest, and only succeeded after catching them in a butterfly-net and killing them one by one.