VEGETABLES.
At some seasons other products of the soil, such as the larger kinds of gourds, are added to the catalogue of supplies. Gourd-leaves, too, which can be gathered throughout the year, together with various herbs, which are found neither to be unwholesome nor to have the flavour of pimento, are pounded and mixed with the soups. Vegetables proper are rarely grown, but whatever weeds may spring up on all cultivated soils are employed as a substitute, and play as important a part in the economy of the food as many articles that are used on our own tables; they serve partly as material to thicken the soups, and partly as nourishment to satisfy hunger. As I proceeded further on my journey, I found that manioc, sweet-potatoes, and green plantains took the place of the corn-pap and Bongo sauces, whilst it should be observed that in the more northerly regions cereals formed the basis of the food.
On the twelfth morning of our march I rose with the welcome prospect of that day reaching Aboo Sammat’s Seriba. Attending to my toilet, and taking my time over my breakfast, I did not quit the camp at Kulenjo until long after the last of the bearers had left. The day brought me along a charming walk, and yielded a fine harvest of botanical treasures; we crossed four streams, passed several isolated hamlets, and finally entered a dense forest of lofty trees. This was no park with its alternations of meadows and thickets, trees and groves: it was a veritable forest in our northern sense, but infinitely more lovely and varied, and not marked by the solemn monotony of our native woods. In contrast to the surrounding country, the forest land extended over an area of many miles to the north and south of the Seriba, and nowhere did it show an exclusive predominance of any single species. Trees there were most striking and stately, but the most remarkable circumstance about them was the diversity they displayed; a fact that may be comprehended, when it is stated that amongst thirty adjacent trees were found representatives of no less than twenty different classes.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Behnky has the French pronunciation of “bainqui.”
[45] The portraits here presented are those of two dandies, named Wennepai and Sehngba.
[46] They correspond to what in the Mark of Brandenburg are called “Luche” (from the Slavonian, “Luga,” a pond), being meadow-like depressions from which the water passes by subterranean channels.
CHAPTER XI.
Aboo Sammat’s territory. Jungle on the brooks. Discovery of wild pepper. Giant trees. Modesty of the Niam-niam women. Fresh danger from a bullet. A Bongo poisoned by manioc. Liberal treatment of bearers. Nduppo’s disagreement with Wando. Savage admiration of Europeans. The skin-trade. Wando’s braggings and threatenings. Formation of columns for war. Natives as soldiers. Difficulties of river-fording. Difference of level of soil on the watersheds. Mohammed’s prelude to drinking beer. Division of forces. Primeval forest on the Lindukoo. Rikkete’s jealousy. Varieties of genets. Mohammed’s réveille. Morning toilet of the Niam-niam. Waterfall on the Lindukoo. Magic roots. Watershed of the Nile district. Simple geological formation of Central Africa. The chimpanzee and pandanus found only beyond the watershed. Confusion in crossing the brook. Africa’s revenge on the white man. Venturesome interview of Mohammed with Wando. Value of ivory and copper. Definition of a “gallery-wood.” Duality of vegetation. Wando visits my tent. Wando’s nonchalance. A specimen of native cookery. Six Nubians murdered by Niam-niam. The leaf-eater and grass-man.
One of the native chieftains, as I have already mentioned, had exhibited so much hostility, and had been so great an obstacle to Mohammed Aboo Sammat’s ivory trade in Wando’s district, that Mohammed had proceeded to violence and had wrested away his territory. This chieftain was now dead, and Mohammed in his place had appointed a native spearman of royal blood. Mohammed had a considerable number of these spearmen, natives of the Niam-niam country, who were brought into his Seribas, and having been initiated into the use of fire-arms, formed one of the main supports of his authority. Backed by the continual presence of some forty or fifty armed Nubians, Surroor (for such was the name of the new vicegerent) held sway over a populous area of 700 square miles. According to the joint estimate made by Mohammed and Surroor, the number of men in the territory capable of bearing arms was not less than 40,000. I believe, however, that half this number would be nearer the mark; for when I test my impressions by comparing them with the results of my careful investigations in Bongo-land, I cannot but think that the entire population of the Niam-niam country, with its wide tracts of wilderness utterly uninhabited, hardly averages 65 to the square mile.