Bongwa’s Wife.
Accompanied by his wife, Bongwa paid us a visit to camp, and allowed me the unusual honor of taking a sketch both of himself and his better half. The old lady took her seat upon a Monbuttoo bench, wearing nothing else than the singular band, like a saddle-girth, across her lap, in the general fashion of all the women of the country. Like nearly all her race, she had a skin several shades lighter than her husband’s, being something of the color of half-roasted coffee. She exhibited singular tattooing, which appeared to consist of two distinct characters. One of these ran in lines over the shoulders and bosom, just where our ladies wear their lace collars; it was made of a number of points pricked in with a needle, and forming a pattern terminating on the shoulders and breast in large crosses. The other was a pattern traced over the whole stomach, standing out in such relief that I presume it must have been done by a hot iron; it consisted of figures set in a square frames, and looked somewhat like the tracery which is sculptured on cornices and old arches. Bodkins of ivory projected from her towering chignon, which was surmounted by a plate as large as a dollar, fastened on by a comb with five teeth manufactured of porcupine-quills.
BONGWA’S WIFE.
Since Madame Bongwa only intended to pay me a short visit, she did not appear en grande tenue; the picture, therefore, necessarily failed in the black figures which, for full dress were painted on her ample flanks, and which would have given a double interest to the likeness. As a token of my recognition of the steadiness with which she sat during my artistic labors, I permitted her (and this was the greatest the privilege I could afford any of the natives) to put her fingers through my hair, which to her eye was so astonishingly long and sleek.
The first hours of the following morning were spent in making purchases from the natives of a supply of yams and sweet-potatoes; the day, consequently, was somewhat advanced before we could make a start. The strips of grassland, void of trees, into which the numerous rivulets parcel out the district, were here peculiarly narrow; in the course of a single league, we passed over no less than three different streams, and then came to another, the Bumba, which we had to go over twice. Whenever we came to thickets, the Raphia or wine-palm was sure to be prominent, and put every other plant into the shade. Its noble branches are used by the Monbuttoo for making their stools and the seats which they erect upon the roofs of their huts.
A very populous district was soon reached, known as the district of Eddeedy, who being within Munza’s kingdom was tributary to Izingerria, Munza’s viceroy and brother. At this spot, we came again into contact with the party of Tuhamy, which had encamped upon the river Bumba. We had for so long been unaccustomed to the sight that the prospect of grazing cattle came upon us almost as a surprise. At first we were under the impression that Tuhamy’s people must have brought the oxen with them, but the manifest deviation of the beasts from the Dinka type set us to inquire whence they had come. They were of a thicker and shorter build than those we had seen, having a different formation of the skull and very prominent humps. We were informed that they had been a present from King Munza to Eddeedy. Munza himself had some years previously received a large herd of them from the powerful ruler of some people in the south-east, with whom he had concluded an amicable alliance. The tribe who were thus referred to were called by my interpreter the Maogoo, and I imagined that through this word I could get some perception of what Sir Samuel Baker meant when he spoke of the land beyond Lake Mwootan as Ulegga, and its inhabitants as the Malegga.
Taking now a more southerly direction, the road led us over three different streams, which flowed to the west to join the Bumba. On the fourth stream from the Bumba was situated the mbanga of Izingerria. It was somewhat late in the afternoon before we made our imposing entrance, and then we found both sides of the roadway lined with crowds of astonished folks who had come to gaze at our troop. The officials appeared in full state, their hats adorned with waving plumes: they had come attended by their shield-bearers, and had ordered their indispensable benches to be brought with them, that they might receive us at their ease and observe the unusual spectacle we presented with as much convenience as possible.
