ENTRY TO IZINGERRIA’S MBANGA.
We took up our encampment on the steppe just beyond the stream which divided us from the circle of huts, which was arranged around an open area, and allotted to the wives and soldiers of the prince. The plots that had been cleared near the little river were for the most part planted with sugar-canes. The canes grew to the size of a man’s arm, but I think they were generally very woody and less soft in their texture than those which grew in Egypt. Except for chewing, the natives seem to have no object in growing them, and have no notion of expressing or boiling the sap, for otherwise, they would not have been so surprised as they were at the bits of loaf-sugar which we gave them by way of putting their experience to the test. The plants thrive very well in the plantations, which are amply irrigated by the numerous ducts of the various streams, and, indeed, they grow in a half-wild condition. Had the natives only a better disposition for industry and a freer scope for traffic, there is no estimating what might be the value of the production which is here so bountifully bestowed.
A VISIT TO IZINGERRIA.
In company with Mohammed I visited Izingerria in his dwelling in the later hours of the evening, and found him sitting on his bench in the open space, surrounded by about a dozen of his satraps. Having been made acquainted with the custom of the country that all officials, all heads of families, and indeed all persons of any distinction, whenever they pay a visit, take with them their slaves to carry their benches, because it is considered unseemly to sit, like Turks or Arabs, upon the ground, I gave orders that some of my people should, on these occasions, invariably accompany me and carry my cane chair. We took our seats opposite Izingerria, and by the assistance of one of the natives, who could talk to my Niam-niam interpreter, I contrived to keep up, despite the labor of a double translation, some mutual interchange of thought till the night was far advanced. Of hospitable entertainment there was not a word; perhaps it was considered inconsistent with the dignity of a formal interview, but there was not even the offer of the usually elusive beer. The consumption of tobacco, however, was quite unrestrained. I could not help observing, without being quite able to account for the circumstance, that my cigars did not in the least appear to attract any notice on the part of the natives, although they were accustomed to smoke their tobacco exclusively through pipes, and were as entirely unacquainted either with the habits of chewing tobacco or of taking snuff as any other of the African negroes who have not been contaminated in these respects by intercourse with Mohammedans and Christians.
The Monbuttoo use pipes of a primitive, but really of a very serviceable description, which they make from the mid-rib of a plantain-leaf. The upper classes, however, not unfrequently have a metal tube, some five feet long, made by their smiths. The lower extremity of the pipe is plugged up, and an opening is made in the side near the end, into which is inserted a plantain-leaf, twisted up and filled with tobacco. This extemporised bowl is changed as often as requisite, sometimes every few minutes, by the slaves who are kept in attendance. The only tobacco which is known here is the Virginian (N. tabacum, L.). With much relish I smoked a pipe of this construction, which was altogether a novelty to me, and I found that it was a contrivance that modified the rankness of the tobacco almost as perfectly as if it had been inhaled through the water-reservoir of a narghileh.
At length the attainment of my cherished hopes seemed close at hand. The prospect was held out that on the 19th of March we might expect to arrive at the Welle. The way to the river led us due south, and we went onwards through almost uninterrupted groves of plantains, from which the huts, constructed of bark and rotang very skilfully sewn together, ever and again peeped out. A march of scarcely two leagues brought us to the bank of the noble river, which rolled its deep dark flood majestically to the west, in its general aspect suggesting a resemblance to the Blue Nile. For me it was a thrilling moment that can never fade from my memory. My sensations must have been like Mungo Park’s on the 20th of July, 1796, when for the first time he planted his foot upon the shore of the mysterious Niger, and answered once for all the great geographical question of his day—as to whether its waters rolled to the east or to the west.
THE WELLE.
Here, then, I was upon the very bank of the river, attesting the western flow of the water, about which the contradictions and inconsistencies of the Nubians had kept up my unflagging interest ever since we set out from Khartoum. Whoever has any acquaintance with the indistinctness that ever attaches to the statements of those who would attempt to describe in Arabic the up-current of the down-current of a river will readily comprehend the eagerness with which I yearned to catch the first glance of the waters of which the rippling sound, as they washed their stony banks, came through the bushes to my a strained and listening ear. If the river should flow to the east, why then it solved the problem, hitherto inexplicable, of the fulness of the water in Lake Mwootan; but if, as was far more likely, it should go towards the west, then beyond a doubt it was independent altogether of the Nile system. A moment more and the question was set at rest. Westerly was the direction of the stream, which consequently did not belong to the Nile at all; it was in all likelihood not less than 180 miles distant from the most western coast of Lake Mwootan, and at the numerous rapids which are formed in its upper course it rises almost to the level of the lake, even if it does not attain a still higher altitude.[50]
Very similar as I have said it looked in some respects to the Blue Nile at Khartoum, the Welle had here a breadth of 800 feet, and at this period of the year, when its waters were at their lowest, it had a depth varying from twelve to fifteen feet. The banks, like the “guefs” of the Nile, rose about twenty feet above the level of the stream and appeared to consist almost exclusively of alluvial clay and some layers of blended sand and mica; but as far as I could investigate the exposed face of the river-wall, I could see neither pebbles nor drift, and only occasionally were the scanty remains of shells to be detected.
Here, as well as on the upper part of the main stream, named the Keebaly, which we subsequently crossed, no inundation of the country seems ever to occur, although the land sank with rather a sudden fall for 100 feet down to the wood-encircled bank of the river.