[10] The illustration represents the different well-like Shadoofs used for irrigation.
CHAPTER III.
Camp of the Mudir. A negro king. Campaigns. Future of the country. A wise judge. The shrieking priest. Gum-arabic. The melodious tree. Mohammed Aboo-Sammat. Boats on the flight. Treachery of the Shillooks. General market. Excuse for plunder. First papyrus. Cæsar among the pirates. Useless attempts to proceed. A world of grass. Hippopotamuses in a fright. The last obstacle. Depreciation of the Gazelle stream. Bon-mot of the Viceroy. Ghattas’ namesake. The slipper-shape. Description of the Nueir. Analogy between man and beast. Cactus-type of Euphorbiæ. The Bahr-el-Arab a mainstream. Vallisneria meadows. Arrival in Port Rek. True nature of the Gazelle. Discovery of the Meshera. Deadly climate and its victims. Le Saint. Features of the scenery. The old queen and her prince consort. Royal gifts. Fishes and birds.
I remained nine days in Fashoda, a residence to which the non-arrival of the boats bound for the Gazelle River compelled us, because our force was not sufficiently numerous to overcome by ourselves the obstacles which the “Sett,” or grass-barrier, would present, and also inadequate for protection against an attack, which was not improbable, from the hitherto unsubdued residents.
A wider ramble, in which I inspected several Shillook villages, led me farther into the country, and gave me some conception of its thronging population. The Turkish officer, who welcomed me like a countryman because I was European, attended me, followed by a number of soldiers, all of us being mounted. Although throughout this tour, I was not offered even a bowl of fresh milk, and saw little beyond what had already come under my observation, viz., grey and rusty-red beings, innumerable conical huts, and countless herds of cattle; yet I could not be otherwise than impressed by various details which appeared characteristic of
this people, now incorporated as Egyptian subjects, and which I shall proceed to relate.
SHILLOOK STATISTICS.
The Shillook tribe inhabits the entire left bank of the White Nile, occupying a territory about 200 miles long and about ten miles wide, and which extends right to the mouth of the Gazelle River. Hemmed in by the Baggara on the west, it is prevented by the river from extending itself farther eastward, and only the lower course of the Sobat has any of the Shillooks for its denizens. Their subjection to Egyptian government, which was completed in 1871, has caused a census to be taken of all the villages on the left bank of the Nile, which resulted in an estimate of about 3000. Taking the character of the villages into account this would give a total of above a million souls for this portion of the Shillooks alone. Now the Shillook land, which lies upon the White Nile, has an extent of hardly less than 2000 square miles, and when the number of heads upon this is compared with those in the populous districts of Europe we are justified in reckoning from 600 to 625 to a square mile; a result altogether similar is arrived at from a reckoning based on the estimate of there being 3000 villages, each village having huts varying in number from 45 to 200, and each hut averaging 4 or 5 occupants; this would give a total of about 1,200,000. This, in fact, is an estimate corresponding entirely with what the Mudir of Fashoda, who was conversant with the details of all state affairs, had already communicated to me in 1869.
No known part of Africa, scarcely even the narrow valley of the Nile in Egypt, has a density of population so great; but a similar condition of circumstances, so favourable to the support of a teeming population, is perhaps without a parallel in the world. Everything which contributes to the exuberance of life here finds a concentrated field—agriculture, pasturage, fishing, and the chase. Agriculture is rendered easy by the natural fertility of the soil, by the recurrence of the rainy seasons, by irrigation effected by the rising of the river, assisted by numerous canals, and by an atmosphere ordinarily so overclouded as to moderate the radiance of the sun, and to retain throughout the year perpetual moisture. Of fishing there is plenty. There are crocodiles and hippopotamuses in abundance. Across the river there is a free and open chase over wildernesses which would advantageously be built upon, but for the hostility of the neighbouring Dinka. The pasture lands are on the same side of the river as the dwellings; they are just beyond the limits of the cultivated plots; occasionally they are subject to winter drought, and at times liable to incursions from the Baggara; but altogether they are invaluable as supplying daily resorts for the cattle.
Still further proof of the superabundance of population of the Shillooks is manifest from the emigration which goes forward in a south-westerly direction, where considerable numbers of them, the Dembo and Dyoor, have settled on the border-lands between the Bongo and Dinka. Of these, however, I will speak hereafter; I will only pause now to remark how, in vivid contrast to the monotonous uniformity of nature which ordinarily asserts itself throughout vast tracts of Central Africa, there are even exhibited diversities of human development, differences of dialect, and peculiarities of bodily conformation. In the Shillook territory there are probably no less than 600 residents to the square mile, whilst in Bongo-land, within 180 miles to the south-west, there would be found hardly a dozen occupants on an equal area. Again, between lat. 5° and 1° N., within a range of not more than 300 miles, are to be found examples of the largest and of the smallest races of mankind—the Bari and the Akkah, of which the former might rival the Patagonians in stature, the latter being scarcely taller than Esquimaux, and considerably below a medium height.
SHILLOOK VILLAGES.