THE CHIEF SETTLEMENT OF KURSHOOK ALI. A MAJESTIC KHAYA-TREE.
Some of my most pleasant reminiscences of African life are connected with this spot. Here it was that, two years later, after experiencing the calamity of a fire, I was hospitably received, and passed several months in hunting over the well-stocked environs. In no other Seriba did I ever see the same order and cleanliness. The store-houses and the governor’s dwelling stood alone on an open space within the palisade; around the exterior, at a considerable distance, were ranged the huts assigned to the soldiers and other dependants. The unhealthiness of having a crowd of wretched dwellings huddled together, the contingent danger of fire amongst so many straw huts, and the disadvantageous lack of space in case of an attack, all had their effect in inducing Khalil to make these innovations.
FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH NIAM-NIAM.
On my arrival I was surrounded by a bevy of real Niam-niam,[19] who had been conveyed hither by an expedition lately returned from their country. They stood and gaped at me and my belongings with far more curiosity than had been evinced by the stolid natives of the country. Whilst I was supposed to be listening to the performances of the resident Bongo on the guitar, it seemed as though these Niam-niam would never tire of examining my paraphernalia. My watch, breech-loader, revolver, my clothes, and even my lucifer matches had to be scrutinised separately. Nothing of equal wonder had crossed their experience; and what with my white skin and my appearance altogether, I looked to them like some being from another world.
Amongst the acquaintances that I made here I must not forget to mention a speculative slave-trader from Tunis, who was now making a second journey over Darfoor. He could speak a little French, and, to the astonishment of every one, he could read the names upon my maps. He was the most refined of his calibre that I had ever met, and to me was a sort of deus ex machinâ. Whenever I saw him I had always a vague feeling that he must be some distinguished explorator in disguise—perhaps a Burton or a Rohlfs. Our complexions were alike, our education had been alike, and so in these distant regions we met like fellow-countrymen. In an unguarded moment I grasped his hand, drew him aside, and begged him privately to tell me who he was and where he came from. His loud laugh of surprise at my inquiry was quite enough, and in an instant completely dispelled any illusion on my part.
The fact of meeting a slave-trader from Tunis in this spot so completely remote corroborates the imputation of an unexpected extent of the slave trade in Africa. This polished Tunisian was, to say the least, in many respects superior to the adventurers who ordinarily come from Darfoor and Kordofan. Of them nothing can be said too bad. They pursue their revolting craft under every pretext; coming as fakis or priests, they make their iniquitous exchanges for that living ebony which consists of flesh and blood, and, altogether, they are as coarse, unprincipled, and villanous a set as imagination can conceive.
It is pleasant to turn from these incarnations of human depravity to the calm undesecrated quiet of the wilderness around. Two leagues to the west brought us to the Wow, a river of inferior magnitude, but which was very charming. Meandering between rocky slopes, overhung with a rich and luxuriant foliage, and shadowed at intervals by stately trees, after a few miles it joins the Dyoor. Its bed, at its full measure, is 150 feet wide; but when I saw it, on the 1st of May, it exhibited merely two little rills trickling merrily over a rough sandy bottom. In proportion to its size it seemed to retain in the dry season less water than the Dyoor. It rises in the heart of the Niam-niam country, where it is called the Nomatilla; as it passes through the Bongo it is termed the Harey; whilst just above its confluence with the Dyoor, to which it contributes about a third of its volume, it goes by the name of the Nyanahm. It divides the people of the Dyoor into the two tribes of the Gony and the Wow.
THE WOW SERIBA.