To the antiquary, within whose province the description may lie in a degree, the material that is offered must be in a measure attractive. A people, as long as they are on the lowest step of their development, are far better characterised by their industrial products than they are either by their habits, which may be purely local, or by their own representations, which (rendered in their rude and unformed language) are often incorrectly interpreted by ourselves. If we possessed more of these tokens, we should be in a position to comprehend better than we do the primitive condition of many a nation that has now reached a high degree of culture.
COUNTRY OF THE BONGO.
Of all the natives with whom I had intercourse in my wanderings, the majority of those who acted as my bearers, and amongst whom I most frequently sojourned, were the Bongo. It was in their territory that I spent the greater part of my time in the interior; and thus it happened that I became intimate with many particulars of their life, was initiated into all their habits, and even to a certain extent mastered their dialect.[28]
The present country of the Bongo lies between lat. 6° and 8° N. on the south-western boundary of the depression of the Bahr-el-Ghazal basin, and on the lowest of the terraces where the southern slopes appear to make a transition from the elevated ferruginous crust to the unfathomed alluvial flats which are traversed by all the affluents of the river. In the extent of its area the land covers about the same surface as Belgium, but with regard to population, it might be more aptly compared to the plains of Siberia or the northern parts of Norway and Sweden; it is a deserted wilderness, averaging only 11 or 12 people to the square mile. The country extends from the Roah to the Pango, and embraces the middle course of nearly all the affluents of the Gazelle; it is 175 miles long by 50 miles broad, but towards the north-west the breadth diminishes to about 40 miles. On the north it is only divided by the small Dyoor country from that of the Dinka, which, however, it directly joins upon the north-east. The south-east boundary is the Mittoo territory on the Roah; and that on the west is the country of the Golo and Sehre on the Pango. The eastern branch of the extensive Niam-niam lands joins the Bongo on the south; whilst, wedged between and straitly pressed, the Bellanda and the Babuckur have their settlements.
When, eighteen years ago, the Khartoomers first set foot in Bongoland, they found the entire country divided into a number of independent districts, all in the usual anarchy of petty African communities; there was nothing anywhere like an organised commonwealth such as may be found amongst the Dinka, where entire districts unite and form an imposing warlike tribe. Every village simply had its chief, who, in virtue of superior wealth, exercised a certain authority over the rest of the inhabitants, and who, in some cases, had an additional prestige from his skill in the art of magic. The Nubians, consequently, never had to contend against the unanimous hostility of a powerful or well-disciplined people, and only in a few isolated places had to encounter much resolute opposition. Their soldiers, not merely by the tenor of their religion, conceived themselves justified in perpetrating every sort of outrage upon heathen unbelievers, but they were taught to consider their acts of violence as meritorious in the sight of God: it was, therefore, an easy matter for them to fall upon the weak authorities of the country, and in the space of a few years to apportion the entire territory amongst the few ivory merchants in Khartoom, whose spirit of enterprise, suddenly kindled by the exaggerated reports of the profits secured on the Upper Nile by Europeans, the first explorers, had developed itself into a remarkable activity.
VASSALAGE.
The natives were without difficulty reduced to a condition of vassalage, and, in order that they might be under the close supervision and at the service of their oppressors, they were compelled to quit their homes, and to reside near the Seribas that were established in various parts of the land. By the application of this sort of feudal system, the trading companies brought about the realisation of their project for a permanent occupation of the country. Shut in by the Niam-niam on the south and by the Dinka on the north, Bongoland offered a twofold advantage for the establishment of headquarters for the expeditions: in the first place, it was in close proximity to the Mesheras, or landing-places; and, secondly, by its advanced position towards the interior, it afforded most ample opportunities for setting in operation the contemplated excursions to the prolific ivory districts of the south. The Dinka, hostile and intractable from the first, had never given the intruders the smallest chance of settling amongst them; while the Bongo, docile and yielding, and addicted almost exclusively to agriculture, had, on the other hand, contributed in no slight measure to maintain the Seribas. If ever, now and again, they had been roused to offer anything like a warlike opposition, they had only too soon succumbed to the motto of the conquerors, “Divide, et impera.”
The Dyoor, the Golo, the Mittoo, and other smaller tribes, shared the fate of the Bongo, and in the short space of ten years a series of more than eighty Seribas had arisen between the Rohl and the Beery. Scarcely half the population escaped slavery, and that only by emigrating; a portion took refuge amongst the Dinka on the north, and others withdrew southwards to the Niam-niam frontiers, where the isolated mountains enabled them to hold out for a while. The Khartoomers, however, were not long in pursuing them, and gradually displaced them even from this position.
During the early years of their occupation, the Nubians beyond a question treated the country most shamefully; there are traces still existing which demonstrate that large villages and extensive plots of cultivated land formerly occupied the scene where now all is desolation. Boys and girls were carried off by thousands as slaves to distant lands; and the Nubians, like the parvenu who looks upon his newly-acquired wealth as inexhaustible, regarded the territory as being permanently productive; they revelled like monkeys in the durra-fields of Taka and Gedaref. In course of time they came to know that the enduring value of the possessions which they had gained depended mainly on the physical force at their disposal; they began to understand how they must look to the hands of the natives for the cultivation of their corn, and to their legs for the transport of their merchandise. Meanwhile, altogether, the population must have diminished by at least two-thirds. According to a careful estimate that I made of the numbers of huts in the villages around the Seribas and the numbers of bearers levied in the several districts, I found that the population could not at most be reckoned at more than 100,000, scattered over an area of nearly 9000 square miles.
On first landing from the rivers, the Khartoomers opened up an intercourse with the Dinka, who did not refuse to furnish them with bearers and interpreters for their further progress into the interior, and it was from them that they learnt the names of the different tribes. In Central Africa every nation has a different designation for its neighbours than that by which they are known among themselves; and it is the same with the rivers, which have as many names as the nations through whose territory they flow. In this way the Nubians have adopted the Dinka appellations of Dyoor for Lwoh, Niam-niam for Zandey, and Dohr for Bongo. This last people always style themselves Bongo, and the Khartoomers, since they have made their headquarters in their territory, have discarded the Dinka name of Dohr, and now always use the native term Bongo. According to the Arabic form of expression, the plural of Dohr is Derahn, and of Niam-niam it is Niamahniam.