The diameter of the dwellings rarely exceeds twenty-feet, the height generally being about the same. The entrance consists of a hole so small that it is necessary to creep through in order to get inside; and the door consists of a hurdle swung upon two posts so as to be pushed backwards and forwards at pleasure. The clay floor in the interior is always perfectly level; it is made secure against damp as well as against the entrance of white ants by having been flattened down by the women trampling upon broad strips of bark laid upon it. The common sleeping-place of the parents and smaller children is on the floor. The bedding generally consists only of skins, the Bongo having little care for mats. For the pillow of the family they ordinarily use a branch of a tree smoothed by being stripped of its bark.
In every dwelling-place is found a conical receptacle for corn, named the “gallotoh,” which is elevated on piles, varying in height, so as to protect the provision from the damp of the soil or from the ravages of rats or white ants. Magazines of this kind for the reserve of corn are in general use throughout Africa, from the Rumboo of Damerghoo in the Central Soudan, right into the country of the Kaffirs and Bechuanas.
All the dwellings of the Bongo, whether large or small, are marked by one characteristic, which might almost be represented as a national feature. The peak of their huts is always furnished with a circular pad of straw, very carefully made, which serves as a seat, and from which it is possible to take a survey of the country, covered with its tall growth of corn. The name of “gony” is given to this elevation, which is surrounded by six or eight curved bits of wood projecting as though the roof were furnished with horns. It is peculiar to the huts of the Bongo.
ABUNDANCE OF IRON.
Iron is found in such quantities throughout the region that naturally the inhabitants devote much of their attention to its manipulation; its very abundance apparently secures them an advantage over the Dinka. Although, according to our conceptions they would be described as utterly deficient in tools and apparatus, still they produce some very wonderful results, even surpassing the Dyoor in skill. With their rude bellows and a hammer which, more commonly than not, is merely a round ball of pebble-stone (though occasionally it may be a little pyramid of iron without a handle) upon an anvil of gneiss or granite, with an ordinary little chisel and a pair of tongs consisting of a mere split piece of green wood, they contrive to fabricate articles which would bear comparison with the productions of an English smith.[31]
The season when opportunity is found for putting the iron-works in motion is after the harvest has been housed and the rains are over. Already, in a previous chapter,[32] iron-work, as produced by the Dyoor, has been noticed, but the Bongo have a system considerably more advanced, which appears worthy of a brief description. Their smelting apparatus is an erection of clay, generally about five feet in height, containing in its interior three distinct compartments.[33] These are all of the same size, that in the middle being filled with alternate layers of fuel and ore. This centre chamber is separated from the lower by means of a kind of frame resting on a circular projection; and it is divided from the chamber above by a narrow neck of communication. The highest and lowest of the divisions are used for fuel only. Round the base of the inferior chamber there are four holes, into which the “tewels” or pokers are introduced, and to which bellows are applied to increase the intensity of the combustion; there is a fifth hole, which can be stopped with clay as often as may be desired, and which serves to allow the metal to be raked out after it has trickled down into the cavity below the frame.
The most important of the iron productions are designed for the trade that the Bongo carry on with the tribes that dwell in the north, and which some time since was very active. The raw iron is exhibited in three separate shapes: one is named “mahee,” being spear-heads of one or two feet long, corresponding exactly with what has been mentioned as common with the Dyoor; the second is known as “loggoh kullutty,” and is simply a lot of black, ill-formed spades; the third is called distinctively “loggoh,” consisting of regular spades, which, under the market appellation of “melot,” have a wide sale everywhere along the course of the Upper Nile.