Beyond the river we passed through cultivated lands, leaving Agahd’s chief Seriba on our left; we then crossed a low range of hills stretching towards the north-east, and brought our day’s march to an end in the hamlet of a Dyoor chief named Dimmoh, where we encamped for the night. I had purposely avoided entering the Seriba Wow, although it was quite within reach, my reason being that I had recently been aggrieved by the behaviour of the acting Vokeel, one of the few men of Turkish origin who had settled in the land. A short time previously I had despatched a document of considerable importance to myself, containing a narrative of my late misfortunes, directing it to the commander of the Egyptian camp, so that through him it might be put on the right track for Europe, viâ Kordofan; but although the controllers of all the other Seribas had readily passed on my despatch from place to place by means of special messengers, this Turkish Vokeel had sent it back to me with the paltry excuse that he had received no instructions from myself personally as to where he should forward it. I was thus compelled to be the bearer of my own papers as far as the Egyptian camp in Seebehr’s Seriba, whence I hoped to be able to send them on by one of the slave caravans that made the place their starting-point.
Our night-camp afforded me an opportunity of renewing my familiarity with the idyllic village life of the Dyoor. The sorghum harvest had long been gathered in, and the dokhn had been safely stored in the great urn-like bins that were so essential a fixture in every hut; a second crop was now in course of being housed, consisting of the kindy (Hyptis) that springs up between the stubble, many of the women being engaged in the task, which is very tedious, of cleansing the poppy-like seeds. About the fields were lying many of those strange cylinder-shaped melons, which appear to be peculiar to the Dyoor, with their rind like that of the bottle-gourd and as hard as wood. There were also large numbers of the fleshy variegated calyces of the Sabdariffa dried all ready for storing, a condition in which they retain their pungency, and serve the purpose of giving the soups of the natives an acid flavour almost as sharp as vinegar.
Several of the old men and women that I saw looked very decrepit; a circumstance which I mention, because amongst the Bongo, slaves to heathen superstition as they are, I never noticed a single individual whose hair was grey.
I was a witness here of what struck me as a very singular method of treating wounds. A boy’s knee had been grazed, and I saw a woman apply some of the acrid juice of the Modecca abyssinica. Forskal, who discovered the plant in Arabia, where it goes by the name of “Aden,” says that pulverized and taken internally it causes a swelling of the limbs that does not fail to terminate fatally. The Dyoor woman scraped the rind off a piece of the stem, and having expressed the juice from the soft pulp spread it upon a damp leaf; this was laid as a plaster upon the wound and covered with another leaf. I could not help regretting that time did not allow me to ascertain the efficiency of the operation.
The nights were calm and beautifully starlight, so that our rest in the open air was very enjoyable, and we started off each morning before sunrise with our energies thoroughly requickened.
THE HAMLETS OF WOLL.
After going awhile uphill over some rocky ground we came to a declivity of nearly a hundred feet; at the bottom of this we had to cross a wide swampy depression covered with the Terminalia forests that so often characterise such localities. The holes and hollows, although they were now completely dry, gave ample testimony as to what must be the number of the pools that would obstruct the path during the height of the rainy season. In a short time we reached the hamlets of a Dyoor chief named Woll, that were scattered about an open plain covered with cultivated fields; this was the frontier of Bizelly’s territory. A tree something like an acacia, the Entada sudanica, remarkable for its pods, a foot long and thin as paper, and breaking into numbers of pieces when ripe, was the chief feature in the bush-forests of the environs, although it is a tree which is generally rare in the country.
The bearers with whom Khalil had supplied me were here dismissed, their place being taken by others who had come up at the orders of Bakhit Yussuf. Woll’s people were very busy collecting their iron-ore and putting their smelting-furnaces into readiness for use. In the vicinity of the village there was an iron-mine similar to that near Kurshook Ali’s Seriba.
Over rocky soil and through tracts of dense bushwood we marched on, until in front of us we saw a kind of valley-plateau, bare of trees, apparently shut in on the farther side by an eminence extending towards the north-east, which is the general direction of the territory of the Dyoor in this district. Here we entered a little Seriba of Bizelly’s, known by the name of Kurnuk,[64] where we were well entertained during the midday hours.
In the afternoon we set off again, and mounted the wooded height covered with great tracts of the Göll tree (Prosopis), which is noticeable for producing a fruit very like the St. John’s bread. Then again descending, we came to the dried-up bed of a watercourse that was closely overhung with bushes. Beyond this were various cultivated plots, dotted here and there with huts; and we next entered a splendid forest of lofty Humboldtiæ, which by its extent and denseness reminded me of our own European woods. Our path was shaded by these noble trees until we reached the Ghetty, or “Little Wow,” six miles above the spot where Dr. Steudner lies buried on its bank.