In spite of the constant traffic between the different Seribas there seemed to be no lack of game; traces of hartebeests were everywhere visible, whilst the little madoqua antelopes bounded like apparitions from bush to bush. Guinea-fowls were just as prolific as in the wildest deserts of the Niam-niam. Heuglin, no inexperienced sportsman, had certainly here chosen a remunerative ground for his zoological researches.
Our path was crossed by three watercourses, which were now for the most part dry. By their confluence these three streams formed an important tributary of the Dyoor, called the Okuloh, their separate names before their junction, reckoning from the southernmost, being respectively the Dangyah, the Matshoo, and the Minnikinyee or “fish-water;” their uniformly north-eastern direction attested the material fall in the level of the ground at the boundary between the rocky soil and the alluvial plains of the Dyoor.
Longo ranked as a first-class establishment. It contained a larger number of huts than even Ghattas’s Seriba, which it surpassed also in dirt and disorder. Every hedge was crooked, every hut stood awry, and the farmsteads were as ruined as though they had for years been abandoned to the ravages of rats and white ants. Disgusting heaps of ashes and scraps of food, piles of rotten straw, hundreds of old baskets and gourd-shells stood as high as one’s head all along the narrow alleys that parted hut from hut; whilst outside the Seriba, just at its very entrances, there were masses of mouldy rubbish, overgrown with the most noxious of fungus, that rose as high as the houses; at every step there was sure to be an accumulation of some abominable filthiness or other, such as nowhere else, I should think, even in the Mohammedan world, could be found in immediate proximity to human habitations; altogether the place presented such a dismal scene of dirt, decay, and disorder that it was enough to induce a fit of nightmare upon every one with the smallest sense of either neatness or decorum. Truly it was a wonderful specimen of domestic economy which this horde of undisciplined Nubians had thus elaborated.
The level country for a mile or more round the Seriba was occupied by the arable lands belonging to the settlement. Longo was one of the oldest establishments in the country, and the adjacent soil was no less productive than that around the Seriba of Ghattas. The Bongo villages were all situated at some distance to the west.
Amoory’s representative agent, Zelim, had formerly been a soldier, one of the Nizzam, in the Turkish service, and was a native of the wild district of Baria, in the mountains of Taka; he was now absent from the Seriba, but had left orders that I should be hospitably entertained and that everything which his stores could furnish should be placed at my disposal. A grove of excellent plantains was close at hand, from which I obtained a bounteous supply of that luscious fruit.
MUTUAL CURIOSITY.
All the year round a considerable number of slave traders resided in the place, and were always attended by those wild sons of the steppes, the Baggara of the Rizegat, who, with their lean, fly-bitten cattle, had to camp out as well as they could in the environs of the Seriba. They had never before set eyes upon a Christian, and full of eager wonder they flocked together to survey me, keeping, however, at a distance of several yards from personal contact, probably dreading the malign influence of the “evil eye” of a Frank. Their curiosity was still further roused when they saw me drawing pictures of their cattle, and when I offered them my various sketches for their own inspection they appeared to lose much of the alarm which they had exhibited. I rose from my seat, and held up to them one picture after another; the effect was little short of magical; their uncouth tones seemed to soften into a murmur of delight, and so effectually had I succeeded in gaining their confidence that some of them were induced to sit for their own portraits. All those that I drew had fine light brown complexions, slim muscular frames, and perfectly regular features; the expression of the face might fairly be pronounced open and honest, and exhibited the strong resolution that might be expected of a warlike nation whose occupations, when not in the battle-field, were in hunting and cattle-breeding. Their profiles all formed quite a right angle; their noses failed to be aquiline, but were rounded and well-formed; the faces of the younger men were good-tempered looking, having a somewhat effeminate expression, which was still further increased by the high round forehead. All of them seemed to wear their hair in long slender braids running in rows along the top of the head and drooping over the neck behind.
As I was pursuing my occupation, and quietly taking my series of portraits, watched intently by a hundred spectators, who stood around with open mouths which revealed an astonished admiration, my attention was all at once arrested by a commotion which was taking place just outside the circle of the admirers. An old fanatic from Darfoor was raving away and denouncing loudly what he pleased to call the iniquity of my proceedings; he professed that my pursuit was beyond all endurance, and that he was not going to countenance my presumptuous practices. I shouted to the old rascal to hold his tongue, to mind his own business, and be off, and most of the bystanders took up the same strain, some beginning to taunt and jeer the fellow with such a volley of satirical laughter that, completely discomfited, he was glad to skulk off as quickly as he could. I could not resist having a word of my own, and just as he was retiring I shouted after him, for his comfort, the native proverb, “Trust to the protection of the Almighty as to the shade of an acacia, but,” I added, “they had need be better acacias than those of your miserable land.”
On the 6th of January I resumed my progress. Taking a south-westerly direction I accomplished a good day’s march of eighteen miles and reached Damury, Amoory’s subsidiary Seriba on the River Pongo. A rocky soil covered with bush had predominated for the greater portion of the distance, the route having been perfectly level and unbroken by the smallest depression. We had crossed the beds of five brooks which were nearly dry. Taking them in order they were, the Okilleah, a mere line of stagnant puddles; the Kulloo,[67] a larger brook overhung with sizygium-bushes, and containing water as high as one’s knees; the Horroah, a dry hollow bed; the Daboddoo, with a few pools; and the Ghendoo, with holes from which the water had either dried up or drained away. All these, when supplied with water, were tributary to the Pongo, and flowed towards the north-west.
A PLANT OF HAPPY OMEN.