The natives that served the necessary demands of the Seriba belonged to the tribe of the Golo. In manners and in general appearance they very much resemble their eastern neighbours the Bongo, although the dialects of the two tribes have very little in common. More than any other negro tongue with which I gained much familiarity, the Golo dialect seems to abound in sounds resembling the German vowels ö and ü, and, like some of the South African dialects, it contains some peculiar nasal tones, which may be described as sharp and snapping, and which are quite unknown to the neighbouring nations. Another peculiarity consists in the frequent occurrence of certain lingual sounds, which in a measure may be represented by ds and ts.
Golo Woman.
Escorted by the controller of the Seriba I made an inspection of all the neighbouring hamlets, and observed that the style of the Golo architecture was far more like that of the Niam-niam than that of the Bongo. The roofs of the huts projected far beyond the clay-walls, and were supported on light posts which formed a colonnade, the walls themselves being whitewashed with hyæna-dung.
The flora of the bush is distinguished by large numbers of Euphorbia venenifica, which is only sporadically represented in this district, and a tree of a type which is rare in the southern parts of Darfoor and Kordofan and in the Western and Central Soudan, the Eriodendron anfractuosum, being in fact the “cotton tree” of the colonist, was planted near the Seribas for its ornamental qualities. It is called “ruhm” by the Foorians, and is chiefly remarkable for the verticillate arrangement of its branches, separating the crown of the tree into divisions distinct from each other, like an araucaria—a peculiarity that results in its being resorted to by the poor heathen negroes of Baghirmy, when they are on the look-out for a place of refuge from the bands of slave-hunters: large conical prickles of an immense thickness cover the stem, almost like the clusters of barnacles on a log of wood that has been exposed to the influence of the sea.
MEETING AN OLD FRIEND.
Just as I was on the point of leaving the Seriba of Idrees Wod Defter, my old friend Mohammed Aboo Sammat arrived. He came in the train of a large party of Bongo who were conveying corn to the place, and as, like myself, he was on his way to the Egyptian camp, we joined company and started without further delay to the west.
Half a league beyond the Seriba we left the cultivated land and re-entered the forest wilderness near the village of the Golo chief Kaza. Far and wide the fields were sown with sweet potatoes, and dokhn corn was extensively cultivated. In the village of Kaza we noticed several of the peculiar corn-magazines upon the construction of which the Golo spend so much care. They are at once bold and graceful in design. The actual receptacle for the corn is made of clay and is in the form of a goblet; it is covered with a conical roof of straw, which serves as a movable lid; to protect it from the ravages of rats it is mounted on a short substantial pedestal, that is supported at the base by stakes arranged as a series of flying buttresses. Altogether the structure is very symmetrical; and the clay is worked into tasteful graduated mouldings that add considerably to the general finish of the whole. The dwelling huts of the Golo also display peculiarities in their style of building, and bear evident marks of being erected with unusual care and labour.