Kredy Hut.
KREDY HUTS.
After crossing a rippling brook we came to a village belonging to the Kredy chief, Ganyong, on Seebehr’s territory. The fishing-nets, forty feet long and eight feet broad, with their great meshes and floating rims made of the stalks of the borassus, bore ample testimony, as they hung outside the huts, to the productiveness of the Beery. Nets so large as these I had never seen in the country, except among the tribes that people the banks of the Dyoor.
The style of building amongst the Kredy appeared to me extremely slovenly and inartistic. Most of the huts were entirely wanting in substructure, and consisted merely of a conical roof of grass raised upon a framework of hoops. They recalled to my mind the huts of the Kaffirs. Ganyong had some corn-magazines of a very remarkable construction. They were made very much upon the principle of the “gollotoh” of the Bongo, having a kind of basket supported on posts and covered with a large conical lid; but underneath the main receptacle and between the posts there was a space left large enough for four female slaves to do all the necessary work for converting the corn into meal. A deep trench was cut, and, being firmly cemented over with clay, formed a common reservoir into which the corn fell after it had passed from the murhagas or grindstones. The stones were arranged so as to form a cross. The women who were employed sang merrily as they worked, and in the course of a day the quantity of corn they ground was very considerable.
Interior of Kredy hut.
At the next hollow, which appeared to have been a marsh that was now dry, was a kind of defile rather thickly sprinkled over with huts, where we found the native women busily engaged in gathering the Lophira-nuts that they call “kozo,” and use for making oil. The succeeding brook was named the Uyuttoo, and was lined on either side by avenues of trees; it was not much more than a trench, but it was full of water. Farther on, right in the heart of the wood, we made a passage over a khor, and having for a while mistaken our way, we made a halt at a rivulet that was but eight feet wide, but abundantly supplied with running water. It was already quite dusk, and we were obliged to abandon all hope of getting as far as the Seriba that day. I sent my bearers, therefore, to make the best investigation they could of the surrounding country, and to find out some settlement where we could encamp for the night, as it appeared to be quite impossible for us to bivouac with any degree of comfort in the midst of the still vigorous growth of grass. During the Khareef these thickets must be absolutely impenetrable.
THE RIVER BEERY.
Just in time a village belonging to Kurshook Ali was discovered, and, after making a circuitous route to the south-east, we fixed upon a convenient resting-place for the night. Next morning we proceeded down to the river over very irregular ground, up hill and down hill and repeatedly broken by deep fissures. The dimensions of the Beery in this district were anything but important: it flowed towards the west, making a good many bends and curves, and after a while turning short off to the north. At this date it extended over about two-thirds of the width of its channel, the depth of the stream varying from one to two feet, and the water flowing at the rate of about one hundred feet a minute. The banks were about eight feet high, and were crowned on either hand by trees that, rising some fifty feet, threw out their boughs and overhung the stream to a considerable distance with a leafy canopy. I found a place in the most shadowed portion of the wood where the river had formed a deep basin, and I took a bath, which I found something more than refreshing, and with the temperature at 68° Fahr. I was obliged to take a good run to get warm again.