The contented little community of the Sehre had established itself in well-packed quarters, which were ranged for some distance around the Seriba. The prospect all around was very diversified, the landscape presenting pleasing alternations of light and shade, the dense woods being relieved by the recurrence of the culture-lands and homesteads of the natives.
In general appearance the Sehre may be said to bear a striking resemblance to the Niam-niam, except that they are not tattooed. Originally they were a tribe of slaves subject to the Niam-niam chieftains, but recently they have migrated farther north, very probably encouraged to that movement by the depopulation of the land in consequence of the large and perpetual capture of the people for slaves. However, many of the Sehre still remain subject to the dominion of the Niam-niam prince, Solongoh. The prolonged intercourse that has existed between the two people has done a great deal towards obliterating the nationality and peculiar customs of the Sehre and to assimilate them to the Niam-niam; but to a large extent they retain their own dialect, which, as might be expected, has many points of resemblance with the Zandey. Many of the Sehre are quite accustomed to the Zandey tongue and speak it fluently. The long hair is precisely like what is found among the Niam-niam, and the mode of arranging it in tufts and twists is identical. Their complexion is a dark chocolate colour.
The Sehre are a robust and well-built race, and in this respect they more resemble the Golo and the Bongo. Their ethnographical independence, however, does not admit of a question. Their huts attest the interest which their owners take in them, and the amount of care that is bestowed upon the management of their households is larger than what is anywhere to be observed amongst the Golo, not to mention those of the poor degenerate Kredy. The peculiar huts appropriated to boys, which I have mentioned as being adopted by the Niam-niam and called “bamogee,” are found here, and are always built in a style that is most symmetrical. But their most remarkable structures are their corn-bins, which are of a shape that I never saw elsewhere. They are made in the form of a drinking goblet, and are nearly always artistically decorated with mouldings and with a series of rings almost as perfect as though they had been produced with the aid of a lathe. They are always built on a pedestal, which must be climbed in order to push aside the projecting lid.
Among the Sehre I never saw either goats or dogs, and, as far as I could judge, their residences had no other live-stock about them but a few cocks and hens.
THE SEHRE.
There is nothing very remarkable about the arms of the Sehre; their lances resemble those of the Bongo, and are very rare and quaint-looking weapons. The bows and arrows are considerably smaller than those of the Bongo, the arrows in particular being of that short and stumpy make that I had noticed amongst the Bellanda.
The women’s attire consists of bunches of grass or leaves, fastened to their girdle before and behind, and very like what is worn by the Bongo; it is also generally adopted by the women of the Golo and Kredy. There is the same partiality for inserting bits of straw in the sides of the nostrils that is so common amongst the Bongo women, but the example here is to a certain extent followed even by the men. Many of the women have the circular plate let into their upper lip like the Mittoo women. At the Dehm Adlan I observed several women who had an appendage hanging from the lower lip in the shape of a piece of lead several inches long. The teeth, both of men and women, are left unmutilated, the only disfigurement being that an artificial separation is made between the two central incisors. According to the ordinary fashion of Central Africa, infants at the breast are carried in a girth, similar to a saddle-girth, worn over the shoulders just in the same way as amongst the Monbuttoo women.
Hunting in the neighbouring wildernesses, which cannot extend much less than twenty miles in every direction, and which appear to be entirely void of inhabitants, must be a very productive pursuit. In all my travels I never came across such numerous and abundant hunting trophies as here amongst the homesteads of the Sehre; they were contrived out of branches of trees resting one against another and self-supported like the guns of soldiers in camp, and were crowded with the skulls and horns of animals that the natives had secured. Hundreds of buffalo-horns, including a surprising number of those of the females, were attached to the structures which stood in front of well-nigh every hut, and were as numerous as though hunter vied with hunter in his separate display. Every variety of horn was represented: intermingled with the buffalo-horns were those of the eland-antelope, the water-bock, the hartebeest, and the bastard-gemsbock, whilst skulls of wart-hogs, and occasionally even skulls of lions, were not wanting to help adorn the trophy.
The proprietor of the Seriba happened to be absent on an excursion to the western districts of the Niam-niam, but his Vokeel did his utmost to provide me with a hospitable reception; and taking into account the impoverishment of the land and the general deficiency of provisions that prevailed, I am bound to award him my best thanks for his courtesy and attention.
Beyond the Kooroo, and just half-way between Dehm Adlan and Dehm Gudyoo, there stands a hill of considerable altitude, named Taya. The whole distance required two days’ hard marching to get over, the road being straight through uninterrupted wilderness until it reached the farmsteads of the Kredy sheikh, Gudyoo, on the banks of the Beery.