A Bongo concert.
Feeling somewhat better towards evening, I took a short ramble amongst the homesteads of the place. It was here that I came across the grave of the departed Bongo chief Yanga, with its monumental erection, of which I have already[80] given an illustration. The Bongo here seemed to show a remarkable originality in their contrivances. In their huts I was continually finding some furniture or implements which in other parts of the country had long become obsolete. The variety of their musical instruments, as I have described them in the chapter devoted to their manners and customs, is very great, and to exemplify the use of them, I may here introduce a sketch which represents four young men whom I saw in Moody, and who had met together to while away the evening by performing quartets.
NORWAY RATS.
The controller at Moody was in possession of a couple of caracal-lynxes, which he had caught when they were quite young, and which he was training, intending to send them when full-grown to Khartoom. One of the Bongo men was employed in attending to them, and in order to keep them supplied with food he was obliged to spend the greater portion of his time in catching rats. He used to bring them home, tied up in dozens, from the banks of the neighbouring river-course. These rats were of a reddish-brown colour, with white bellies, and were called “luny” by the Bongo; except that they are smaller in size, they are very like what we know as “Norway rats.” They are never found except in the proximity of water, and appear to be indistinguishable from those which infest the huts and granaries in every respect but in colour. Whether the Norway rats in their dispersion have ever reached as far as these remote districts is a question that I cannot answer, as the investigation of the specimens I brought with me has not yet been completed.
Two leagues to the south-east of Moody lies a subsidiary Seriba of Kurshook Ali’s, named Moddu-Mabah; and three leagues farther on in the same direction is the chief Seriba of Hassaballa, known amongst the Bongo as Gellow. This is situated on the hither side of the Wow, and at no great distance from it. The narrow strip of land between the Wow and the Dyoor contains at least half a dozen smaller Seribas, which lie along the route to the Bellanda, and which belong partly to Kurshook Ali and partly to Hassaballa.
The little Seriba Moody, together with all its huts, was overshadowed by a single fig-tree, of such enormous growth that it was quite a magnificent example of the development which that tree may attain. It belonged to the species named the Ficus lutea, the mbehry of the Bongo. It was not that the height of the stem of this giant of Moody was very excessive; the remarkable growth displayed itself rather in the prodigious thickness and spreading habits of the powerful arms, every one of which was so massive that it might stand a comparison with the stoutest of our pines and firs. The peculiar bark only appears on parts of the stem; its colour is light grey, and, like that of the plane, it is scored with diagonal lines. All the boughs, right up to the highest, are furnished with external pendant roots, that hang in the air like a huge beard; they encompass the trunk of the tree with a regular network, like rope and string. But it should be observed of this species that its principal branches altogether fail in throwing out those perpendicular roots, which, falling straight downwards, find their way into the earth and give such a remarkable appearance to trees like those venerable sycamores of Egypt, which stand as though they made the pillared corridor of a stately coliseum.[81]
EFFECT OF THE EVIL EYE.
A singular story was associated with this noble tree at Moody, and I found the entire population of the Seriba still under the influence of the astonishment and alarm that had only recently been excited. It appeared that one of the great branches, having become worm-eaten and decayed, had fallen to the ground, and as it fell would inevitably have utterly smashed in a contiguous hut if it had tumbled in any other direction than it did. This fall of the huge bough was attributed by the Nubians to the direct agency of an “evil eye,” which it was alleged had been directed against the tree by a soldier who had happened to be passing through the place the day before my arrival. Just as usual the people had been collected in front of their huts under shade of the tree, when the man in question, pointing significantly to the bough, said, “That bough up there is quite rotten; it would be a bad business if it were to come tumbling down upon your heads.” No sooner said than done. The words were hardly out of the fellow’s mouth before there was a prodigious cracking and creaking, and down came the huge branch with a crash to the ground. There lay the fragments. I heard the testimony from the very lips of eye-witnesses, and what could I say?
It took us two days more to accomplish our return journey to Wow. The chief Seriba of Agahd’s company lay to the north-east of Moody, and, allowing for a slight deviation from the direct route, was about thirty-five miles distant. The country was clothed with light bushwood, but in no part did it exhibit anything like the same richness of foliage as the western lands that we had left behind. We had to pass over two low-lying marsh-districts, Katyirr and Dumburre, where, hidden amongst the tall, half-withered grass, we found several cavities filled by springs of water. At Dumburre we came across traces of a deserted settlement, which, according to the statements of the Bongo of my party, were the remains of the very earliest Seriba that had been established in the land. Our night was spent upon the borders of a marshy stream called the Moll, and was very uncomfortable on account of a heavy north-east gale which blew from ten o’clock.