As we continued our journey, we could not be otherwise than surprised at the large flocks of maraboo-storks that we saw congregated amidst the burnt grass in the low steppes adjacent to the bed of the Molmul: most probably they were searching for the bodies of the snakes, lizards, and mice that had been killed in the recent conflagration.
With the 4th of May came the commencement of the general sowing of the crops; men’s hearts revived, and they began to anticipate happier times.
MISERY AND DIRT.
Ghattas’s granaries still contained some corn; and a small number of cattle, the residue of his once enormous herds, was yet to be seen in his farmyard. But in spite of my sense of these material comforts, the crowded Seriba was most repulsive to me: changed indeed it was in a way; but in its essential character it had remained true to its old composition. Certain it was that the swarms of rats that had infested the huts and undermined the soil had been all but exterminated by the fire; the crowds of red-headed lizards (Agamas) that used to frisk up and down the old rotten palisade were no longer to be seen; the horned beetles (Scarabæus nasicornus) and their grubs that had once covered every dung-heap were totally annihilated; it was man alone who was unchanged, and the same revolting forms, infected with syphilis, scabs, and boils were spreading their putrid miasma around. Tottering along betwixt the crooked, tumble-down straw hedges and amidst the heaps of garbage and of refuse might still be seen the wretched fever-stricken beings, with shorn heads covered with scabs and every limb a mass of festering matter; everywhere prevailed the moaning and groaning of a lingering death; the people were not so much what they were accustomed to call themselves and each other in their curses, “dogs and the sons of dogs,” they were rather sons of dirt, born and bred in an atmosphere of abscess and corruption.
I found my former garden ragged and barren as a wilderness; the only surviving memorials of what it had been were the tomatoes flourishing persistently upon the fertile soil, and the sunflowers that gloried in the tropical sun. Some of the sunflowers rose in great pyramids of foliage to a height of over ten feet, and with their huge disks of blossoms ever turned towards the full glare of light, presented an appearance that was very striking. In this strange world their splendour could not but irresistibly attract me, and I often sat down on the ground before them, and while gazing on their brightness recalled the fading memories of the past and conjured up anew the recollections of my distant travels, looking back upon the scenes I had passed, as a traveller looking through the back window of his carriage might take a retrospect of the country he had left behind.
BONGO VILLAGE, NEAR GEER.
In order to obtain a short reprieve from my melancholy and unpleasant surroundings and to finish up with a few days’ quiet enjoyment of nature, I resolved, towards the end of May, to take a farewell trip to Geer, and so to pay a parting visit to the Bongo. I had become quite attached to this people, and had determined to take a young Bongo boy back with me to Europe. My new protégé was named Allagabo.[95] He seemed to me to be sharper and quicker in ability than many of his race, even of those who were considerably older than himself; and I intended him accordingly to be properly educated; his family lived in Geer, and whilst I was there I received various visits from his father, uncle, and aunt, to all of whom I made what presents I could, and immortalised them in my portfolio. They no longer exercised any right over Allagabo, as he had been stolen from his home a long time before by the Dinka, and disposed of by them to the controller of the Seriba in exchange for some cattle; the boy’s good fortune was quite a matter of congratulation to his relatives, as they were fully convinced he would lead a much happier life with me than he could possibly expect in his savage home. His mother, some years previously, after one of the regular cattle-exchanges, had been carried off as a slave to Khartoom; she was the only one of his relations for whom Allagabo had any yearning, and later, when he had grown accustomed to his European life and begun to confide in me, he used to tell me that the image of his mother haunted him in his dreams and hovered over him with tears in her eyes. I made many inquiries for her in Khartoom, but never succeeded in learning anything about her. For his father, Allagabo had little affection or respect. When I was making presents I had noticed that he was always urging me to hand my gifts by preference to his uncle, saying that his father did not deserve them, and upon my asking him the reason, he told me that once during the time when he was suffering from one of the diseases of childhood, his father had been utterly indifferent to his condition, but that his uncle had helped to nurse him with the greatest tenderness.
A BONGO VILLAGE.