Adimokoo returned home loaded with presents, I made him understand that I should be glad to see all his people, and promised that they should lose nothing by coming.
On the following day I had the pleasure of a visit from two of the younger men. I had the opportunity of sketching their likenesses, and as one of the portraits has been preserved it is inserted here.
After they had once got over their alarm, some or other of the Akka came to me almost every day. As exceptional cases, I observed that some individuals were of a taller stature; but upon investigation I always ascertained that this was the result of intermarriage with the Monbuttoo amongst whom they resided. My sudden departure from Munza’s abode interrupted me completely in my study of this interesting people, and I was compelled to leave before I had fully mastered the details of their peculiarities. I regret that I never chanced to see one of the Akka women, and still more that my visit to their dwellings was postponed from day to day until the opportunity was lost altogether.
COLLISION WITH THE AKKA.
I am not likely to forget a rencontre which I had with several hundred Akka warriors, and could very heartily wish that the circumstances had permitted me to give a pictorial representation of the scene. King Munza’s brother Mummery, who was a kind of viceroy in the southern section of his dominions, and to whom the Akka were tributary, was just returning to the court from a successful campaign against the black Momvoo. Accompanied by a large band of soldiers, amongst whom was included a corps of Pygmies, he was conveying the bulk of the booty to his royal master. It happened on the day in question that I had been making a long excursion with my Niam-niam servants, and had heard nothing of Mummery’s arrival. Towards sunset I was passing along the extensive village on my return to my quarters, when, just as I reached the wide open space in front of the royal halls, I found myself surrounded by what I conjectured must be a crowd of impudent boys, who received me with a sort of bravado fight. They pointed their arrows towards me, and behaved generally in a manner at which I could not help feeling somewhat irritated, as it betokened unwarrantable liberty and intentional disrespect. My misapprehension was soon corrected by the Niam-niam people about me. “They are Tikkitikki,”[33] said they; “you imagine that they are boys, but in truth they are men; nay, men that can fight.” At this moment a seasonable greeting from Mummery drew me off from any apprehension on my part and from any further contemplation of the remarkable spectacle before me. In my own mind I resolved that I would minutely inspect the camp of the new-comers on the following morning; but I had reckoned without my host: before dawn Mummery and his contingent of Pygmies had taken their departure, and thus,
“Like the baseless fabric of a vision,”
this people, so near and yet so unattainable, had vanished once more into the dim obscurity of the innermost continent.
Anxious, in my contact with this mythical race, to lose or pass over nothing which might be of interest, I very diligently made memoranda after every interview that I had with the Akka. I measured six full-grown individuals, none of whom much exceeded 4 feet 10 inches in height, but, unfortunately, all my notes and many of my drawings perished in the fire.
A brief account may now be given of the little Pygmy that I carried off and kept with me during the remainder of my wanderings till I was again in Nubia, who for a year and a half became my companion, thriving under my care and growing almost as affectionate as a son.
I have already explained in a previous chapter the circumstances under which the little man came into my keeping. I succeeded tolerably well in alleviating the pain of the lad’s parting from all his old associations by providing him with all the good living and bestowing upon him all the attention that lay in my power. To reconcile him to his lot I broke through an old rule. I allowed him to be my constant companion at my meals—an exception that I never made in favour of any other native of Africa. Making it my first care that he should be healthy and contented, I submitted without a murmur to all the uncouth habits peculiar to his race. In Khartoom at last I dressed him up till he looked like a little pasha. The Nubians could not in the least enter into my infatuation, nor account for my partiality towards the strange-looking lad. When he walked along the thoroughfares at my side they pointed to him, and cried, with reference to his bright-brown complexion, “See, there goes the son of the Khavaga!” Apparently they overlooked the fact of the boy’s age, and seemed not to be in any way familiarised with the tradition of the Pygmies. In the Seribas all along our route the little fellow excited a still greater astonishment.