The heart of Africa, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Georg August Schweinfurth

After a while we came to a large forest of butter-trees, the first and last that I saw in the country of the Niam-niam. The underwood was so dense, and its foliage so fully developed, that we could not see more than ten paces in any direction; our guides completely lost their way, and, without a clue to our proper path, we wandered on. To add to our perplexity the sky became overcast with the tokens of an approaching storm, and we thus lost whatever aid we might have got from the direction of the shadows. With a vista contracted as ours the compass was of little service, and in a country like this it was very unadvisable to leave the beaten paths or to penetrate into any untried thickets. We were glad enough when we at last caught sight of two deserted huts in the middle of the wilderness. The floods of rain were beginning to descend, and we were thankful for any shelter. The storm that had burst upon us continued with such unremitted violence that we were compelled to resign ourselves to the necessity of passing the night in this wild spot. The interior of the huts swarmed with creeping things of the most revolting character, in comparison with which the most obnoxious vermin that are ever found in houses within the range of civilization would appear mere mild and insignificant domestic nuisances. By heaping up a pile of fresh leaves and grass, I contrived a sort of covering that protected me from actual contact with the crawling things, but the lullaby that buzzed and hummed around me was none of the pleasantest. There were the swarms of white ants that were incessantly gnawing and scratching at my leafy coverlet; there were snakes and lizards rustling in the cobwebbed thatch above: there were mice scampering and squeaking on the ground below. However, for the condition of things there was no help: the best must be made of it; so I shut my ears to the commotion, and resigned myself successfully to the blissful unconsciousness of slumber.

When I awoke at dawn the rain was still falling, the heavy drops pattering down like lead upon the leathery leaves of the butter-trees. Hungry and shivering, I sat upon my grass couch and peered out through the narrow doorway into the obscurity of the thickets, where I could see the broad backs of my negroes as they grubbed away with all their might, defiant of the storm, in the hopes of getting something from among the roots to appease their craving. Hunger at last compelled us to brave the weather, and to take our chance at proceeding. We directed our movements at starting towards some mounds of gneiss, that at a little distance we could see picturesquely rising above the trees. Our intention at first was to ascend these elevations, that we might make a better survey of the land around us; but we were spared the necessity of climbing up them, as on reaching their base we fell into a well-defined path which we did not hesitate to follow. It led us to the brook Shöby, and shortly afterwards to some human habitations.

TUHAMY’S SERIBA.

Our arrival made no little stir among the natives, who had received no intelligence of the presence of a white man in that part of the country, and at first they were inclined to suspect that we must have come with hostile intentions. My Niam-niam, however, soon reassured them, and induced them to provide us with guides for our route. They led us out in an easterly direction, passing through a country that was fairly cultivated, and along which the numbers of guinea-fowl were so large that they kept me fully employed during the march. We had now only one more brook to pass, which was called the Mossulongoo, and this we accomplished in such good time that it was still daylight when we reached the Seriba of Tuhamy. Amongst the inmates of the Seriba my servants recognised several of their former acquaintances at Khartoom, and very enthusiastic were the greetings that were mutually exchanged. The controller of the Seriba received me with the most cordial hospitality, and cleared out his best hut for my accommodation. The hut was enclosed with a high palisade, which gave it an additional protection. The controller’s superior and principal in Khartoom was a personage no less important than the chief writer of the Hokkumdarieh; and this influential authority had in the previous year given instructions to his subordinate that he was to show me every possible attention if I should chance to pay him a visit.

The Seriba was a halting-place for Tuhamy’s ivory expeditions from the Rohl to the Monbuttoo country. Situated as it was on the extreme eastern limit of the Niam-niam territory, it formed an outpost towards the Babuckur land, which Tuhamy’s companies were accustomed to consider as their corn magazines, and on which they relied for their supplies to carry them onwards to the south. But the Babuckur were already wearied by the depredations to which they were thus continually exposed; their impatience made them desperate and exasperated; and a very few days after my departure they made an attack upon the Seriba, burnt it to the ground, and compelled the inhabitants to evacuate the place. Many Nubians as well as many Niam-niam lost their lives in the engagement, and the few that escaped had to make their way to the nearest Seriba, which was that established in Mondoo, at the distance of a long day’s journey, situated amongst the Zileï mountains, of which the spurs and projecting terraces were visible on the eastern horizon. Subsequently to this, all Tuhamy’s settlements passed by a special contract into the hands of Ghattas’s son.

The brook upon which the Seriba was situated was called the Annighei. The chieftain in command of the Niam-niam in the district had formerly been independent, but had been deprived of his authority by Tuhamy’s companies. His name was Indimma, and he was one of the numerous sons of Renje, but not to be confounded with the powerful chief of the same name, who was a son of Keefa. He came now to offer me his welcome, and communicated to me many interesting details about the surrounding country.

I made a little excursion to an elevation of gneiss a few miles to the east of the Seriba, so as to gain a point from which I might survey the surrounding mountains and make some observations to verify the position of the various peaks. The detached ranges for the most part were situated from ten to fifteen leagues from the site I had chosen for my survey, and I should imagine their height to vary from 4000 to 5000 feet above the level of the sea. All those who were capable of giving me any information at all upon the subject agreed in representing that the entire district was distinguished as Mundo or Mondoo, and that the principal chain of hills was called Mbia Zileï; also that at the foot of the mountains was the village of Bedelly, the native local overseer, close to which was another Seriba belonging to Tuhamy. Between me and the mountains flowed the river Issoo, a stream which I was assured was at this season fifty feet broad, and so deep that whoever attempted to ford it would be immersed up to the neck. The entire region was rich in corn, especially in sorghum. Several hundred bearers laden with it arrived during my stay at the Seriba, and I took the opportunity of laying in a stock for myself; it is difficult to obtain sorghum in the Niam-niam countries, and it was long since I had had grain of such a superior quality.

All the Niam-niam of whom I was able to make inquiries assured me that the natives of Mundo are a distinct people, differing from themselves both in habits and in dialect; their precise ethnographical position I could never determine, but I should presume that they approximate most nearly to their Mittoo neighbours on the north, and more especially to the Loobah and Abakah.

MONDOO.

This Mundo or Mondoo is not to be confounded with the Mundo to the south of the Bongo, which Petherick reports that he visited in February 1858; it is the name of the western enclave of the scattered Babuckur. But the Mundo of which I am speaking is marked upon the map by Peney, who in 1861 penetrated westwards from Gondokoro as far as the Ayi or Yei; Petherick too has inserted the district upon his map,[53] under the name of the Makaraka mountains, and has assigned it to exactly the same locality as I have myself done. In spite of Petherick’s protestation, many geographers have made the two Mundos identical, and have thus fallen into the not unnatural conjecture that the Yei is the upper course of the Dyoor, a conjecture of which my journey has fully demonstrated the fallacy.