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

by Georg August Schweinfurth

The Issoo, as the upper course of the Tondy is here called, forms the western boundary of this mountainous district; along the south and far to the east (probably as far as the source-regions of the Yei) there stretches an offshoot of the Niam-niam territory. This section of the Niam-niam is called Idderoh, and is subject to an independent chieftain, a brother of Indimma’s, named Bingio, who had formerly been an interpreter in Petherick’s station in Neangara. The river that waters his district is called the Nzoro. On all maps this territory of the Idderoh figures as Makkarakka; but, as I have observed, this is merely a collective name given to the Niam-niam by their neighbours on the east.

We had a day’s rest in the hospitable Seriba, and were well entertained with meat and vegetables. The neighbourhood was interesting, and yielded several novelties for my collection. One very brilliant ornament of the woods at this season, which I had never seen in greater abundance, was the Abyssinian Protea, a shrub about four or five feet high, with great rosy heads like our garden peony. Another plant, one of the Araliaceæ, the Cussonia, which is usually only a low shrub, here attained quite the dimensions of a tree, and its fan-shaped foliage crowned a stem little less than thirty feet in height. In the damp grass near the brooks flourished a number of ground orchids with remarkably fine blossoms.

A yet richer booty, however, was in store for me. A few miles to the south of the Seriba, jutting up like an island from the surrounding plain, and visible from afar, rose the massy heights of Mount Baginze. There I did not doubt I should realize the fruition of many expectations.

We started upon the 27th, under the escort of a small body of native soldiers, from the Seriba. Gyabir was in the best of spirits. He had just achieved a great object of his desire in attaining a wife. The controller of the Seriba had a large number of slaves, and as one more or one less made no appreciable difference to him, he had presented Gyabir with a young girl of the Loobah tribe. My interpreter had long been desirous of securing a partner of his lot, and had many times solicited both Mohammed and Surroor to procure him a consort, but hitherto his request had been made in vain. It is not an easy matter for a man without some means to get married in Africa: if he negotiates for himself he has to satisfy the demands of the bride’s father; but by applying to the controller or ruler of the district, who can exercise an absolute authority in these matters, he may succeed in obtaining a wife without previously paying down any sum by way of compensation.

MOUNT BAGINZE.

We marched for about two leagues in a west and south-west direction, and once again crossed the little brooks that the Sway receives on its right-hand bank; at length we reached the pointed gneiss mound called Damvo, which rises about 200 feet above the level of the plain. I mounted the eminence, so as to employ its summit as the second station for my observations of the mountain chains. The rugged rocks were clothed with Sanseviera, and to the very top charming shrubs made good their way from between their clefts. The view was magnificent. It was the first mountainous landscape that I had seen during my journey that exhibited the true characteristics of African orography. All around were elevations, more or less conspicuous, rising like bastions isolated on the plain; whilst high over all reared the crest of Mount Baginze. The western side of the mountain was precipitous, and might almost be described as perpendicular; towards the north, on the other hand, it sloped downwards in gradual ridges: in form it reminded me of many of the isolated mountains of Southern Nubia, and more especially of those in the province of Taka.

Mount Baginze is only four miles to the S.S.E. of Damvo, but this short distance had to be accomplished by a circuitous and troublesome route leading across deep fissures and masses of loose rock, and often through grass of enormous height; half-way we came to a rapid brook hastening along through a deep cleft, which we were able to leap across. This was the source of the Dyoor. It was the first actual source of any of the more important affluents of the White Nile to which any European traveller had ever penetrated. My Niam-niam escort, who were natives of the district, positively asserted that this brooklet was the Sway, and thus plainly demonstrated that, however insignificant this little vein of running water might appear, they were accustomed to consider it as the highest section of the waters that contributed to the formation of the Dyoor. The Sway, they said, was the largest and longest river of their land; Baginze was their loftiest mountain; and this was the most important stream that issued from its clefts.

Before actually setting foot upon Baginze we had still to make an ascent through a fine forest, but in due time we reached the mountain and made our encampment close beneath the perpendicular wall of the western flank. The halting-place was upon the edge of a deep ravine, where a bright thread of water rippled merrily along over rocks covered with moss and graceful ferns. It was too late in the day to attempt to ascend farther than to the summit of a sloping spur projecting towards the north-west from the southern side of the mountain, and which was about half the height of the mountain itself.

The first few steps that I took were quite enough to convince me of the entire accordance of the flora with that of the Abyssinian highlands. Masses of brilliant aloes, with their scarlet and yellow blossoms, grew luxuriantly upon the slopes of gneiss; the intervals between them were overspread with a mossy carpet of Selaginella rupestris, whilst clusters of blue lobelia reared themselves like violets, only of a brighter hue, from the surface of the soil. Here and there, in singular contrast to the tender foliage of the shady hollows, lending moreover a new and striking character to the vegetation, I found, cropping up from amidst the rocks, the thick fleshy leaves of that remarkable orchid, the Eulophia; and on the still higher declivities I met with yet another true representative of the Abyssinian flora in a new species of Hymenodictyon, a dwarf tree of the class of the Rubiaceæ, which in some form or other appear to embrace at least a tenth of all the plants of Africa in these regions.

WILD AFRICAN PLANTAINS.