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

by Georg August Schweinfurth

On the third morning, then, after our arrival we began to return. Although continually in doubt as to our path, we were fortunate in hitting upon the route that was shortest, and, crossing the Shöby at a spot where it was contracted by gneiss walls and made a bend to the north, we reached the rocks in the forest of butter-trees at which so recently we had passed such a wretched night. Before it was dark we once more entered Merdyan’s Seriba. The long march of nine hours, made doubly arduous by the many watercourses that had intercepted it, had been one of the most fatiguing that I had experienced. I took a day’s rest, and amused myself by shooting guinea-fowl, the sport being so successful that I supplied my people with as many of the birds as they could eat in two days. We performed the rest of our journey through incessant rain, and on the evening of the 1st of June found ourselves reinstated in the old Seriba on the Nabambisso.

TIDINGS FROM MOHAMMED.

Here I received satisfactory intelligence from Mohammed. The condition of things had decidedly improved. Still the store of corn was small; but the gourds had ripened during our absence, fresh maize had been brought to the Seriba, and, best of all, the guinea-fowl had effected a lodgment in the neighbourhood, so that we had a constant supply of animal food ready at hand. As a consequence of the continual rains edible funguses had sprung up in such abundance that for days together I dined off guinea-fowl’s liver and mushrooms. In every respect the mushrooms resembled those which we use in Europe.

I may mention that a large buffalo-hunt, to which all the Bongo were invited, came in as a timely diversion, and that day after day, with my gun in my hand, I was up and doing.

Before many days had elapsed the main body of Mohammed’s corps returned from their campaign. Only a portion of the missing ivory had been recovered, for Wando, under a superstitious dread of the intimations of his augury, had persistently remained concealed in the most inaccessible places, and consequently the hostilities had been mainly directed against his brother Mbeeoh. Contrary to the general practice of the Niam-niam princes, Mbeeoh had been personally engaged in the conflict and had exhibited remarkable bravery. On one occasion it had been with the greatest difficulty that Mohammed had held his own against the hordes of his opponent, and in a raging storm had been obliged to erect a kind of rampart, made of straw, to afford a shelter from which anything like a steady fire might be opened upon the assailants. The chances were dead against Mohammed’s side, but it is notorious that the natives hardly ever follow up any advantages offered to them either by a downpour of rain or by the obscurity of night; and very frequently they lost the most promising of opportunities for crushing their Nubian oppressors.

MISSING MEN.

Just before Mohammed himself returned there was a considerable commotion amongst our Bongo bearers. A circumstance occurred that naturally excited some consternation. The bearers who had been left with me in the old Seriba were in the habit of scouring the neighbouring fields and forests every day in search of victuals for themselves. One evening three of the party who had gone out did not return, and their companions had no hesitation in avowing their belief that they had been captured, and that they would most certainly be killed and eaten by the inhabitants of the adjacent district. Early on the following morning all the Bongo and most of the Nubians who were with me started off in a body to explore the neighbourhood and to follow up as best they might the traces of the missing men. According to the statements of the Bongo, the crime had been committed in the district under the control of Maddah, to the north of the Seriba. In that direction the party bent their steps. Their supposition was apparently correct, for after following the tracks into a wood they found that they terminated in a ghastly pool of blood. Maddah was forthwith seized and hurried to the Seriba, where he was charged with being answerable for the disappearance of the men. In evident confusion and with much excitement he began a long and incoherent preamble; he declared that the blood was that of an animal which had been slaughtered on the previous day; he owned, indeed, about the three Bongo that he had seen them running across his territory and had had no doubt that they were making an escape to their own homes. This explanation was objected to on the ground that the obstacles on the way were far too great for them ever to have entertained such a design. Maddah then went on to say that some of his Niam-niam people had noticed the fugitives, and had shouted after them to know where they were rushing to, and why they were scampering along at such a pace, but they had received no answer; and deeming it wrong to stand idly by and let the fellows decamp from their owners they had not only pursued them, but had effected their capture and put them into safe custody. To complete his tale he affirmed that, somehow or other, during the night they had contrived to escape; and this was all he knew about them.

The settlement of the business had ultimately to be left to the surviving Bongo. They were not easily satisfied; they insisted most strenuously that, even allowing that there might be some truth in the statement that the Niam-niam had pursued the fugitives, they had only done so with the object of sacrificing them in order to indulge their appetites, and to convert their flesh into food. The representation which Maddah gave of the pool of blood was held to be especially unsatisfactory; the bones of the slaughtered animal were demanded as a proof of the fact, but nothing was forthcoming at the hands of the Niam-niam but a few fragments that could be recognised at a glance as belonging to some game that must have been killed months before. Everything, in fact, seemed to confirm the accusation. All agreed that there was nothing to exonerate either Maddah or his people from suspicion. It was consequently decided that as Surroor, the lieutenant in command, was absent, as well as Mohammed, on the campaign, Maddah should be reserved for judgment, and meanwhile must be kept in confinement and placed under the yoke of the sheyba to await his sentence.

But when Mohammed returned he professed to be occupied by more pressing and important business. It did not require much penetration to perceive that there were certain motives of policy which were prompting him to procrastinate the investigation of the affair. The truth was he was anxious, if he could, to keep on good terms with the Niam-niam, knowing that their services were indispensable to him for the usual raid against the Babuckur that had to be undertaken for the purpose of getting a supply of corn to avert the prospect of his caravan being starved. Without their co-operation it would be impossible for his soldiers to cross the marshy swamps. Had the disaster befallen any of the Nubians or Mussulmen at all, there can be no doubt that Mohammed would have acted very differently, and would not have suffered considerations of policy to deter him from making an example of the delinquents.

The raid upon the Babuckur was an expedition that Mohammed did not accompany in person. He entrusted it entirely to Surroor, who took the charge of as many of the subordinate Niam-niam as could be gathered. Just as might be expected, the most savage brutalities were practised on either side. Besides securing the store of corn, which was the main object of the incursion, the Nubians were on the look-out for a capture of female slaves, which they claimed as their special perquisite. The Niam-niam on their part followed the example and did some private kidnapping on their own account; the females that they entrapped they disposed of in the following way: the youngest were destined for their houses, the middle-aged for their agriculture, and the eldest for their caldrons!