For three whole days I rambled about on the banks of the Lehssy, meeting with excellent sport. Amongst other things, I killed my first bushbock, an animal of which the yellowish-tan skin is marked with white stripes, the lines so arranged as if they were a regular harness. There is always to be observed some difference or other between each of these creatures and all its fellows; they are never precisely alike; either there will be some spot or speck, or stripe, which is peculiar to each, and distinguishes it from all the rest. The specimens of the bush-bock that I saw were always solitary; and it would seem to be more timid than any other species of antelope. The singular marking of its skin adapted it to catch the eye, but it was rarely visible for more than a moment; its nervous sensibility made it keen to catch the slightest sound; the lightest rustling would make it bound away into the woods. I have stood breathlessly waiting with cocked rifle, but there is no time to take a proper aim; and the shot that took effect I own was directed rather by chance than skill.
BAMBOO THICKETS.
The bamboo-thickets are likewise a favourite resort of wart-hogs, which there find abundant food in the tender young sprouts in which they delight. Numbers of birds, too, attracted by the grain that is formed in the round and bushy spikes of the bamboo, haunt the scene, and many varieties of sparrows (Passeres) build and breed in this solitude, which is well-nigh as undisturbed as any upon the face of creation.
The appearance of a herd of large eland antelopes excited the Niam-niam of the neighbourhood to organise a regular battue, during the prosecution of which they met with a bit of good fortune that did not often occur. They succeeded in killing a leopard, an event that was deemed so great a triumph that old and young conspired to do honour to the occasion. The first intimation that we had of anything unusual having transpired was given by the war-trumpets, the notes of which were heard in the direction of Uringama’s villages; our first impression was that the Niam-niam, who were charged by the keen Kenoosian with the protection of his frontier, had been successfully repulsing some assault on the part of the Babuckur; but very soon the report was circulated that a noble present was being conveyed to Mohammed, and, true enough, ere long there approached a formal procession bearing on a litter of leaves the blood-stained carcase of the leopard. The offering was duly laid at Mohammed’s feet as a tribute, betokening the respect and friendship of the behnky. Throughout the whole of Central Africa the skin of the leopard is deemed a suitable adornment for persons of princely rank, and nowhere is it more readily admitted amongst the insignia of royalty than with the Niam-niam.
The animal that was now brought in was more than a yard in length. It had been killed in a singular way. Having encroached stealthily upon the position of the hartebeests, and not suspecting the proximity of the hunters, it had suddenly found itself beset by a body of men, and by a prodigious bound endeavoured to leap over the circle of snares that had been set. Just, however, as the leopard was effecting an escape it was struck by a couple of lances with such violence that the points darned themselves into the flesh, and left the stems protruding. Thus impeded, the wounded creature became entangled in the bushes and, overpowered by the number of missiles hurled against it, succumbed to its destiny.
All the leopard skins that I saw in this part of Africa belonged to animals of the thick-set species, which is distinguished by large complicated spots, each spot being itself an assemblage of smaller spots, which run, generally in about five rows, along the entire body. By some naturalists this species is designated as the panther, in contradistinction to the true leopard, which is said to have a more slender body covered with more numerous rows of smaller spots. This, however, is an error; in spite of the many varieties of form and the gradations in the markings of the skin, it appears certain that but one species of leopard exists throughout Africa, and that in this quarter of the globe, at least, the distinctive terms of leopard and panther are unnecessary.
THE BABUCKUR.
On my previous wanderings I had skirted about three-fourths of the frontier of the Babuckur territory. As this territory lay but a short distance to the south-west of Mbomo, being bounded by the Tondy, I was able to obtain from the soldiers of the Seriba some particulars of the country of which I had seen the natives largely represented among the slaves of the various settlements at which I had sojourned.
The Babuckur must either have migrated to their present quarters from the south, or they must be the remnant of a nation that has been constrained to make its way to the north and to the east by the advance of the Niam-niam. It is said that their dialect is found amongst some of the tribes to the south of the Monbuttoo; this is not at all unlikely, as, like those tribes, they have an established system of agriculture and give great attention to the breeding of goats. Limited to an area of not more than 350 square miles, the eastern portion of this people is very much exposed to the raids of the Khartoomer traders and to the depredations of the Niam-niam chieftains, who for years have considered their land as a sort of outlying storehouse, from which they could at pleasure replenish their stock of corn and cattle. By reason of the perpetual persecutions to which they have been subject, their population has gradually become more and more compressed, and their very crowded condition itself probably accounts for the vigorous intensity with which they now ward off any acts of hostility; they are equally warlike and resolute; they will fight till they have shed their last drop of blood; and as cannibalism is commonly reported to be practised among them, their assailants are generally content to carry off whatever plunder is to be secured, as hastily as possible, without waiting to pursue or trying to subjugate them. Their eastern neighbours, the Loobah, though themselves harassed by the oppressors from the north, are continually at war with the Babuckur.
The other portion of the Babuckur has withdrawn to the frontiers of the Bongo and Niam-niam that lie between the Sway and the Tondy, about sixty miles to the north-west of the portion to which I have been referring; the complete identity of the race, thus severed only in situation, is verified not only by the one term “Babuckur” being applied indiscriminately to the two sections, but still more by the complete similarity of the dialects, as I afterwards proved by comparing the vocabularies that I compiled. The Bongo call the western division of the Babuckur “Mundo.”[55]