A NEW PROTÉGÉ.
Mohammed upon his return made me a present of a somewhat uncommon description. On his way through the forest of Alwady he had fallen in with a troop of elephants, two of which had been killed by his people, one of them being a female that was accompanied by her still sucking calf. The little elephant had been secured and attached to the caravan, and on arriving at the Seriba was introduced to my quarters as a gift to myself. I was in possession of a milch cow, and took the greatest pains to cherish my new protégé by supplying it with large quantities of milk; but all my attention was in vain, the young animal had been so weakened by improper or insufficient diet, and so exhausted by the forced marches, that no subsequent care could save it, and in a few days it expired. It was quite touching to watch the poor helpless creature in its last gasps. Whoever has observed the eye of the elephant will remember that, in spite of its smallness and natural short-sightedness, it exhibits an intelligence, almost amounting to reason, that is seen in no other quadruped. My juvenile specimen had already begun to display the instinctive cleanliness of its nature. I was told that on its journey it stopped at every pool and spring while it pumped up the water with its trunk, and squirted it, as if from a hose, all over its body to wash off the dust of the road and the mud that it had contracted in crossing the swamps.
For my own amusement I had made a collection of several other animals, which I lodged in my hut, in order to have them under constant supervision and to be able to observe their habits. My menagerie contributed very much to the characteristic features of my hut. Outside were tethered my donkey and my cow; but the calf, being too delicate to withstand the rain, was brought in at nights, and fastened to the tall scaffolding which supported my bed, the noxious miasma during the rainy period making it desirable for every traveller to spend his hours of sleep raised as much as possible above the level of the ground. Different corners of the hut, which was already encumbered with every variety of furniture, were appropriated to my dogs, two caracal lynxes, a ratel, or honey-badger, and a zebra-ichneumon. These creatures lived in continual feud, and did not show the least likelihood of becoming “a happy family.” The honey-badger and the ichneumon were perhaps the most amicable, but even they were continually snapping at each other; still they never came into any mortal conflict. But the caracals were utterly implacable, and fought most savagely: in spite, however, of their general faculty of self-defence, one of them in a desperate encounter with a Bongo dog was bitten in the throat and died on the spot.
I had brought a large number of lances and of bows and arrows from the Monbuttoo, and felt inclined not only to try the efficiency of the weapons, but to test the marksmanship of the representatives of the various tribes that were included in the promiscuous population of the Seriba. Accordingly more than once I set up one of the Monbuttoo shields as a target, and instituted a general shooting-match. Tikkitikki was an eminently successful shot, the grotesque attitudes into which he threw himself to exhibit his dexterity ever causing a great diversion: I was, in fact, quite proud of my Pygmy, and his reputation was so bruited about, that many Khartoomers came from distant Seribas to gratify their curiosity by looking at him.
WOUNDED BY AN ARROW.
One evening during the exercises I met with an accident which might have been serious, if not fatal, in its consequences. An iron arrow struck my forehead and, although it only slightly grazed the skin, the pain for a moment was quite agonizing; it soon passed off, however, and I took no further notice of the matter than applying a little goulard-water; but, according to my ordinary habit, I sat up writing until late into the night, exposed to a draught at the entrance of my hut, and caught a cold in the wound, which became exceedingly inflamed. When I woke the next morning I was unable to open my eyes, and on lifting up my eyelids with my fingers, I could see in my looking-glass that my whole face was immensely swollen. Fearful of erysipelas, I could devise nothing better than wrapping up my face in calico and staying patiently in bed. On the third day I had the satisfaction of finding that the inflammation had subsided, and that all fear of danger was gone. In regions such as these the traveller cannot be too careful in his treatment of even the most insignificant wound. Once before I had experienced something of the sort during a forced march through the desert about Thebes: a gnat had slightly stung my instep, and such a violent inflammation had supervened that I had been obliged to keep my bed for several days.
The proceeds of this year’s cattle-raids upon the Dinka had been exceedingly large; and as Ghattas’s company had been prevented from carrying out a Niam-niam campaign, they had been able to concentrate all their forces for plunder. The captured cattle, under the charge of a number of Dinka herdsmen, had been installed in a large yard set apart for the purpose close to the Seriba. There was consequently no lack of meat, and, at a very reduced price, I was allowed to purchase whatever cattle I required to be slaughtered for myself and for my people.
My milch cow was an almost invaluable possession. In spite of its yield of milk being somewhat meagre, it supplied me for eight months with a morning draught, and in the subsequent season of necessity its contribution to my daily diet was still more precious. Half the cattle sickened with all sorts of internal disorders, and the greater proportion of the animals that were slaughtered would not much longer have endured the climate. I am sure, however, that notwithstanding the fact that these breeds have been entirely unaccustomed to salt, its admixture with their food would infuse new life and vigour into them; nothing but this, I feel convinced, kept up my own supply of milk and prevented my cow from becoming emaciated; at first the dose had to be administered by force, but the creature not only soon became accustomed to it, but would run after me for a handful of salt, like a lap-dog for its sugar.
During the rainy season of 1870 the Dinka cattle were decimated by various plagues, and the district of the Lao was especially ravaged, old Shol losing some thousand of her stock. The most common of these cattle plagues was called Atyeng by the Dinka, showing itself by open wounds like lance-cuts in the hoofs; sometimes the wounds would make their appearance on the tongue, rendering the animal incapable of grazing, so that it could get no nourishment, and sank through exhaustion. Another malady, called Abwott, to which only the cows are subject, consists of a swelling which affects the uterus, and carries them off in a night. A third, known as the Odwangdwang, appears just as contagious, though not so generally fatal as the two former; the animals refuse their food for forty-eight hours, but, under favourable circumstances, on the third day commence grazing again.
The Khareef of 1870 terminated on the 21st of September, no rain falling after that date. A heavy fall of hail occurred on the 25th of August, when the hailstones were as large as cherries; this was the only time that I remember seeing hail within the tropics, although in May 1864, when I was on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, just to the north of the tropic of Cancer, I witnessed one of the severest hailstorms that could be imagined.