During my whole residence in Kordofan I never heard of their having ill-treated or robbed any stranger, much less of their having committed murder; always excepting their excursions into Darfour, which they do not regard as wrong, as they are undertaken with the sanction or, more properly speaking, at the command of the government.
The chief sheikh, a very handsome man, is only to be distinguished from the rest of his tribe by his silver hilted sword. He is generally beloved by his subjects, and all his orders are executed with a punctuality on which but few governments can pride themselves. When out of doors he is always mounted, and his horse might have been the boast of the stud of an European court; for during all my travels I never saw a more beautiful animal, or one of such pure breed.
The Dar-Hammer are very hospitable, and it requires but little trouble to win the affection of these simple children of nature, for they know but few wants, and are always satisfied with a trifle. The women are not handsome, but of very amiable disposition; they attend to the household affairs, and to the children, and occupy their leisure hours, of which there are certainly many, with their simple adornment. Their dress resembles that of the other tribes; not even their sheikh wears a covering to his head, nor do they indeed require it, for their bushy hair is so thick that the rays of the sun could not easily penetrate through it.
It is an axiom that where there is no water neither man nor animals can live. A great tract of the Dar-Hammer forms, however, an exception to this rule. This appears indeed incredible, but it is, nevertheless, true; for when the rain-water which collects in the small ponds, called by the Dar-Hammer Fula, has evaporated, not a drop of drinkable water is, commonly speaking, to be found in the various districts they inhabit during three months of the year; and there are no wells or cisterns in the country, with the exception of the Nedjer wells. The villages, therefore, situated at a distance from these springs, are obliged to send their women, children, old and infirm men, their goats, sheep, and part of their camels, to the above-mentioned wells, and to Ketshmar, during three months of the year. Only the men, and a few camels, remain behind. To furnish a substitute for water they resort to the following plan: they cultivate large fields of water-melons, which ripen about the time at which the scarcity of water begins to be felt. The ripe fruit is daily gathered, and the juice expressed is not drunk, but used for merissa, or boiling the assida and woika: they escape one inconvenience which would result from a lack of water elsewhere, for they have no linen to wash, and those who wear so luxurious an article of dress as a shirt never wash it, even when there is abundance of water. The camels remaining with them receive two fresh melon husks daily. This allowance supplies them with the quantity of fluid necessary for them, and they do not suffer in the slightest degree from thirst; for, as a rule, camels are only watered every two or three days.
CHAPTER XI.
TRIBES BORDERING ON KORDOFAN, SHILLUK, NUBA, TAKALE, ETC.
On the borders of the province of Kordofan properly so called, towards the south-east, live the Shilluk, and the Denky, or Jenky, as they are also termed; the latter inhabit the eastern shore of the White Nile. The country of the Shilluk occupies a very large tract of land extending considerably into the interior towards the west of the White River. Both tribes, the Shilluk as well as the Denky, seem to be one and the same people, as far as their outward appearance, their build, habits and customs are concerned, but their language differs. The sultans of the Shilluk were formerly very potent: even Sennaar, the realms of which extended to the borders of Dongola, they had conquered; and the latter country was governed by one of the sultan’s family as late as the year 1821, when it was rendered tributary to Mehemed Ali by the superior force of the Egyptian troops. The son of the last king of Sennaar is at present living in a miserable village. Mehemed Ali, with peculiar consideration, has made him magistrate of this village, where he lives in very straitened circumstances. The Shilluks and Denky are easily distinguished from among a concourse of other nations, for they have oblong heads, and are more especially known by the want of the four lower incisor teeth, which are extracted when they are ten or twelve years of age, a kind of religious ceremony, as I was told, similar to that of circumcision or baptism. They are of muscular build, and very merry, but are not much prized as slaves, and are indeed always at a lower price than other captives in Kordofan and Sennaar. The chief reason of this discrepancy is that they are stupid, lazy, and childish, and cannot be confidently entrusted with any duty. They are to be seen running about all day long, or engaged in games which could only please children. They are very treacherous, and can never be left to themselves, but must, in fact, always be placed under the inspection of other slaves. Those only who leave home at a very early age form the exception to this rule. With such deficiences they are, consequently, only used for the very lowest class of labour, and treated not much better than beasts of burden. Mehemed Ali, who formed his first regiment of foot entirely of negroes, has latterly given orders not to enlist any more recruits from this tribe; he found, indeed, that their services were not only of no avail, but that their excessive stupidity was likely to lead to ulterior consequences; for there have been instances known of soldiers from this tribe whilst on duty, giving their musket without hesitation, and the charge into the bargain, to any casual passer-by who happened to offer them a small present for it. In fact, the officers were always obliged to keep these men under strict inspection, for they were never to be trusted alone.
In many books of travels and geography the Shilluks are described as cannibals, but this report is erroneous, and all intelligence which I have been able to collect from the Djelabi on this point agrees in proving this assertion to be utterly false, for they have never even heard the slightest rumour corroborative of this absurd report. On my flight from Kordofan, I heard on my arrival at Tara, on the White River, that an European was residing at the chief town of the Shilluk, with a strong escort, to catch eight hippopotami for Mehemed Ali, and to prepare their skins, to stuff them, in fact, as specimens for a museum. I immediately set out on my journey from Tara, and after a long march of two tedious days on a camel, reached the scene of action, where I certainly found the hippopotamus hunters; but the European, whose name was Bartolo, had left a few days before my arrival, for Khartoom, on the eastern shore. During my sojourn among the Shilluks, I assisted at a hippopotamus hunt; five had been already killed, but they were so carelessly dissected, that I felt sure they would not keep for any length of time; in fact, they very soon spoiled, and are now lying quite useless at Cairo. On this occasion, I had an opportunity of becoming more intimately acquainted with the Shilluks, as far in fact as my residence among them would permit it. I found that they are in their own country, quite as idle as they are in captivity abroad; they may be seen loitering about, but never by any chance at work. During the hot season they do not sleep in their huts, but in the open air, old and young congregating together like a herd of cattle. The Shilluks walk about in a state of complete nudity, and only when they are married cover their loins with a strip of cotton-stuff. The majority of them wear merely a piece of calico of the size of a hand to cover their nakedness. Their women are very ill-used. The cause of this ill-treatment is, generally, superstition: thus, if the husband whilst hunting miss his aim with his spear, or tread a thorn into his foot, his wife must bear the blame; he accuses her of having at the moment of his disaster, been unfaithful, and there is no help for her, she must undergo chastisement. If the adultery be proved, and a complaint be made to the Sheikh, she receives three strokes on the head with a crooked stick, one in the centre and one at either side of the head, such unmerciful blows indeed, that the blood instantly gushes forth. These punishments are of very frequent occurrence, for adultery is not uncommon among the Shilluks.[44]
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The products they obtain from the ground may be regarded as a mere nothing. They cultivate as much dokn as they believe sufficient to last from one harvest to the next. On the possibility of a failure of the harvest, they never bestow a thought, nor do they pay any consideration to other contingencies, by laying in stores. Their cattle is said to be numerous in some few places, but is reared without the slightest care or attendance. They have no salt in their own country, and are obliged, therefore, to obtain it from Sennaar or Kordofan; but the greater portion of the inhabitants have never tasted this condiment. All other necessaries, which they might produce with little trouble themselves, they obtain by barter from their neighbours, giving articles in exchange which nature brings forth without the assistance of art. This tribe is, taken all in all, the very ne plus ultra of idleness and stupidity, and they differ but immaterially from animals. They are consequently not as dangerous to travellers as other tribes, who are always on the alert for prey, and but few robbers by profession live among their hills; the other Shilluks, moreover, always warn the Djelabi travelling through their country not to approach the infested neighbourhoods. Their chief wealth consists in ivory, which they likewise obtain in certain parts of their dominions without the slightest trouble. They arrange the teeth in rows, forming a fence round their huts, and barter them away to the Djelabi when they come into their parts. There are many elephants in the country wandering about in herds of several hundreds each; they are, however, met with singly, during the greater portion of the year. It is only at a certain period—generally before the rain sets in—that they collect together in herds, and then they cross the White Nile in the direction of Fazoglo. An old female elephant is always the leader, and determines on the spot for crossing the stream. This movement is effected with a fearful noise, as may be easily imagined when so large a number of these moving mountains are known to be swimming in the river at the same time. They draw up a quantity of water in their proboscis, and spurt it forth again like a fountain, thus appearing to convert a large extent of the water in which they carry on their pranks into a sort of whirlpool. Notwithstanding their immense weight they swim with incredible facility, and I have been assured that when these animals cross the river singly, the water remains frequently undisturbed, so that the unwieldy mass appears to be moved by some invisible power. Whilst on their journey, the emigrants observe the strictest order; their leader, a female, turns frequently round and raises a cry if an elephant stray, to recall him to the ranks again. A herd frequently takes its route directly through a village, without doing the slightest injury to the huts, or to the inhabitants; singly they never do any harm. Several of these elephants always remain behind their companions; for they feel a presentiment of their approaching end, and then choose a solitary valley in the neighbourhood of the river, where they patiently await their death, which generally takes place before the large herds return from their migrations. No one ever disturbs them, for death generally overtakes them in a short time, and then they fall a certain prey to the negroes. Hunting expeditions are, indeed, occasionally instituted against these animals, but only whilst they are to be met with singly, and dispersed over the country; for when they have collected together in herd it would be attended with great danger to attack them. Ivory is the only commodity of trade in these regions.