Besides the trees above-mentioned, there is an innumerable variety of plants which spring up from the ground in full luxuriance after the first rain, and convert the whole province into a most beautiful flower-garden. I am too little versed in botany to be expected to give a full description of all the plants found in the country, more especially as there are many species not yet mentioned in any botanical work; but I am convinced that Kordofan would prove a very interesting field to any botanist who would take the trouble to explore it by travelling there for a lengthened period. Dr. Rueppell and Mr. Kotschy spent too short a time in the country, and visited, moreover, too few places to be able to make valuable collections.
The animal kingdom affords a no less fertile source of instruction and amusement in this country. Among domestic animals we have the horse, the camel, the ass, the mule, the cow, the sheep, the goat, the dog, the cat, fowls and pigeons; and of wild beasts: lions, giraffes, leopards, panthers, two varieties of hyænas, jackals, about ten species of antelopes, some of which are not yet known in Europe: further, monkeys, three varieties of wild cats, hares, hedge-hogs, black and yellow mice, rats, and many animals yet unknown, are to be met with in Kordofan; elephants and rhinoceroses are rare; occasionally, however, one or the other of these animals may be seen on the borders of the country. The province is very rich in specimens of reptiles, and the boa may also be found.
The country abounds in insects of every description, many of which are analogous, or very similar, to those of Senegal. A good harvest may be made a month before the rain, during the whole of that season, and at the most a month after it; during the remainder of the year all trouble to find single specimens even is in vain. Collecting insects formed one of my chief occupations during the whole of my travels, and my labours were rewarded in a very extensive display of the various specimens of the insects of Kordofan: so complete a collection was, in fact, never yet brought from that country to Europe. Entomology might have been benefited by the addition of many new species, and years must transpire before so copious a collection will again reach Europe, for few men will be able to stand eleven months of this unhealthy climate. I have shed millions of drops of sweat in my pursuit, and looked like one who had been scourged after every excursion, from the scratches I received from the thorns, with which most of the shrubs and trees of this country are furnished. I defied all weather and every species of danger in forming this cabinet: but, unfortunately, all my trouble, together with the advantages entomology might thence have reaped, are totally lost—thanks to those barbarians of the lazaretto at Trieste, who allowed my whole collection, consisting of several consignments, to spoil. In butterflies the country is very poor, but there are more than a hundred different species of flies.
Among the feathered tribe there are birds of the most beautiful plumage in this province, and many European varieties, even those of Germany, hibernate here. The grey water-wagtail may more especially be met with in myriads. The desert, the woods, even the huts in the villages, are filled with these beautiful creatures, which delight the eye with their magnificent colours, and the ear with their charming song. It is, indeed, impossible to form a conception of the spectacle they afford without having seen it. New species arrive with every month, whilst others migrate until the proper season recalls them. Eagles, vultures, parrots, colibris, a variety of aquatic birds, ostriches, black storks, and the ibis, considered holy by the ancient Egyptians, are to be here met with; the latter two varieties are the chief birds of Kordofan. A large aquatic bird saved me a great deal of trouble in collecting shells in the marshes. If I descried one of these birds in the vicinity of a pond, I had only to retreat to a distance of about fifty paces from it, and to watch its movements. It dived beneath the water, and always brought up one of the conchylia in its beak, which resembles that of the woodpecker, and laid it on the sand at a distance of a few paces from the water. Its prize consisted of a larger or smaller number of these shells according to their size. It generally collected about twelve on one spot, but as these conchylia are bivalvular, and the one shell is so firmly connected with the other that they can only be opened with a knife, it had to wait until the rays of the sun performed the office for it. He continually walked round the spot where he had deposed his prey, and kept his eye upon it. As soon, however, as one of these mollusca opened its shell he instantly inserted his beak, to prevent it from closing it again, and tore it asunder with his claw. I never disturbed him in his work, for he saved me the trouble of destroying the animal and clearing the shell, which, as I knew by experience, he seldom entirely separates.
Kordofan can enumerate no running streams; the fula (ponds) and small lakes nearly all dry up during the hot season, and yet fish, differing in variety and size, are to be found in this province. At first, I could not understand this apparent anomaly, and the explanation given me by the natives, that the fish hide themselves in the mud, appeared to me very unsatisfactory, for it becomes in time, so hard that a heavily laden waggon might pass over it, and the spawn of the fish remaining would, of course, be soon destroyed by the rays of the sun. The natives, however, firmly believe that the fish are preserved under ground, and come to life again in three or six months’ time, when the rain has softened their bed. I, of course, could not give credence to this version of the story, but casually made a discovery likely to throw a light upon the subject. I one day shot a wild duck, and having gutted it, proceeded to prepare it for dinner; in examining the intestines, I found a quantity of fish eggs. Is it not, therefore, probable that the aquatic birds, which set out on their migration immediately after having gorged themselves with spawn on the White Nile, and take to the water again on their arrival in Kordofan, discharge one half of their prey in an undigested form, and that thus the fish are shortly hatched?
The horses are not very excellent, or of pure Arabian blood, but a half-breed between Dongola horses and those of Berber and Darfûr; they are not, indeed, as well built as the pure Arabians, but are, nevertheless, fleet, and exceedingly hardy. The natives, more especially the Bakkari, pride themselves on their steeds, and give them milk to drink as long as they live, which they say renders them very strong, and capable of enduring the greatest fatigue. The other inhabitants of Kordofan also offer their horses milk until they are four years old, and not until they have attained that age do they feed them on grass. The dockn forms their substitute for oats. The sheikhs of the Bakkara, seem nearly grown to their horses, and are scarcely ever seen without them. They are of the utmost service to them, in their wars among themselves, and against their neighbours; but more especially in capturing slaves. Their remarkable fleetness renders them very useful in catching giraffes, and ostriches even; but on the whole there are not so many horses to be met with in this country as in the other provinces under the sway of the Viceroy.
The most valuable gift nature has bestowed on the hot climates of Africa, is undoubtedly the camel. The value of these animals to the country is beyond calculation, independently of their utility in carrying loads, which no other beast, except the elephant, could bear, or would even be capable of drawing. The food of the camel causes the drivers but little care, for contented with the worst produce of the desert plains, namely, with thistles or a few leaves, this animal will hold out for four days without feeding, and even eight days without drinking, and yet it suffers no appreciable loss of strength. Its paces are very sure, and it scarcely ever falls, hence all goods, be they ever so fragile, may be more safely transported by camels than they could possibly be by any other animal, or by waggon. For loading or unloading, the camel bends down, as it does also for the convenience of the rider, when about to mount. If the load be too heavy, it instantly gives notice of the circumstance to its driver by its groans. It requires no whip, and keeps up its slow but progressive march without ever breaking from the same pace. A laden camel will perform eight miles in two hours. In the cool of the morning or evening, and when cheered up by the songs of the drivers, these animals become more lively, and increase their paces to one third of their speed. Their organs of sight and smell are very acute, for they scent the vicinity of water at a distance of half a day’s journey or further, and make it known by snuffing with the upper lip, in sign of pleasure. By night they perform the office of a watchful dog; for if a man, or an animal approach the caravan, or a wild beast give tongue even at a great distance, the camels instantly perceive it, prick their ears, and stretch their long necks towards the suspected quarter, to draw the attention of their keepers to the interruption. Of no less utility is the dromedary, a camel of more slender build, and broken in for riding. It was formerly an erroneous hypothesis that the dromedary was a different animal from the camel, and the former was generally depicted with two humps; but this is a fallacy, for the dromedary is nothing but a camel, and the variation in the name is merely made use of by the inhabitants of the East to indicate that it is broken-in for riding, and not for carrying loads. They select from among the young camels such as are most slightly built, and most light of foot, never lay any load upon their backs except the saddle, and thus gradually break them in for this important service. No horse can keep up with the dromedary, when proceeding at full trot. When this animal is at the top of its speed, the rider is obliged to bind a hand-kerchief before his face, to avoid the effects of the pressure of air, which would otherwise be painful to him. If a dark speck, which quickly increases, be observed on the horizon, at the greatest distance in the desert, a dromedary rider is sure to be met in a few minutes, and the natives, in endeavouring to impart a correct idea of the fleetness of these animals to the traveller, have a saying: “If you meet a good dromedary, and the rider salute you with ‘Es-selam’ aley’koom,’[62] both man and beast are out of sight before you can answer ‘aley’koom es-selám.” It requires, indeed, some practice to be able to bear the exertion of riding these animals. Letters from the southern provinces, are usually forwarded to Cairo by couriers mounted on dromedaries, who generally require twenty-eight days to perform a distance of about seventeen degrees of latitude. For the accomplishment of this task, a relay of three or four couriers is necessary. On important missions, however, one and the same courier frequently performs the whole distance, merely changing his dromedaries at the various stations. The rider is always very lightly accoutred, and carries, besides his arms, consisting of a sabre, a pair of pistols, and frequently also of a long gun, two bags of moderate size for his provender, and a small water-bag attached to his saddle-bow, and thus he sets out upon his journey, which would prove a most arduous undertaking to any other person, with the least possible incumbrance, and with no uneasiness.
The flesh of the young camels, of the two or four years old, is highly prized by the natives, more especially by the Nomadic tribes, and forms their chief article of food. Many of them are slaughtered at Lobeid, and the meat is sold at the same price as beef, which some of the residents prefer. The milk is also a chief article of consumption with many of the natives.
The asses, native to the country, are of a very inferior breed; good donkeys are, therefore, still imported from Egypt by the Djelabi. Horned cattle is more especially met with in vast numbers. There are few villages in the neighbourhood, in which large herds may not be seen at pasture; and amongst the Bakkara, the droves consist even of thousands of heads. They feed throughout the year in the open air, but suffer much from hunger in the dry season, when everything is burnt to a cinder, and are, therefore, not so fat at this period as during the rainy season, when they are, literally speaking, up to their horns in grass. Thus thousands of heads of cattle may be feeding in a meadow, and yet not one single beast will be seen; their presence is merely denoted by the motion of the grass. The kine, however, are not of very excellent breed, they yield but little milk, of inferior quality, and much worse beef. The Turks resident in Kordofan never eat this meat. Amongst the Bakkara, a particular breed of short-horned oxen is to be met with, furnished with a high hump, or deposition of fat above the fore-quarters, and a dependent flap of skin below the neck and chest, reaching downwards to the knee.[63] The oxen are chiefly used for riding, and carrying weights: a cord passed through the nose of the animal forms a species of bridle. They are instructed for these purposes at a very early age, and, indeed, by children. The instruction, however, requires immense patience, for many months frequently transpire before a young calf will allow a lad to sit quietly on its back, and the boys meet with innumerable falls, before they succeed in thoroughly breaking-in one of these animals. In many parts of Africa, where the camel will not live on account of the fly (yohara), oxen are only employed for riding, and transporting loads. There are many sheep, and among them one species of very large breed; they bear no wool, but short hair; the mutton is of good flavour, and is preferred to beef, or to the flesh of goats.
The goat is very common in the country, and may be reckoned among the chief domestic animals. There are several varieties, or rather cross breeds, and some of exceedingly elegant form; but they are mostly very small. Nothing can induce the Turks to partake of goat’s-milk during the rainy season; for they firmly believe that it produces fever, if the animal should happen to have browsed the leaves of a tree called, in Arabic, escher (asclepias procera), and known as a poisonous plant. It is, in fact, the tree whence the well-known poison is expressed, with which an obnoxious person was quietly put out of the way with a fingán of coffee in former times in Egypt, and is sometimes employed for the same purpose at the present day. This plant may be met with occasionally as a shrub in Upper Egypt; but in Kordofan it attains the height of a tree. Many of the natives pay great attention to its cultivation, and lay the leaves into the sieve, through which they filter their merissa. These leaves contain a white milky juice, which is imparted to the beer and said to render it very narcotic. I have often warned these good people against its use; but they excuse themselves, by saying that their fathers, and mothers made use of it before them. The camel, not very particular in the selection of its food in general, never touches the escher.[64] As regards the superstition prevalent among the Turks, that the milk of the goats generates fever, in consequence of their having fed off the foliage of this poisonous plant, it is perfectly absurd; for it is a well-known fact, that any kind of milk taken during the rainy season will produce fever.