As thick bush and forest prevail almost throughout, the routes everywhere are merely narrow tracks with tortuous windings, which can only be traversed in single file. When the grass grows long, high overhead in the autumn, the tracks are not easy to find. The main Government routes, however, have been much improved.
Carrier transport is the most suitable, but carriers in great numbers are not easily procurable and are never obtained from the Dinkas. The Golos, Bongos, Ndoggos and Nyam Nyams are willing to carry. The ordinary load for a man is 40 to 50 lbs. besides his own food.
Mules. Donkeys. Camels.Mules and donkeys can be used along most of the routes. Mules, especially the Abyssinian breed, answer best. Donkeys are useful but die in great numbers. Camels have been successfully employed from Shambe to Rumbek and from Meshra El Rek to Wau and Tonj river post during the dry season; but the rainy season does not agree with them, and nearly all have died. In the rainy season camels cannot move, and mules and donkeys only with difficulty. The chief causes of mortality amongst all transport animals are overwork, fly, bad roads and poisonous grasses. It is doubtful how far the climate shares in causing these losses. Practically all transport animals have to be brought into the country. Generally speaking, mules and donkeys thrive better than camels.
Oxen.Rough carts drawn by oxen are being tried, and have given good results so far. Each cart carries a load of 600 lbs. Pack oxen are slow, and require much time for grazing.
Fly.In the rainy season a fly, resembling the common horse-fly, attacks horses, donkeys, and mules, and cattle in certain rocky districts. At Wau this pest is particularly prevalent. The animals generally sicken and die in a fortnight. This fly is well known to the natives. As before stated a species of Tsetse fly has been identified on the Bongo River, vide [p. 157.]
River transport.Below Meshra El Rek steamers ply on the Bahr El Ghazal, but from the end of April till the end of August they are stopped at the mouth of the Jur, or even to the north of it. Light craft can generally get through to Meshra El Rek during that period, but with much difficulty.
The Jur river is now open to navigation for small steamers and light craft from August till the end of November, as far as Wau, and even to Rafili, the sudd having been cleared to a great extent from its mouth to Wau. During the rest of the year it is only navigable for about half this latter distance from the mouth. In June, in spite of rains, it is almost dry (see [p. 154]).
9. The Tribes of the Bahr El Ghazal.
General.The Dinkas occupy the lowlands in the north of the province, their southern limit being the edge of the table-land, where the good grazing and pasture land terminates.
On the lower slopes of the ironstone plateaux, between Rumbek and the Bongo river, there are many Jur settlements. Between the Tonj and Bongo rivers are a few villages of the Bongo tribe, which have survived the raids of the Nyam Nyams from the south. Golos, Ndoggos, and Kreich, who formerly held the country west of Wau to Deim Zubeir, have been driven further north by the same powerful tribe, and have taken refuge in the district between Wau and Chamamui, where they are now more or less under the protection of the Dinkas. South of these tribes, and separated from them by a broad belt of uninhabited forest about 100 miles wide, are the Nyam Nyams.