Chapter XIX (2)

By a somewhat circuitous route I had received several cases of wine. This was a gift which was especially acceptable, as being redolent of my distant home. That of which I had dreamed as I tarried by the banks of the Nabambisso was now within my reach; it was no longer tantalizing to think of the “mountain port,” for I had not only my bottle of wine, but a plentiful supply of other good things in addition; and nothing would have been a pleasanter task than to be able to entertain some lonely traveller like myself whom chance might have thrown across my path. To be able to open a bottle of wine at all in the heart of Africa was such an inexplicable piece of luck that it involuntarily brought to my mind the revenge of the gods and the ring of Polycrates, and to say the truth it was but a passing pleasure.

I was desirous of devoting the remainder of 1870 to the further and more complete investigation of the Dyoor and Bongo lands. With this intention I betook myself next to the Seriba of Doomookoo, and spent the first half of September in an interesting excursion to Kurkur, a district which, if ever the history of this land should be properly written, will have a claim to one of its most prominent chapters.

[Sidenote: KURKUR.]

Kurkur, just at present a Seriba of Aboo Guroon’s, twenty-eight miles to the W.S.W. of the chief Seriba of Ghattas, is a name already known, having been mentioned by Petherick, who, as the first explorer of the district, in 1856, had established a mart somewhere in the neighbourhood, making it the extreme point to which he advanced in his search for the ivory of the productive region.

Upon my route I crossed and re-crossed a number of small affluents which, coming westwards from Bongoland, joined the Dyoor. I gave, however, a particular attention to the course of the Molmul, which hitherto had been regarded merely as an arm of the Dyoor, but which I ascertained beyond a question to be an entirely independent stream. I crossed it close to Doomookoo, and again on my return at another place eight miles further to the north. It bears among the Bongo the name of Maï.

Between Doomookoo and Kurkur the scenery was pretty and undulated, wooded eminences alternating with extensive tracts of cultivated plain. The rises in the ground are made by low ridges of hills that run in a north-west direction on either side of the Nyedokoo, an affluent of the Dyoor that is always full of water. I looked in upon two little Seribas belonging to Agahd, called Kehre and Neshirr, and just before reaching Kurkur I called at Nguddoo, one of Kurshook Ali’s settlements. The various territories of the different traders are quite confusing, as they lie scattered about in little enclaves like the petty Thuringian dukedoms in Germany.

The present Seriba of Kurkur is situated in a flat bushy region, rich in every variety of game. I was told that the former Seriba, visited by Petherick, stood eight miles to the south-west, on the Legbe, an important affluent of the Dyoor. Twelve miles further to the south, and parallel to the Legbe, is the Lako, which is another tributary of the Dyoor.

I remained at Kurkur for three days. Whilst I was there the natives killed a couple of giraffes. The controller had in his possession several of these animals alive, which had been caught in the neighbourhood, and for which he hoped to find a sale at Khartoom.

The spotted hyæna dogs (_Canis pictus_) are very common in this region. These dangerous animals have a partiality for the steppes and open brushwood, and, congregating in herds, hunt down the smaller antelopes, especially bushbocks. No case was known where they had attempted to attack men. Some of their skins are most brilliantly marked, and exhibit such a combination of red, white, yellow, and black spots that the hyæna dog may fairly claim to be the most particoloured of all mammalia. I saw one specimen in the Seriba that was perfectly tame, requiring no other restraint than a cord, and yielding to its master with all the docility of an ordinary dog. This fact appears to corroborate the assertion of Livingstone (which, however, he makes with some reserve, not having personally witnessed the circumstance), that the natives of the Kalahari Desert are accustomed to break in this animal and train it for the chase.

[Sidenote: DANGAH.]

Twelve miles to the north of Kurkur was another subsidiary Seriba, belonging to Aboo Guroon, and called Dangah, after a Bongo chief who lived there at the time when Petherick was in the country; another surviving chief named Dyow, also mentioned by Petherick, had his abode five miles further to the west; he came to pay me a visit, and retaining the recollection of the condition of the country under an earlier aspect now passed away, he made the usual lamentations over the destitution of the land and its present deficiency of game.

The Nyedokoo, enclosed by dense jungles of bamboo, passes close to Dangah, and in the rainy season is about thirty feet wide and ten feet deep. The inmates of the Seriba were supplied by its bright and sparkling waters, and I rejoiced at having an opportunity to send my stock of linen that it might be properly washed. Of the forty Seribas that I visited I saw scarcely more than three that were situated in immediate proximity to running water, the supply obtained from the wells being generally impure, besides being obtained in quantities too limited to be of much service for washing clothes.

The Khartoomers seem to have a very wonderful faculty for picking out the worst possible places for the formation of their settlements. Although they are excellent swimmers, they are so accustomed to the dust and dirt of their own home and to the turbid floods of their beloved Nile, that even here, where streams are so abundant, they have a morbid prejudice against all pure water whatsoever. They forget that the waters of the Nile are wholesome in spite of being turbid, and make no distinction between them and the waters of the noisome swamps of Central Africa; while they heap imprecations upon the insalubrity of the climate, which, they say, gives them pestilence, guinea-worm, fever, skin disease, syphilis, and small-pox, they take no pains to avoid the very spots which are the primary cause of all their suffering.

After leaving Dangah I turned back towards the east, and, having called at Agahd’s subsidiary Seriba Dubor on the way, I soon re-entered my own headquarters. The circuit I had thus completed was about sixty-five miles.

During my brief absence an event had transpired in Ghattas’s Seriba that had alarmed the whole community, and which furnished a topic of anxious speculation for some weeks to come. It appeared that two of the Nubian soldiers belonging to the Seriba had betaken themselves to a Dyoor smith in the neighbourhood for the purpose of getting him to forge them some rings. While they were sitting in the smithy quietly watching the operations, all at once they were surrounded by a troop of Dinka warriors, who were scouring the country. The sight of a couple of unprotected “Turks” had suggested to the Dinka the idea of taking revenge for the last raid that they had suffered, and the unfortunate victims were attacked, cruelly tortured by lance-wounds, and carried back dead to the Seriba. The entire force turned out to punish the aggressors if they could; but the Dinka had had so good a start, that they were far beyond pursuit. The occurrence gave a general feeling of insecurity to the whole Seriba; the people were afraid to move about unarmed, and even in their ordinary domestic engagements carried their guns under their arms. This excessive prudence on their part, involving, as it did, a large increase of danger from firearms, was far from agreeable to myself. The risk of being burnt out was still greater than it had previously been, and not relishing my position in close proximity to so many straw-huts, I was anxious to set up my quarters at some little distance away; but Idrees, the controller, declared that he should have to answer for my safety with his head, and would not permit me to build outside the palisade.

On the 15th of September Mohammed Aboo Sammat passed through the Seriba on his way to the river, with his store of ivory. It was a good opportunity for me to send intelligence of myself to Europe; and, under his care, my letters were despatched by the speediest route, so that in the course of five months they were in the hands of my friends. A fortnight sufficed for the indefatigable Mohammed to reach the Meshera, start off his boats on their way to Khartoom, and return to our Seriba.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

This year’s rainy season was remarkable for the violence of the separate storms, but also for the small number of decidedly wet days; of these I counted ten in July, twelve in August, and ten in September, the number altogether corresponding very nearly to what I had recorded in the previous year. Nevertheless, the rainfall was so great that the sorghum in all the low-lying fields rotted in the ground; the condition of the crops, however, was equally bad in all places where the soil, although rocky, was sloping, and threw off the water too rapidly, for between the intervals of rain the heat of the sun was so overpowering that the corn was parched up through being drained of moisture.

[Sidenote: METEOROLOGICAL NOTES.]

By reference to a few notes that I saved I find that the 4th of October, in a meteorological point of view, was an important day, as being the date on which the wind first veered round to the north-east. I cannot speak positively as to the date when the south wind had first set in, as I was absent amongst the Niam-niam and Monbuttoo at the time; but my impression is that it was not far from the same time as in the year before, viz., the 16th of March; thus the entire period during which the south-west winds had been prevalent was seven months. But although the north-east wind had thus commenced on the 4th of October, there was no perceptible fall in the temperature until the 20th of November; after that the thermometer at sunrise stood at about 70° Fahr.

As the flora at this season presented little with which I was not already familiar, my time was spent very much under the same routine as in the previous autumn; I continued my occupations of measuring the natives, studying their dialects, collecting insects, preparing skulls, and joining the people in chase of small birds. But, all along, I did not lose sight of my projected journey, and applied all the experience I had gained so that I might equip myself for renewing my wanderings with the best advantage. My health was by no means impaired, but, on the contrary, I had gained fresh vigour in the pure air of the southern highlands, where I had undergone more fatigue than I could have previously trusted myself to encounter; I came to the resolution, therefore, that I need not fear to accompany Ghattas’s next expedition, and visit the central portions of the Niam-niam countries that were still unknown to me. The journey was specially attractive to me as promising to enable me to complete my exploration of the hydrographical system of the Gazelle, taking me as it would to the middle sections of those rivers, which, indeed, I had already crossed, but only in their upper and their lower courses. By this means I indulged the hope that, under favourable circumstances, I might be able once for all to settle the details of this particular district of the Nile territory, and so to make one contribution more towards building up the true theory which may solve the complicated problem of Central Africa.

Being desirous of making some exchanges and effecting some purchases to complete my supplies, I set out on a tour to Kurshook Ali’s head Seriba, with which I was already well acquainted. This excursion occupied from the 24th of October until the 4th of November. The owner, as already mentioned, had been sent out by the Egyptian Government at the head of a body of troops; but before reaching the interior he had succumbed to the pestilential climate of the Dinka, and had been succeeded in command by a Turkish Aga, who had accompanied him as lieutenant, and who, having broken up his camp in the Dinka country, had turned farther to the west.

Credit had been opened for me in all the establishments of the Khartoomers, and not only were the magazines of Kurshook Ali’s Seriba amply supplied with stores, but Khalil, the controller, received me hospitably and rendered me all possible service, so that I accomplished my business most satisfactorily.

[Sidenote: ACROSS THE DYOOR AGAIN.]

The little trip gave me another opportunity of twice crossing the Dyoor, and thus, by taking fresh measurements, of adding to the information I had already gained about this important river. At ten o’clock in the morning, when the atmosphere was at a temperature just under 80° Fahr., the temperature of the water was just over 90°.

The passage over was effected in a ferry-boat of the most wretched description; it was composed of nothing more than a couple of hollow stems bound together by ropes and caulked with common clay, the miserable craft demanding perpetual vigilance to keep it afloat at all. It is a striking proof of the unconquerable indolence of the Nubians that during their fifteen years’ residence in the land, although they are beyond a question acquainted with the art of ship-building, they have never attempted to construct an ordinary boat for the daily passage of such an important river as this.

The aspect of the vegetation was very similar to that of late autumn in Europe. Quite recently as the water had left the steppes, the low parts of them were already beginning to look withered, and in the woods the trees were rapidly becoming more and more bare. Amongst smaller and less important plants I found a considerable number of new species, which either had previously escaped my notice, or which probably do not spring up until after the receding of the waters.

On our way back we were entertained in the little Seriba Dyoor Awet, where roasted elephant-foot constituted the speciality of the repast.

Before we reached Aboo Guroon’s Seriba a ludicrous circumstance occurred, which while it brought out afresh the evidence of the dastard cowardice of my Niam-niam interpreter Gyabir, who had made such an outcry when wounded in the arm by the A-Banga, at the same time exposed me to the risk of losing one of my invaluable guns. He was marching along in the rear of the caravan when a number of Dyoor chanced to come across his path; mistaking them for Dinka, to whom they bore a very decided resemblance, he took to his heels and made his way to the most inaccessible part of the steppe, where he intended to remain till night should enable him to escape unobserved. Our route led us so close to the Dinka territory that we were aware no one could wander half a league away without being in imminent peril of being captured; it was, therefore, with no small concern that on our arrival we discovered that Gyabir was missing. We could only conjecture that he had lost his way. Aboo Guroon at once despatched his black soldiers in all directions, but they returned at night without having discovered the least clue to the whereabouts of the wanderer. Early next morning, to the general surprise, Gyabir made his appearance; he acknowledged that he had heard the shouts of the men who were making the search for him, but that he could not venture to quit his place of concealment, because he was thoroughly aware that if by any misadventure he should fall into the hands of the Dinka, being a Niam-niam, he could have no hope of finding any quarter.

Whilst here I received sad news of my friend Mohammed. On his way back from the Meshera to Sabby he had hoped by taking a short cut through the wilderness to avoid all conflict with the marauding parties of his enemy Shereefee; but, in spite of all his precautions, his antagonist had gained information of his movements, and, setting an ambush in the forest, made a murderous attack upon him. The assault was far more sanguinary in its results than that of the previous year. As usual the Khartoomers refused to fire upon their compatriots, and Mohammed was thus entirely dependent for his protection upon his black spearmen, of whom several were killed. Mohammed’s cousin, who had brought the stores from Khartoom, fell a victim to a gun-shot quite at the beginning of the fray, and Mohammed himself received so many sabre cuts about his face and head that, deluged in blood, he was left on the ground for dead. Shereefee’s Bongo pursued Mohammed’s Bongo in all directions, and Mohammed’s stores all became the spoil of Shereefee, who did not as before scatter the beads and valuables about the ground, but had everything conveyed to his own Seriba. The booty amounted in all to at least two hundred packages. The shameless marauder made an avowed boast of his achievements, ostentatiously displayed his ill-gotten wealth to all around him, and even strutted about arrayed in Mohammed’s new clothes.

[Sidenote: MOHAMMED AGAIN WOUNDED.]

In the course of the night Mohammed was picked up, apparently lifeless, by his faithful blacks and carried to Sabby, where he received every due attention, but it was some weeks before he was sufficiently recovered to write an account of his misfortunes, which he despatched to the friendly Seribas, sending it by witnesses who could explain the true condition of affairs.

These events naturally excited the utmost indignation in the Seribas, all the controllers of which were friendly and well-disposed towards Mohammed. The slave-traders, on the contrary, who had settled in the country, and all their adherents, took the part of Shereefee. That a Mussulman, on a peaceful journey, should be the subject of a premeditated attack by one of his own faith, was a circumstance without a precedent even in this land of violence and club-law; but, what most provoked my own anger and disgust was the cool indifference with which the commander of the Egyptian troops (the lieutenant who had succeeded Kurshook Ali) viewed the whole affair. When Mohammed appeared in camp and demanded that retributive justice should be exacted for the ill-treatment and loss that he had sustained, the commander endeavoured to throw doubts upon all his statements, and did not hesitate, in spite of the testimony of all the witnesses, to shield Shereefee, by whom, no doubt, he had been previously bribed. Who shall say what order or justice is to be expected in this land of license, when even the Government official, sent out as the first representative of the State to protect and administer its laws, could proceed to such a degree of avaricious partiality? And yet the people in Khartoom have the audacity to descant upon “the suppression of the slave-trade!”

Aboo Guroon, with whom I spent several pleasant days, was busy from morning to night in his preparations for the forthcoming Niam-niam campaign, and it afforded me much amusement to watch him as he sorted out and packed his varied store of ammunition. Several companies had combined for the expedition, and he invited me to remain and start with him, as Ghattas’s party, to which I was attached, would not follow for some weeks later.

In this common enterprise Aboo Guroon had a special interest of his own, having but a short time since lost one of his Seribas in the Niam-niam land. The garrison had been massacred, and all the arms and ammunition had fallen into the hands of the sons of Ezo, who having got possession of the weapons turned them to such good account that they inspired the Nubians with great respect for their military skill. These events had taken place to the west of my Niam-niam route, and had an indirect connection with the proceedings taken against Mohammed by Mbeeoh, who had been surprised by Aboo Guroon’s company in the same way as the combined companies of Ghattas and Aboo Sammat. The scene of war had merely been transferred from Mbeeoh’s territory to that of the sons of Tombo and Ezo.

Although I should have much preferred to travel in company with Aboo Guroon rather than with Ghattas’s agent, there was one insuperable impediment: my baggage was not ready, and it would require some little time to select the articles that would be of most practical use to me as well as what would involve me in the smallest outlay for bearers. I was obliged, therefore, to forego Aboo Guroon’s offer. If I had joined him I should have escaped the calamity of fire from which I soon afterwards suffered so severe a loss, but perhaps only to share a worse fate, for Aboo Guroon was one of the first victims of an engagement with the Niam-niam, a very few days after he set out.

[Sidenote: IVORY EXPEDITIONS.]

Just at this time all the controllers of the different Seribas were actively engaged in preparing for their combined and extensive ivory expedition. With their aggregated forces they hoped to subdue the refractory chieftains in the north, who had been guilty of much treachery towards the Nubians: their primary proceedings were to be taken against Ndoruma, the daring son of Ezo.

It had been the rapid diminution of the ivory in these districts that had caused the Khartoomers of late to direct their expeditions to the territories of the powerful kings of the south, leaving the smaller chieftains with a comparatively insignificant interest in the traffic. These chieftains, therefore, did all in their power to obstruct the progress of the Nubians, and endeavoured by foul means, instead of by fair, to obtain a share of the copper which they coveted. They commenced a system of hostility to get possession of the store of metal which, as long as they had ivory to dispose of, had come to them in the peaceful way of commerce. To the dismay of the Khartoomers, the natives soon showed that they were quite capable of putting whatever firearms they captured to a formidable use, and I shall very soon have to relate how completely all the Niam-niam expeditions came to grief in consequence of the vigorous opposition of the natives.

Meanwhile I was fully occupied by my preparation for the long journey before me. My anticipations were not to be realised. Just at the time when I was rejoicing that my health had braved all the perils of the climate and my good fortune seemed to be at its height, I was doomed to drink of that bitter cup of disappointment from which none of my predecessors in Central Africa have been exempt.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] This is the Mundo of Petherick.

[56] The portrait of a Babuckur woman is given in the
subsequent chapter on the slave-trade.

[57] _Vide_ ‘Barth’s Travels,’ vol. ii. p. 254.