Chapter XXII (2)

We spent our first night close to the farms of Barraga, a spot which seemed especially remarkable for the clusters of trophies, all covered with the skulls of baboons. Everywhere there seemed to be an extensive cultivation of cassava, a product of the soil that seems hardly known at all to the Bongo. Many things that I saw in their cultivation bore evidence to their comparatively recent migration from the country of the Niam-niam. Sweet-potatoes were as common as cassava, and in addition to this were the ricinus, the edible solanum of the Niam-niam, here called “dyooyo,” and the horse-bean (_Canavalia_), which here bears the name of “nzerahno.” I also found a very peculiar creeper, with a double horny or finger-shaped tuber attached to the axils of the leaves, like the edible helmia, to which genus of plants it doubtless belongs. It is transplanted by the natives from the woods and trained in the neighbourhood of the huts, and is known under the name of “karra.” I had already noticed this plant in the Kredy villages on the Beery, where I was told that the tubers were very much used as a purgative medicine; but amongst the Niam-niam, who likewise occasionally cultivate it, I heard a different account. There it was said that the tubers are looked upon as a sort of charm, and it is believed that a good show of them upon the leaves is an infallible prediction of a prolific hunting season. It was, moreover, affirmed that if a huntsman wants to render his bow unerring in its capabilities, he has only to hold it in his hand while he “slaughters” one of the tubers over it, that is, takes a knife and cuts off the end and chops it in pieces.

The first tract that we passed in our still eastward return route was a uniformly thick wood, without any declivity at all in the ground, or anything to indicate that it was ever broken by a watercourse or standing pool of rain. About midday we made a halt at a marshy brook named Kanda, now dry, and set to work to explore the neighbourhood in the hopes of discovering some water, for, after a march of eleven miles in the heat, we began to be suffering from thirst. After a long search my people succeeded in meeting with a puddly slough, from which the dirty superficies had to be carefully removed in order to get at a little clear water. It was a disgusting swamp, the haunt of buffaloes and wild boars, full of excrements and reeking with filth, a compound of mould and ammonia. It was not until it had been strained through handkerchiefs and well-boiled that the water was purified of its odious smell. Only three miles farther on we had the good luck to find the watercourse of the Telle, overshadowed by thick foliage and running in a tolerably bright stream: a sufficient inducement to make the spot our resting-place for the night.

On the third day of our march we again passed several dry khors that had little pools of water in them, but very inadequate to our needs. In one of these there was lurking a herd of hartebeests, which by the greyish fawn-colour of their winter coats had quite an exceptional appearance. Hundreds of maraboo-storks were congregated around a marshy pond, where they were fishing for snails and worms.

[Sidenote: NO ROOF OVER-HEAD.]

At dinner we were again obliged to put up with the most abominable and revolting of water; our stock of provisions was miserably short, and although I had knocked over a few guinea-fowl, I had neither water in which to boil them, nor grease in which to fry them. In the afternoon we were startled by a storm, which, coming up from the north-east, rolled away towards the south. We endeavoured to get shelter in the wood beneath the thick foliage of the numerous great Lophira-trees, but it was all in vain; for, after having waited till daylight was waning, we were obliged to proceed in the darkness, and, thoroughly drenched to the skin, marched for a couple of hours till we came to the banks of a rivulet, where we were again overtaken by the rain.

A tedious, trying night, spent without a roof over my head, seemed to fill up the cup of bitterness which I was destined to drink upon this tour of privation. In the darkness no grass could be discovered, and on account of the dampness of the atmosphere no fire could be kindled, so that it was entirely without protection from the wet and cold that I had wearily to await the following morning, when, half-perished by exposure, in spite of the continued storm, I resumed my way, now become more arduous than ever, because, as a result of the rain, it had become exceedingly slippery. The rain of this night had been quite an exception, and was very transient; it passed away, and the prevalence of the north wind, during the last three days overpowered by a current from the south-west, was for a time restored.

Never do I recollect having seen a more cheerful little people than the Sehre, if I may judge them by those who acted as my bearers. No mischance, no fatigue, no hunger nor thirst, seemed ever to take the smallest effect upon the happy temperament of these poor negroes. As soon as we halted they began their jokes and pranks. There was not a woe-begone countenance to be seen; groans and sighs were utterly alien to their disposition, and no sooner was their work over, toilsome as it was, than they began to play, like a lot of boys fresh out of school. Sometimes one would pretend to be a wild animal, and was chased by the others; or sometimes they would contrive and carry out some practical joke. Nothing seemed to entertain them more than to act the part of a great clumsy tortoise, and to waddle about on all-fours, accompanying their movements by all kinds of grunting and clacking noises. And all this jocoseness went on while their stomachs were empty. “If we are hungry,” they would say, “we sing, and forget it.”

We proceeded thirteen miles still eastward from the Telle, and then the wooded country, which had continued in an unbroken succession of thick trees of every variety all the way from the Pongo, came to an end. It was succeeded by extensive steppes and marshy lowlands, which every here and there was relieved by clusters of Terminaliæ. The lowland was bounded towards the east by a range of hills, the base of which we reached about four miles farther on. The direction of the elevated land lay from the south-east to the north-west.

Deviating now from the east a little more to the north, our route conducted us towards Ngulfala, a Seriba in Bongoland, about fourteen miles away. We had to make our way through a complicated system of rounded caps of gneiss, and to wind round flat-topped hills that gave the district the aspect of being a miniature mountain-chain, the source-land probably of the Ghetty and the watershed between that stream and the Pongo. The rise in the ground was very obvious. The highest of the rounded eminences, named Atyumm, was about 200 feet above our path, and at least 500 feet above the adjacent steppe below; it had a semi-spherical form, very like that of Gumango, near Bendo’s village, in the Niam-niam country.

[Sidenote: NGULFALA.]

Before reaching Ngulfala we had to cross the Ghetty, here a meagre stream, corresponding to the absorbing nature of the soil through which it flows. The distance between the spot and where we had crossed it at Bizelly’s Seriba is about forty miles, but the river presented just the same aspect—a broad, deep rift in the earth, with its water almost stationary in its pools. A considerable number of maraboo-storks were seen, either standing upon the banks or dipping into the water-holes for fish and mollusks (_Anodontæ_).

The altitude of the Seriba above the level of the sea was 1905 feet, about 500 lower than Dehm Adlan; but it should be observed that an accidental rise in the ground is made simply by the hill-system of Atyumm, itself nearly 500 feet, so that (without allowing anything for the cutting of the stream) the gradual descent of the land during the thirty or thirty-five miles that it extends eastwards from the Pongo must amount altogether to just about 1000 feet.

The lower level of the soil becomes more obvious still over the next stretch of country. The nearest Seriba in Bongoland, called Moody, belonged, like the one before it, to the possessions of Agahd; and the thirteen or fourteen miles that led us there brought us over a tract of perpetual marshes, the flat steppes that divided them being traversed by five khors that we found perfectly dry. The names of these khors were reported to me as the Mingangah, the Bolongoh, the Boddoowee, the Doggolomah, and the Koddahirara, of which, if the testimony of my Bongo bearers is to be trusted, the two former take their course northwards to the Ghetty, and the three latter make their way southwards to the Wow.

In Moody I took a day’s rest, as I had done in Ngulfala. I required it very much, as I had taken a violent cold, and felt altogether weak and out of sorts. Throughout the time we halted there was a strong north wind blowing, very keen and chilly.

Feeling somewhat better towards evening, I took a short ramble amongst the homesteads of the place. It was here that I came across the grave of the departed Bongo chief Yanga, with its monumental erection, of which I have already[80] given an illustration. The Bongo here seemed to show a remarkable originality in their contrivances. In their huts I was continually finding some furniture or implements which in other parts of the country had long become obsolete. The variety of their musical instruments, as I have described them in the chapter devoted to their manners and customs, is very great, and to exemplify the use of them, I may here introduce a sketch which represents four young men whom I saw in Moody, and who had met together to while away the evening by performing quartets.

[Sidenote: NORWAY RATS.]

The controller at Moody was in possession of a couple of caracal-lynxes, which he had caught when they were quite young, and which he was training, intending to send them when full-grown to Khartoom. One of the Bongo men was employed in attending to them, and in order to keep them supplied with food he was obliged to spend the greater portion of his time in catching rats. He used to bring them home, tied up in dozens, from the banks of the neighbouring river-course. These rats were of a reddish-brown colour, with white bellies, and were called “luny” by the Bongo; except that they are smaller in size, they are very like what we know as “Norway rats.” They are never found except in the proximity of water, and appear to be indistinguishable from those which infest the huts and granaries in every respect but in colour. Whether the Norway rats in their dispersion have ever reached as far as these remote districts is a question that I cannot answer, as the investigation of the specimens I brought with me has not yet been completed.

Two leagues to the south-east of Moody lies a subsidiary Seriba of Kurshook Ali’s, named Moddu-Mabah; and three leagues farther on in the same direction is the chief Seriba of Hassaballa, known amongst the Bongo as Gellow. This is situated on the hither side of the Wow, and at no great distance from it. The narrow strip of land between the Wow and the Dyoor contains at least half a dozen smaller Seribas, which lie along the route to the Bellanda, and which belong partly to Kurshook Ali and partly to Hassaballa.

The little Seriba Moody, together with all its huts, was overshadowed by a single fig-tree, of such enormous growth that it was quite a magnificent example of the development which that tree may attain. It belonged to the species named the _Ficus lutea_, the mbehry of the Bongo. It was not that the height of the stem of this giant of Moody was very excessive; the remarkable growth displayed itself rather in the prodigious thickness and spreading habits of the powerful arms, every one of which was so massive that it might stand a comparison with the stoutest of our pines and firs. The peculiar bark only appears on parts of the stem; its colour is light grey, and, like that of the plane, it is scored with diagonal lines. All the boughs, right up to the highest, are furnished with external pendant roots, that hang in the air like a huge beard; they encompass the trunk of the tree with a regular network, like rope and string. But it should be observed of this species that its principal branches altogether fail in throwing out those perpendicular roots, which, falling straight downwards, find their way into the earth and give such a remarkable appearance to trees like those venerable sycamores of Egypt, which stand as though they made the pillared corridor of a stately coliseum.[81]

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF THE EVIL EYE.]

A singular story was associated with this noble tree at Moody, and I found the entire population of the Seriba still under the influence of the astonishment and alarm that had only recently been excited. It appeared that one of the great branches, having become worm-eaten and decayed, had fallen to the ground, and as it fell would inevitably have utterly smashed in a contiguous hut if it had tumbled in any other direction than it did. This fall of the huge bough was attributed by the Nubians to the direct agency of an “evil eye,” which it was alleged had been directed against the tree by a soldier who had happened to be passing through the place the day before my arrival. Just as usual the people had been collected in front of their huts under shade of the tree, when the man in question, pointing significantly to the bough, said, “That bough up there is quite rotten; it would be a bad business if it were to come tumbling down upon your heads.” No sooner said than done. The words were hardly out of the fellow’s mouth before there was a prodigious cracking and creaking, and down came the huge branch with a crash to the ground. There lay the fragments. I heard the testimony from the very lips of eye-witnesses, and what could I say?

It took us two days more to accomplish our return journey to Wow. The chief Seriba of Agahd’s company lay to the north-east of Moody, and, allowing for a slight deviation from the direct route, was about thirty-five miles distant. The country was clothed with light bushwood, but in no part did it exhibit anything like the same richness of foliage as the western lands that we had left behind. We had to pass over two low-lying marsh-districts, Katyirr and Dumburre, where, hidden amongst the tall, half-withered grass, we found several cavities filled by springs of water. At Dumburre we came across traces of a deserted settlement, which, according to the statements of the Bongo of my party, were the remains of the very earliest Seriba that had been established in the land. Our night was spent upon the borders of a marshy stream called the Moll, and was very uncomfortable on account of a heavy north-east gale which blew from ten o’clock.

The dogs that were with me were kept in a constant state of excitement by the perpetual rushing that went on in the bushwood, and it was impossible to restrain them from rushing off into the darkness, and carrying on a hunting game on their own account. All through the night they kept running in and out of the camp, very often returning bespattered with blood. A farther indication of the abundance of wild animals that existed in the neighbourhood was afforded by the continual howling of hyænas, which, in a manner that was quite unusual, kept us disturbed all through the night.

For our supper that evening we had had a couple of fine reed-rats measuring just twenty-one inches from their snouts to the root of the tail. Before leaving Dumburre I had had a small steppe-burning of my own. By the help of my bearers, who were set to the work of beating the bush, I had quite an interesting hunt, the produce of which had been two zebra-ichneumons and the two far-el-boos (reed-rats), which had been carried with us in triumph to the camp.

Beyond the Moll we entered upon a hilly region, the ground being much broken by scattered shrubs. On both sides of the pathway lines of red rocky hills emerged in the distance, varied occasionally by flats and rounded projections of the ever-abundant gneiss. The next watercourse to which we came was the Dabohlo, a marshy spot, but now nearly dry, upon which we could discern the traces of a large number of buffaloes. Here, also, we had a very prolific _battue_ of guinea-fowl; for the early morning hours had tempted them to collect by hundreds around the little puddles which were left standing every here and there within the limits of the marsh.

Far as the eye could reach there was nothing to be seen but a gently-sloping steppe, entirely void of trees, which it took the bearers 3000 paces to get over; but this accomplished, we reached a depression in the same marsh-lands (now, however, perfectly dry) that were relieved in various places by groups of Terminaliæ. Beyond this the ground began to take a considerable ascent, the valley upon the far east being bounded by a range of hills that ran from south-east to north-west; and the rise continued through the four remaining miles that brought us to the Seriba.

[Sidenote: RETURN TO MY FRIEND KHALIL.]

Thus, after forty-nine days’ absence, and numbering 876,000 paces in the interval, I again returned to the quarters of my good friend Khalil. While I had been away he had, for my special accommodation, most considerately erected some new and pretty huts, in which I was very pleased to spend the remainder of my sojourn.

FOOTNOTES:

[75]

Zwei Jahre schwanden, immer wandern
Noch die Zigeuner friedlich fort
Von einer Steppe zu der andern
Und finden gastlich jeden Ort;
Der jeden Bildungszwang verachtet,
Aleko ist so frei wie sie.
Nicht die Familie, wie sie waren,
Nichts weiss er mehr von frühern Jahren,
Ganz zum Zigeuner ward er schon.
(_German translation from Puschkin’s_ ‘TZIGANI.’)

[76] Barth, vol. iii., p. 578.

[77] Some geographers fall into error with respect to
this place by making Dar Sheela identical with
the well-known Dar Sileh or Dar Silah, which is a
different negro Mohammedan country, many of the people
of which I have seen.

[78] _Vide_ De Cadalvene et de Breuvery L’Egypte,
vol. ii. p. 237, where the Orientalist König
has given his interpretation of a map, which
Teïma-Walad-el-Sultan-Messabani (Governor of Kordofan,
subject to the control of Darfoor) had himself
projected.

[79] Fresnel pursued his researches in Djidda in the years
1848 and 1849.

[80] _Vide_ vol. i., Chap. VII.

[81] A sycamore of this description is to be seen on the
island of Rodah in Cairo, in the garden of the Duke of
Dumont, where the formation of pillars (promoted by
hanging pitchers of water on the branches) consists of
two perfectly concentric circles that girdle the whole
stem. This sycamore is one of the most remarkable
natural curiosities of Egypt, and is well worth a
visit.