Read Ebook: The heart of Africa Vol. 2 (of 2) by Schweinfurth Georg August Frewer Ellen E Ellen Elizabeth Translator

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Ebook has 1542 lines and 191503 words, and 31 pages

The PYGMIES--Nubian stories--Ancient classical allusions--Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle--My introduction to Pygmies--Adimokoo the Akka--Close questioning--War-dance--Visits from many Akka-- Mummery's Pygmy corps--My adopted Pygmy--Nsewue's life and death-- Dwarf races of Africa--Accounts of previous authors: Battel, Dapper, K?lle--Analogy of Akka with Bushmen--Height and complexion--Hair and beards--Shape of the body--Awkward gait-- Graceful hands--Form of skull--Size of eyes and ears--Lips-- Gesticulations--Dialect inarticulate--Dexterity and cunning-- Munza's protection of the race 122

Return to the North--Tikkitikki's reluctance to start--Passage of the Gadda--Sounding the Keebaly--The river Kahpily--Cataracts of the Keebaly--Kubby's refusal of boats--Our impatience--Crowds of hippopotamuses--Possibility of fording the river--Origin and connection of the Keebaly--Division of highland and lowland-- Geographical expressions of Arabs and Nubians--Mohammedan perversions--Return to Nembey--Bivouac in the border-wilderness-- Eating wax--The Niam-niam declare war--Parley with the enemy--My mistrust of the guides--Treacherous attack on Mohammed--Mohammed's dangerous wound--Open war--Detruncated heads--Effect of arrows-- Mohammed's defiance--Attack on the abattis--Pursuit of the enemy-- Inexplicable appearance of 10,000 men--Waudo's unpropitious omen-- My Niam-niam and their oracle--Mohammed's speedy cure--Solar phenomenon--Dogs barbarously speared--Women captured--Niam-niam affection for their wives--Calamus--Upper course of the Mbrwole-- Fresh captive--Her composure--Alteration in scenery--Arrival at the Nabambisso 147

Solitary days and short provisions--Productive ant-hill--Ideal plenty and actual necessity--Attempt at epicurism--Expedition to the east--Papyrus swamp--Disgusting food of the Niam-niam-- Merdyan's Seriba--Hyaena as beast of prey--Losing the way-- Reception in Tuhamy's Seriba--Scenery of Mondoo--Gyabir's marriage--Discovery of the source of the Dyoor--Mount Baginze-- Vegetation of mountain--Cyanite gneiss--Mohammed's campaign against Mbeeoh--Three Bongo missing--Skulls Nos. 36, 37, and 38-- Indifference of Nubians to cannibalism--Horrible scene--Change in mode of living--Invasion of ants--Peculiar method of crossing the Sway--Bad tidings--Successful chase--Extract of meat--Return of long absent friends--Adventures of Mohammed's detachment--Route from Rikkete to Kanna--Disappointment with Niam-niam dog--Limited authority of Nganye--Suspension-bridge over the Tondy 194

Division of the caravan--Trip to the east--African elk--Bamboo- forests--Seriba Mbomo on the Lehssy--Abundance of corn--Route between Kuddoo and Mbomo--Maize-culture--Harness-bushbock-- Leopard carried in triumph--Leopards and panthers--The Babuckur-- Lips of the Babuckur women--Surprised by buffaloes--Accident in crossing the Lehssy--Tracts of wilderness--Buffaloes in the bush--The Mashirr hills--Tamarinds again--Wild dates--Tikkitikki and the cows--The Viceroy's scheme--Hunger on the march--Passage of the Tondy--Suggestion for a ferry--Prosperity of Ghattas's establishments--Arrival of expected stores--A dream realised-- Trip to Kurkur--Hyaena dogs--Dislike of the Nubians to pure water-- Two soldiers killed by Dinka--Attempt to rear an elephant--My menagerie--Accident from an arrow--Cattle plagues--Meteorology-- Trip to the Dyoor--Gyabir's delusion--Bad news of Mohammed-- Preparations for a second Niam-niam journey 246

A disastrous day--Failure to rescue my effects--Burnt Seriba by night--Comfortless bed--A wintry aspect--Rebuilding the Seriba-- Cause of the fire--Idrees's apathy--An exceptionally wet day-- Bad news of Niam-niam expedition--Measuring distance by footsteps--Start to the Dyoor--Khalil's kind reception--A restricted wardrobe--Temperature at its minimum--Corn requisitions of Egyptian troops--Slave trade carried on by soldiers-- Suggestions for improved transport--Chinese hand-barrows--Defeat of Khartoomers by Ndoruma--Nubians' fear of bullets--A lion shot-- Nocturnal disturbance--Measurements of the river Dyoor-- Hippopotamus hunt--Habits of hippopotamus--Hippopotamus fat--Nile whips--Recovery of a manuscript--Character of the Nubians--Nubian superstitions--Strife in the Egyptian camp 289

Fresh wanderings--Dyoor remedy for wounds--Crocodiles in the Ghetty--Former residence of Miss Tinn?--Dirt and disorder--The Baggara-Rizegat--An enraged fanatic--The Pongo--Frontiers of the Bongo and Golo--A buffalo-calf shot--Idrees Wod Defter's Seriba--Golo dialect--Corn magazines of the Golo--The Kooroo--The goats' brook--Increasing level of land--Seebehr's Seriba Dehm Nduggoo--Discontent of the Turks--Visit to an invalid--Ibrahim Effendi--Establishment of the Dehms--Nubians rivals to the slave-dealers--Population of Dar Ferteet--The Kredy--Overland route to Kordofan--Shekka--Copper mines of Darfoor--Raw copper 332

Underwood of Cycadeae--Peculiar mills of the Kredy--Wanderings in the wilderness--Crossing the Beery--Inhospitable reception at Mangoor--Numerous brooks--Huge emporium of slave-trade--Highest point of my travels--Western limit--Gallery-woods near Dehm Gudyoo--Scorbutic attack--Dreams and their fulfilment--Courtesy of Yumma--Remnants of ancient mountain ridges--Upper course of the Pongo--Information about the far west--Great river of Dar Aboo Dinga--Barth's investigations--Primogeniture of the Bahr-el-Arab--First giving of the weather--Elephant-hunters from Darfoor--The Sehre--Wild game around Dehm Adlan--Cultivated plants of the Sehre--Magic tuber--Deficiency of water--A night without a roof--Irrepressible good spirits of the Sehre--Lower level of the land--A miniature mountain-range--Norway rats-- Gigantic fig-tree in Moody--The "evil eye"--Little steppe- burning--Return to Khalil's quarters 373

Tidings of war--Two months' hunting--Yolo antelopes--Reed-rats-- Habits of the Aulacodus--River-oysters--Soliman's arrival-- Advancing season--Execution of a rebel--Return to Ghattas's Seriba--Disgusting population--Allagabo--Alarm of fire--Strange evolutions of hartebeests--Nubian cattle-raids--Traitors among the natives--Remains of Shol's huts--Lepers and slaves--Ambiguous slave-trading--Down the Gazelle--The Balaeniceps again--Dying hippopotamus--Invocation of saints--Disturbance at night--False alarm--Taken in tow--The Mudir's camp--Crowded boats--Confiscation of slaves--Surprise in Fashoda--Slave-caravans on the bank-- Arrival in Khartoom--Telegram to Berlin--Seizure of my servants-- Remonstrance with the Pasha--Mortality in the fever season-- Tikkitikki's death--???????. ???????. 443

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Remarkable head-dress of the Niam-niam 7

Knives, scimitars, trumbashes, and shield of the Niam-niam 10

Niam-niam warrior 11

Clay pipes of the Niam-niam 14

Niam-niam dog 15

Niam-niam granary 20

Bamogee: or hut for the boys 21

Niam-niam handicraft 26

Breed of cattle from the Maoggoo country 64

Goat of the Momvoo 69

King Munza's dish 79

Monbuttoo warriors 103

Monbuttoo woman 105

Weapons of the Monbuttoo 107

Spear-heads 111

Hatchet, spade, and adze, of the Monbuttoo 112

Wooden kettle-drum 113

Single seat used by the women 114

Seat-rest 115

Water-bottles 116

Bomby the Akka 130

Nsewue the Akka 134

Dinka pipe 146

Horns of Central African Eland 249

Golo woman 350

Corn-magazine of the Golo 352

Kredy hut 375

Interior of Kredy hut 376

"Karra," the magic tuber 399

A Bongo concert 404

Babuckur slave 420

Slave at work 424

Hunting reed-rats 447

Far-el-boos. 449

THE HEART OF AFRICA.

Long before Mehemet Ali, by despatching his expeditions up the White Nile, had made any important advance into the interior of the unknown continent--before even a single sailing vessel had ever penetrated the grass-barriers of the Gazelle--at a time when European travellers had never ventured to pass the frontiers of that portion of Central Africa which is subject to Islamism--whilst the heathen negro countries of the Soudan were only beginning to dawn like remote nebulae on the undefined horizon of our geographical knowledge--tradition had already been circulated about the existence of a people with whose name the Mohammedans of the Soudan were accustomed to associate all the savagery which could be conjured up by a fertile imagination. The comparison might be suggested that just as at the present day, in civilised Europe, questions concerning the descent of men from apes form a subject of ordinary conversation, so at that time in the Soudan did the Niam-niam serve as common ground for all ideas that pertained to the origin of man. This people, whose existence was evoked from the mysterious hordes of witches and goblins, might have vanished amidst the dim obscurity of the primeval forests if it had not been that Alexandre Dumas, in his tale of 'l'Homme ? Queue,' so rich in its charming simplicity, had, exactly at the right moment, raised a small memorial which contributed to its preservation.

To lift in a measure the veil which had enveloped the Niam-niam with this legendary and magic mystery fell to the lot of my predecessor Piaggia, that straightforward and intrepid Italian who, animated by the desire of opening up some reliable insight into their real habits, had resided alone for a whole year amongst them.

I reckon it my own good fortune that I was so soon to follow him into the very midst of this cannibal population. It was indeed a period of transition from the age of tradition to that of positive knowledge, but I have no hesitation in asserting that these Niam-niam, apart from some specialities which will always appertain to the human race so long as it hangs unconsciously upon the breast of its great mother Nature, are men of like passions with ourselves, equally subject to the same sentiments of grief and joy. I have interchanged with them many a jest, and I have participated in their child-like sports, enlivened by the animating beating of their war-drums or by the simple strains of their mandolins.

The name Niam-niam is borrowed from the dialect of the Dinka, and means "eaters," or rather "great eaters," manifestly betokening a reference to the cannibal propensities of the people. This designation has been so universally incorporated into the Arabic of the Soudan, that it seems unadvisable to substitute for it the word "Zandey," the name by which the people are known amongst themselves. Since among the Mohammedans of the Soudan the term Niam-niam is principally associated with the idea of cannibalism, the same designation is sometimes applied by them to other nations who have nothing in common with the true Niam-niam, or "Zandey," except the one characteristic of a predilection for eating human flesh. The neighbouring nations have a variety of appellations to denote them. The Bongo on the north sometimes call them Mundo, and sometimes Manyanya; in the country behind these are the Dyoor, who uniformly speak of them as the O-Madyaka; the tribe of the Mittoo on the east give them the name of the Makkarakka, or Kakkarakka; the Golo style them Kunda; whilst among the Monbuttoo they are known as Babungera.

The greater part of the Niam-niam country lies between the fourth and sixth parallels of north latitude, and a line drawn across the centre from east to west would correspond with the watershed between the basins of the Nile and Tsad. My own travels were confined exclusively to the eastern portion of the country, which, as far as I could understand, is bounded in that direction by the upper course of the Tondy; but in that district alone I became acquainted with as many as thirty-five independent chieftains who rule over the portion of Niam-niam territory that is traversed by the trading companies from Khartoom.

Of the extent of the country towards the west I was unable to gain any definite information; but as far as the land is known to the Nubians it would appear to cover between five and six degrees of longitude, and must embrace an area of about 48,000 square miles. The population of the known regions is at least two millions, an estimate based upon the number of armed men at the disposal of the chieftains through whose territory I travelled, and upon the corresponding reports of the fighting force in the western districts.

I propose in the present chapter to give a brief summary of the characteristics of this Niam-niam people, and shall hope so to explain the general features of their physiological and osteological aspect, and so to describe the details of their costume and ornaments, that I may not fail in my desire to convey a tolerably correct impression of this most striking race.

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