XXXVIII. KARAGUE…

XXXVIII. KARAGUE

LOCALITY OF KARAGUE -- DISTINCT CLASSES OF THE INHABITANTS -- THEIR GENERAL CHARACTER -- MODE OF SALUTATION -- THE RULING CASTE, OR WAHUMA, AND THE ROYAL CASTE, OR MOHEENDA -- LAW OF SUCCESSION -- THE SULTAN RUMANIKA AND HIS FAMILY -- PLANTAIN WINE -- HOW RUMANIKA GAINED THE THRONE -- OBSEQUIES OF HIS FATHER -- NEW-MOON CEREMONIES -- TWO ROYAL PROPHETS -- THE MAGIC HORNS -- MARRIAGE -- EASY LOT OF THE WAHUMA WOMEN -- WIFE-FATTENING -- AN ODD USE OF OBESITY -- DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS -- RUMANIKA’S PRIVATE BAND -- FUNERAL CUSTOMS.

Passing by a number of tribes of more or less importance, we come to the country called KARAGUE (pronounced Kah-rah-góo-eh), which occupies a district about lat. 3° S. and long. 31° E. The people of this district are divided into two distinct classes,--namely, the reigning race, or Wahuma, and the peasantry, or Wanyambo. These latter were the original inhabitants of the land, but were dispossessed by the Wahuma, who have turned them into slaves and tillers of the ground. Among the Wahuma there is another distinction,--namely, a royal caste, or Moheenda.

As to the Wanyambo, although they are reduced to the condition of peasants, and have been compared to the ryots of India, they seem to preserve their self-respect, and have a kind of government among themselves, the country being divided into districts, each of which has its own governor. These men are called Wakungo, and are distinguished by a sort of uniform, consisting of a sheet of calico or a scarlet blanket in addition to the ordinary dress.

They are an excitable and rather quarrelsome people, and are quite capable of taking their own parts, even against the Weezees, with whom they occasionally quarrel. They do not carry their weapons continually, like the Wagogo and the Weezees, contenting themselves with a stick about five feet long, with a knob at the end, without which they are seldom to be seen, and which is not only used as a weapon, but is employed in greeting a friend.

The mode of saluting another is to hold out the stick to the friend, who touches the knobbed end with his hand, and repeats a few words of salutation. Yet, although they do not habitually carry weapons, they are very well armed, their bows being exceedingly powerful and elastic, more than six feet in length, and projecting a spear-headed arrow to a great distance. Spears are also employed, but the familiar weapon is the bow. A bow belonging to M’nanagee, the brother of Rumanika, the then head chief or “sultan” of Karague, was a beautiful specimen of native workmanship. It was six feet three inches in length, i. e. exactly the height of the owner, and was so carefully made that there was not a curve in it that could offend the eye. The string was twisted from the sinews of a cow, and the owner could project an arrow some two hundred yards. The wood of which it was made looked very like our own ash.

The Wanyambo were very polite to Captain Grant, taking great care of him, and advising him how to preserve his health, thus affording a practical refutation of the alarming stories respecting their treachery and ferocity of which he had been told when determining to pass through their country. The Wanyambo are obliged to furnish provisions to travellers free of charge, but, although they obey the letter of the law, they always expect a present of brass wire in lieu of payment. They are slenderly built, very dark in complexion, and grease themselves abundantly. They do not, however, possess such an evil odor as other grease-using tribes, as, after they have anointed themselves, they light a fire of aromatic wood, and stand to leeward of it, so as to allow the perfumed smoke to pass over them.

The Wahuma are of much lighter complexion, and the royal caste, or Moheenda, are remarkable for their bronze-like complexions, their well-cut features, and their curiously long heads. The members of this caste are further marked by some scars under the eyes, and their teeth are neither filed nor chipped. There is rather a curious law about the succession to the throne. As with us, the king’s eldest son is the acknowledged heir, but then he must have been born when his father was actually king. Consequently, the youngest of a family of brothers is sometimes the heir to the throne, his elder brothers, having been born before their father was king, being ineligible to the crown.

According to Captain Speke, the Wahuma, the Gallas, and the Abyssinians are but different branches of the same people, having fought and been beaten, and retired, and so made their way westward and southward, until they settled down in the country which was then inhabited by the Wanyambo. Still, although he thinks them to have derived their source from Abyssinia, and to have spread themselves over the whole of the country on which we are now engaged, he mentions that they always accommodated themselves to the manners and customs of the natives whom they supplanted, and that the Gallas or Wahuma of Karague have different customs from the Wahuma of Unyoro.

The king or sultan of Karague, at the time when our travellers passed through the country, was Rumanika. He was the handsomest and most intelligent ruler that they met in Africa, and had nothing of the African in his appearance except that his hair was short and woolly. He was six feet two inches in height, and had a peculiarly mild and open expression of countenance. He wore a robe made of small antelope skins, and another of bark cloth, so that he was completely covered. He never wore any headdress, but had the usual metallic armlets and anklets, and always carried a long staff in his hand. His four sons appear to have been worthy of their father. The oldest and youngest seem to have been peculiarly favorable specimens of their race. The eldest, named Chunderah, was twenty-five years old, and very fair, so that, but for his woolly hair and his rather thick lips, he might have been taken for a sepoy. “He affected the dandy, being more neat about his lion-skin covers and ornaments than the other brothers. He led a gay life, was always ready to lead a war party, and to preside at a dance, or wherever there was wine and women.

“From the tuft of wool left unshaven on the crown of his head to his waist he was bare, except when decorated round the muscle of the arms and neck with charmed horns, strips of otter skin, shells, and bands of wood. The skin covering, which in the Karague people is peculiar in shape, reaches below the knee behind, and is cut away in front. From below the calf to the ankle was a mass of iron wire, and, when visiting from neighbor to neighbor, he always, like every Karague, carried in his hand a five-feet staff with a knob at the end. He constantly came to ask after me, bringing flowers in his hand, as he knew my fondness for them, and at night he would take Frij, my headman, into the palace, along with his ‘zeze,’ or guitar, to amuse his sisters with Zanzibar music. In turn, the sisters, brothers, and followers would sing Karague music, and early in the morning Master Frij and Chunderah would return rather jolly to their huts outside the palace enclosure. This shows the kindly feeling existing between us and the family of the sultan; and, although this young prince had showed me many attentions, he never once asked me for a present.”

The second son, who was by a different mother, was not so agreeable. His disposition was not bad, but he was stupid and slow, and anything but handsome. The youngest of the four, named Kukoko, seemed to have become a general favorite, and was clearly the pet of his father, who never went anywhere without him. He was so mild and pleasant in his manner, that the travellers presented him with a pair of white kid gloves, and, after much trouble in coaxing them on his unaccustomed fingers, were much amused by the young man’s added dignity with which he walked away.

Contrary to the usual African custom, Rumanika was singularly abstemious, living almost entirely upon milk, and merely sucking the juice of boiled beef, without eating the meat itself. He scarcely ever touched the plantain wine or beer, that is in such general use throughout the country, and never had been known to be intoxicated. This wine or beer is made in a very ingenious manner. A large log of wood is hollowed out so as to form a tub, and it seems essential that it should be of considerable size. One end of it is raised upon a support, and a sort of barrier or dam of dried grass is fixed across the centre. Ripe plantains are then placed in the upper division of the tub, and mashed by the women’s feet and hands until they are reduced to a pulp. The juice flows down the inclined tub, straining itself by passing through the grass barrier. When a sufficient quantity has been pressed, it is strained several times backward and forward, and is then passed into a clean tub for fermentation. Some burnt sorghum is then bruised and thrown into the juice to help fermentation, and the tub is then covered up and placed in the sun’s rays, or kept warm by a fire. In the course of three days the brewing process is supposed to be completed, and the beer or wine is poured off into calabashes.

The amount of this wine that is drunk by the natives is really amazing, every one carrying about with him a calabash full of it, and even the youngest children of the peasants drinking it freely. It is never bottled for preservation, and, in fact, it is in such request that scarcely a calabash full can be found within two or three days after the brewing is completed. This inordinate fondness for plantain wine makes Rumanika’s abstinence the more remarkable.

But Rumanika was really a wonderful man in his way, and was not only king, but priest and prophet also. His very elevation to the throne was, according to the account given by him and his friends, entirely due to supernatural aid. When his father, Dagara, died, he and two brothers claimed the throne. In order to settle their pretensions a small magic drum was laid before them, and he who could lift it was to take the crown. The drum was a very small one, and of scarcely any weight, but upon it were laid certain potent charms. The consequence was, that although his brothers put all their strength to the task, they could not stir the drum, while Rumanika raised it easily with his little finger. Ever afterward he carried this drum with him on occasions of ceremony, swinging it about to show how easy it was for the rightful sovereign to wield it. Being dissatisfied with such a test, one of the chiefs insisted on Rumanika’s trial by another ordeal. He was then brought into a sacred spot, where he was required to seat himself on the ground, and await the result of the charms. If he were really the appointed king, the portion of the ground on which he was seated would rise up in the air until it reached the sky; but if he were the wrong man, it would collapse, and dash him to pieces. According to all accounts, his own included, Rumanika took his seat, was raised up into the sky, and his legitimacy acknowledged.

Altogether, his family seem to have been noted for their supernatural qualities. When his father, Dagara, died, his body was sewed up in a cow-hide, put into a canoe, and set floating on the lake, where it was allowed to decompose. Three maggots were then taken from the canoe and given in charge of Rumanika, but as soon as they came into his house one of them became a lion, another a leopard, and the third was transformed into a stick. The body was then laid on the top of a hill, a hut built over it, five girls and fifty cows put into it, and the door blocked up and watched, so that the inmates gradually died of starvation. The lion which issued from the corpse was supposed to be an emblem of the peculiar character of the Karague country, which is supposed to be guarded by lions from the attack of other tribes. It was said that whenever Dagara heard that the enemy was marching into his country, he used to call the lions together, send them against the advancing force, and so defeat them by deputy.

In his character of high-priest, Rumanika was very imposing, especially in his new-moon levee, which took place every month, for the purpose of ascertaining the loyalty of his subjects. On the evening of the new moon he clothes himself in his priestly garb, i. e. a quantity of feathers nodding over his forehead, and fastened with a kind of strap of beads. A huge white beard covers his chin and descends to his breast, and is fastened to his face by a belt of beads. Having thus prepared himself, he sits behind a screen, and waits for the ceremony to begin.

This is a very curious one. Thirty or forty long drums are ranged on the ground, just like a battery of so many mortars; on their heads a white cross is painted. The drummers stand behind them, each with a pair of sticks, and in front is their leader, who has a pair of small drums slung to his neck. The leader first raises his right arm, and then his left, the performers imitating him with exact precision. He then brings down both sticks on the drums with a rapid roll, which becomes louder and louder, until the noise is scarcely endurable. This is continued at intervals for several hours, interspersed with performances on smaller drums, and other musical instruments. The various chiefs and officers next advance, in succession, leaping and gesticulating, shouting expressions of devotion to their sovereign, and invoking his vengeance on them should they ever fail in their loyalty. As they finish their salutation they kneel successively before the king, and hold out their knobbed sticks that he may touch them, and then retire to make room for their successors in the ceremony. In order to give added force to the whole proceeding, a horn is stuffed full of magic powder, and placed in the centre, with its opening directed toward the quarter from which danger is to be feared.

A younger brother of Rumanika, named M’nanagee, was even a greater prophet and diviner than his royal brother, and was greatly respected by the Wahuma in consequence of his supernatural powers. He had a sacred stone on a hill, and might be seen daily walking to the spot for the purpose of divination. He had also a number of elephant tusks which he had stuffed with magic powder and placed in the enclosure, for the purpose of a kind of religious worship.

M’nanagee was a tall and stately personage, skilled in the knowledge of plants, and, strange to say, ready to impart his knowledge. As insignia of his priestly office, he wore an abundance of charms. One charm was fastened to the back of his shaven head, others hung from his neck and arms, while some were tied to his knees, and even the end of his walking stick contained a charm. He was always attended by his page, a little fat boy, who carried his fly-flapper, and his master’s pipe, the latter being of considerable length, and having a bowl of enormous size. He had a full belief in the power of his magic horns, and consulted them on almost every occasion of life. If any one were ill, he asked their opinion as to the nature of the malady and the best remedy for it. If he felt curious about a friend at a distance, the magic horns gave him tidings of the absent one. If an attack were intended on the country, the horns gave him warning of it, and, when rightly invoked, they either averted the threatened attack, or gave victory over their enemies.

The people have an implicit faith in the power of their charms, and believe that they not only inspire courage, but render the person invulnerable. Rumanika’s head magician, K’yengo, told Captain Speke that the Watuta tribes had invested his village for six months; and, when all the cattle and other provisions were eaten, they took the village and killed all the inhabitants except himself. Him they could not kill on account of the power of his charms, and, although they struck at him with their spears as he lay on the ground, they could not even wound him.

The Wahuma believe in the constant presence of departed souls, and that they can exercise an influence for good or evil over those whom they had known in life. So, if a field happens to be blighted, or the crop does not look favorable, a gourd is laid on the path. All passengers who see the gourd know its meaning, and set up a wailing cry to the spirits to give a good crop to their surviving friends. In order to propitiate the spirit of his father, Dagara, Rumanika used annually to sacrifice a cow on his tomb, and was accustomed to lay corn and beer near the grave, as offerings to his father’s spirit.

In Karague, marriage is little more than a species of barter, the father receiving cows, sheep, slaves, and other property for his daughter. But the transaction is not a final one, for if the bride does not happen to approve of her husband, she can return the marriage gifts and return to her father. There is but little ceremony in their marriages, the principal one seeming to consist of tying up the bride in a blackened skin, and carrying her in noisy procession to her husband.

The Wahuma women lead an easy life compared with that of the South African women, and indeed their chief object in life seems to be the attainment of corpulence. Either the Wahuma women are specially constituted, or the food which they eat is exceptionally nutritious, for they attain dimensions that are almost incredible. For example, Rumanika, though himself a slight and well-shaped man, had five wives of enormous fatness. Three of them were unable to enter the door of an ordinary hut, or to move about without being supported by a person on either side. They are fed on boiled plantains and milk, and consume vast quantities of the latter article, eating it all day long. Indeed, they are fattened as systematically as turkeys, and are “crammed” with an equal disregard of their feelings.

Captain Speke gives a very humorous account of his interview with one of the women of rank, together with the measurements which she permitted him to take:--

“After a long and amusing conversation with Rumanika in the morning, I called on one of his sisters-in-law, married to an elder brother, who was born before Dagara ascended the throne. She was another of these victims of obesity, unable to stand except on all fours. I was desirous to obtain a good view of her, and actually to measure her, and induced her to give me facilities for doing so by offering in return to show her a bit of my naked legs and arms. The bait took as I wished it, and, after getting her to sidle and wriggle into the middle of the hut, I did as I had promised, and then took her dimensions as noted.

“Round arm, one foot eleven inches. Chest, four feet four inches. Thigh, two feet seven inches. Calf, one foot eight inches. Height, five feet eight inches. All of these are exact except the height, and I believe I could have obtained this more accurately if I could have had her laid on the floor. But, knowing what difficulties I should have to contend with in such a piece of engineering, I tried to get her height by raising her up. This, after infinite exertions on the part of us both, was accomplished, when she sank down again fainting, for the blood had rushed into her head.

“Meanwhile the daughter, a lass of sixteen, sat stark naked before us, sucking at a milk-pot, on which the father kept her at work by holding a rod in his hand: for, as fattening is the first duty of fashionable female life, it must be duly enforced with the rod if necessary. I got up a bit of a flirtation with missy, and induced her to rise and shake hands with me. Her features were lovely, but her body was as round as a ball.”

In one part of the country, the women turned their obesity to good account. In exchanging food for beads, the usual bargain was that a certain quantity of food should be paid for by a belt of beads that would go round the waist. But the women of Karague were, on an average, twice as large round the waist as those of other districts, and the natural consequence was, that food practically rose one hundred per cent in price.

Despite their exceeding fatness, their features retain much beauty, the face being oval, and the eyes peculiarly fine and intelligent. The higher class of women are very modest, not only wearing the cow-skin petticoat, but also a large wrapper of black cloth, with which they envelope their whole bodies, merely allowing one eye to be seen. Yet up to the marriageable age no clothing of any kind is worn by either sex, and both boys and girls will come up to the traveller and talk familiarly with him, as unconscious of nudity as their first parents. Until they are married they allow their hair to grow, and then shave it off, sometimes entirely, and sometimes partially. They have an odd habit of making caps of cane, which they cover on the outside with the woolly hair shaved off their own heads.

Mention has been made of various musical instruments used in Karague. The most important are the drums, which vary in size as much as they do in England. That which corresponds to our side-drum is about four feet in length and one in width, and is covered at the wide end with an ichneumon skin. This instrument is slung from the shoulder, and is played with the fingers like the Indian “tom-tom.” The large drums used at the new-moon levee are of similar structure, but very much larger. The war drum is beaten by the women, and at its sound the men rush to arms and repair to the several quarters.

There are also several stringed instruments employed in Karague. The principal of these is the nanga, a kind of guitar, which, according to Captain Grant, may be called the national instrument. There are several varieties of the nanga. “In one of these, played by an old woman, six of the seven notes were a perfect scale, the seventh being the only faulty string. In another, played by a man, three strings were a full harmonious chord. These facts show that the people are capable of cultivation. The nanga was formed of heavy dark wood, the shape of a tray, twenty-two by nine inches, or thirty by eight, with three crosses in the bottom, and laced with one string seven or eight times over bridges at either end. Sometimes a gourd or sounding-board was tied to the back.

“Prince M’nanagee, at my request, sent the best player he knew. The man boldly entered without introduction, dressed in the usual Wanyambo costume, and looked a wild, excited creature. After resting his spear against the roof of the hut, he took a nanga from under his arm, and commenced. As he sat upon a mat with his head averted, he sang something of his having been sent to me, and of the favorite dog Keeromba. The wild yet gentle music and words attracted a crowd of admirers, who sang the dog-song for days afterward, as we had it encored several times.

“Another player was an old woman, calling herself Keeleeamyagga. As she played while standing in front of me, all the song she could produce was ‘sh! sh!’ screwing her mouth, rolling her body, and raising her feet from the ground. It was a miserable performance, and not repeated.”

There is another stringed instrument called the “zeze.” It differs from the nanga in having only one string, and, like the nanga, is used to accompany the voice in singing. Their wind instruments may be called the flageolet and the bugle. The former has six finger holes; and as the people walk along with a load on their heads, they play the flageolet to lighten their journey, and really contrive to produce sweet and musical tones from it. The so-called “bugle” is made of several pieces of gourd, fitting into one another in telescope fashion, and is covered with cow-skin. The notes of a common chord can be produced on the bugle, the thumb acting as a key. It is about one foot in length.

Rumanika had a special military band comprised of sixteen men, fourteen of whom had bugles and the other two carried hand drums. They formed in three ranks, the drummers being in the rear, and played on the march, swaying their bodies in time to the music, and the leader advancing with a curiously active step, in which he touched the ground with each knee alternately. The illustration opposite will give the reader a good idea of Rumanika’s private band.

The code of laws in Karague is rather severe in some cases, and strangely mild in others. For example, theft is punished with the stocks, in which the offender is sometimes kept for many months. Assault with a stick entails a fine of ten goats, but if with a deadly weapon, the whole of the property is forfeited, the injured party taking one half, and the sultan the other. In cases of actual murder, the culprit is executed, and his entire property goes to the relations of the murdered man. The most curious law is that against adultery. Should the offender be an ordinary wife, the loss of an ear is thought to be sufficient penalty; but if she be a slave, or the daughter of the sultan, both parties are liable to capital punishment.

When an inhabitant of Karague dies, his body is disposed of according to his rank. Should he be one of the peasants, or Wanyambo, the body is sunk in the water; but if he should belong to the higher caste, or Wahuma, the corpse is buried on an island in the lake, all such islands being considered as sacred ground. Near the spot whereon one of the Wahuma has died, the relations place a symbolical mark, consisting of two sticks tied to a stone, and laid across the pathway. The symbol informs the passenger that the pathway is for the present sacred, and in consequence he turns aside, and makes a détour before he resumes the pathway. The singular funeral of the sultan has already been mentioned.

THE WAZARAMO AND WASAGARA.

Before proceeding to other African countries, it will be as well to give a few lines to two other tribes, namely,--the Wazaramo and the Wasagara. The country in which the former people live is called Uzaramo, and is situated immediately southward of Zanzibar, being the first district through which Captains Speke and Grant passed. It is covered with villages, the houses of which are partly conical after the ordinary African fashion, and partly gable-ended, according to the architecture of the coast, the latter form being probably due to the many traders who have come from different parts of the world. The walls of the houses are “wattle and daub,” i. e. hurdle-work plastered with clay, and the roofs are thatched with grass or reeds. Over these villages are set headmen, called phanzes, who ordinarily call themselves subjects of Said Majid, the Sultan of Zanzibar. But as soon as a caravan passes through their country, each headman considers himself as a sultan in his own right, and levies tolls from the travellers. They never allow strangers to come into their villages, differing in this respect from other tribes, who use their towns as traps, into which the unwary traveller is induced to come, and from which he does not escape without suffering severely in purse.

The people, although rather short and thick-set, are good-looking, and very fond of dress, although their costume is but limited, consisting only of a cloth tied round the waist. They are very fond of ornaments, such as shells, pieces of tin, and beads, and rub their bodies with red clay and oil until they look as if they were new cast in copper. Their hair is woolly, and twisted into numerous tufts, each of which is elongated by bark fibres. The men are very attentive to the women, dressing their hair for them, or escorting them to the water, lest any harm should befall them.

A wise traveller passes through Uzaramo as fast as he can, the natives never furnishing guides, nor giving the least assistance, but being always ready to pounce on him should he be weak, and to rob him by open violence, instead of employing the more refined “hongo” system. They seem to be a boisterous race, but are manageable by mixed gentleness and determination. Even when they had drawn out their warriors in battle array, and demanded in a menacing manner a larger hongo than they ought to expect, Captain Speke found that gentle words would always cause them to withdraw, and leave the matter to peaceful arbitration. Should they come to blows, they are rather formidable enemies, being well armed with spears and bows and arrows, the latter being poisoned, and their weapons being always kept in the same state of polish and neatness as their owners.

Some of these Phanzes are apt to be very troublesome to the traveller, almost always demanding more than they expect to get, and generally using threats as the simplest means of extortion. One of them, named Khombé la Simba, or Lion’s-claw, was very troublesome, sending back contemptuously the present that had been given him, and threatening the direst vengeance if his demands were not complied with. Five miles further inland, another Phanze, named Mukia ya Nyani, or Monkey’s-tail, demanded another hongo; but, as the stores of the expedition would have been soon exhausted at this rate, Captain Speke put an abrupt stop to this extortion, giving the chiefs the option of taking what he chose to give them, or fighting for it; and, as he took care to display his armory and the marksmanship of his men, they thought it better to comply rather than fight and get nothing.

Owing to the rapidity with which the travellers passed through this inhospitable land, and the necessity for avoiding the natives as much as possible, very little was learned of their manners and customs. The Wazaramo would flock round the caravan for the purpose of barter, and to inspect the strangers, but their ordinary life was spent in their villages, which, as has been already mentioned, are never entered by travellers. Nothing is known of their religion, though it is possible that the many Mahometans who pass through their land may have introduced some traces of their own religion, just as is the case in Londa, where the religion is an odd mixture of idolatrous, Mahometan, and Christian rites, with the meaning ingeniously excluded. In fact they do not want to know the meaning of the rites, leaving that to the priests, and being perfectly contented so long as the witch-doctor performs his part. That the Wazaramo have at all events a certain amount of superstition, is evident from the fact that they erect little model huts as temples to the Spirit of Rain. Such a hut or temple is called M’ganga. They also lay broken articles on graves, and occasionally carve rude wooden dolls and fix them in the ground at the end of the grave; but, as far as is known, they have no separate burying-place.

THE WASAGARA TRIBE.

The second of these tribes, the WASAGARA, inhabits a large tract of country, full a hundred miles in length, and is composed of a great number of inferior or sub-tribes. Like other African nations, who at one time were evidently great and powerful, the Wasagara have become feeble and comparatively insignificant, though still numerous. Being much persecuted by armed parties from the coast, who attack and carry them off for slaves, besides stealing what property they have, the Wasagara have mostly taken to the lofty conical mountains that form such conspicuous objects in their country, and there are tolerably safe. But, as they are thus obliged to reside in such limited districts, they can do but little in agriculture, and they are afraid to descend to the level ground in order to take part in the system of commerce, which is so largely developed in this country. Their villages are mostly built on the hill spurs, and they cultivate, as far as they can, the fertile lands which lie between them. But the continual inroads of inimical tribes, as well as those of the slave-dealers, prevent the inhabitants from tilling more land than can just supply their wants.

So utterly dispirited are they, that as soon as a caravan is seen by a sentry, warning is given, and all the population flock to the hill-top, where they scatter and hide themselves so completely that no slaving party would waste its time by trying to catch them. Resistance is never even thought of, and it is hardly possible to induce the Wasagara to descend the hills until the caravan has passed. Consequently it is scarcely possible to obtain a Wasagara as a guide through his country. If, however, the traveller does succeed in so doing, he finds that the man is trustworthy, lively, active, and altogether an amusing companion. The men seem to be good hunters, displaying great skill in discovering and tracking game. Owing to the precarious nature of their lives, the Wasagara have but little dress, a small strip of cloth round the waist being the ordinary costume.

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XXXIX. THE WATUSI AND WAGANDA

LOCALITY OF THE WATUSI TRIBE -- MODE OF DRESS -- A WATUSI WOMAN -- THEIR VALUE AS HERDSMEN -- SALUTATION -- WATUSI DANCING -- THE WAGANDA -- ROAD SYSTEM OF UGANDA -- CODE OF ETIQUETTE -- DISREGARD OF HUMAN LIFE -- CRUELTY -- THE WIFE-WHIP -- AN AFRICAN BLUEBEARD -- LIFE IN THE PALACE -- REVIEWING THE TROOPS -- ORIGIN OF THE WAGANDA TRIBE -- KIMERA, AND HIS MODE OF GOVERNMENT -- SYSTEM OF ORGANIZATION -- THE LAW OF SUCCESSION -- M’TESA, THE PRESENT KING, AND HIS COURT -- THE ROYAL PALACE -- GENERAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE WAGANDA -- RECEPTION OF A GUEST -- THE ROYAL WALK -- A COUNCIL -- SUPERSTITIONS -- THE WATER-SPIRIT AND HIS HIGH PRIEST -- RELIGION OF THE WAGANDA -- HUMAN SACRIFICES -- THE SLAVE-TRADE -- BURYING GROUNDS OF THE WAGANDA.

There is one tribe which, though small, has sufficient individuality to deserve a brief notice. The WATUSI are a race of herdsmen, who live on either side of the equator, and, according to Captain Grant, resemble the Somalis in general appearance. They generally take service in the households of wealthy persons, and devote themselves almost entirely to the care of the cattle. They have plentiful and woolly hair, and the men shave their beards with the exception of a crescent-shaped patch. They have an odd fashion of staining their gums black, using for the purpose a mixture of the tamarind seed calcined and powdered, and then mixed with a salt of copper. The men carry their weapons when walking, and seldom appear without a bow and arrows, a five-feet-long stick with a knob at one end, and a pipe.

When they meet a friend, they hold out the knobbed end of the stick to him; he touches it, and the demands of etiquette are supposed to be fulfilled. This knobbed stick is quite an institution among the tribes that have recently been mentioned, and a man seems to be quite unhappy unless he has in his hand one of these curious implements. They are fond of ornament, and wear multitudinous rings upon their wrists and ankles, the latter being generally of iron and the former of brass.

They are a fine-looking race, and the women are equally remarkable in this respect with the men,--a phenomenon rarely seen in this part of the world. They are tall, erect, and well-featured, and, as a rule, are decently clad in dressed cow-skins. The general appearance of the Watusi women can be gathered from Captain Grant’s description.

“One morning, to my surprise, in a wild jungle we came upon cattle, then upon a ‘bomah’ or ring fence, concealed by beautiful umbrageous large trees, quite the place for a gipsy camp. At the entry two strapping fellows met me and invited my approach. I mingled with the people, got water from them, and was asked, ‘Would I prefer some milk?’ This sounded to me more civilized than I expected from Africans, so I followed the men, who led me up to a beautiful lady-like creature, a Watusi woman, sitting alone under a tree.

“She received me without any expression of surprise, in the most dignified manner; and, after talking with the men, rose smiling, showing great gentleness in her manner, and led me to her hut. I had time to scrutinize the interesting stranger: she wore the usual Watusi costume of a cow’s skin reversed, teased into a fringe with a needle, colored brown, and wrapped round her body from below the chest to the ankles. Lappets, showing zebra-like stripes of many colors, she wore as a ‘turn-over’ round the waist, and, except where ornamented on one arm with a highly polished coil of thick brass wire, two equally bright and massive rings on the right wrist, and a neck pendant of brass wire,--except these, and her becoming wrapper, she was au naturelle.

“I was struck with her peculiarly-formed head and graceful long neck; the beauty of her fine eyes, mouth, and nose; the smallness of her hands and naked feet--all were faultless; the only bad feature, which is considered one of beauty with them, was her large ears. The arms and elbows were rounded off like an egg, the shoulders were sloping, and her small breasts were those of a crouching Venus--a perfect beauty, though darker than a brunette.

“Her temporary residence was peculiar; it was formed of grass, was flat-roofed, and so low that I could not stand upright in it. The fireplace consisted of three stones; milk vessels of wood, shining white from scouring, were ranged on one side of the abode. A good-looking woman sat rocking a gourd between her knees in the process of churning butter. After the fair one had examined my skin and my clothes, I expressed great regret that I had no beads to present to her. ‘They are not wanted,’ she said; ‘sit down, drink this buttermilk, and here is also some butter for you.’ It was placed on a clean leaf. I shook hands, patted her cheek, and took my leave, but some beads were sent her, and she paid me a visit, bringing butter and buttermilk, and asking for more presents, which she of course got, and I had the gratification to see her eyes sparkle at the sight of them.

“This was one of the few women I met during our whole journey that I admired. None of the belles in Usui could approach her; but they were of a different caste, though dressing much in the same style. When cow’s skins were not worn, these Usui women dressed very tidily in bark cloths, and had no marks or cuttings observable on their bodies. Circles of hair were often shaved off the crowns of their heads, and their neck ornaments showed considerable taste in the selection of the beads. The most becoming were a string of the M’zizama spheres of marble-sized white porcelain, and triangular pieces of shell rounded at the corners.

“An erect fair girl, daughter of a chief, paid us a visit, accompanied by six maids, and sat silently for half an hour. She had a spiral circle of wool shaved off the crown of her head; her only ornament was a necklace of green beads; she wore the usual wrapper, and across her shoulders a strip of scarlet cloth was thrown; her other fineries were probably left at home. The women of the district generally had grace and gentleness in their manner.”

Some of the women tattoo themselves on the shoulders and breasts in rather a curious fashion, producing a pattern that looks in front like point lace, and which then passes over the shoulders and comes on the back down to the waist, like a pair of braces. A band of similar markings runs round the waist.

The wages of the Watusi tribe for the management of the cattle are simple enough. Half the milk is theirs, and as a cow in these regions is singularly deficient in milk, producing a bare pint per diem, the herdsmen have but small reward for their labor. They are very clever at managing the animals placed under their control. If they have to drive an unruly cow, they simply tie a cord to the hock of one of the hind legs, and walk behind it holding the end of the cord. This very simple process has the effect of subduing the cow, who yields as if to a charm, and walks quietly in whatever direction she is told to go. Goats are led by taking up one of the fore legs in the hand, when it is found that the animal walks along quietly on three legs; the temporary deprivation of the fourth limb being no particular impediment. Perhaps on account of this mastery over the cattle, even the Wanyamuezi look upon the Watusi with great respect. Should members of those tribes meet, the Weezee presses the palms of his hands together, and the Watusi gently clasps them in his own, muttering at the same time a few words in a low tone of voice. If a Watusi man meets a woman of the same tribe, she allows her arms to fall by her side, and he gently presses her arms below the shoulders. For an illustration of this mode of salutation, see the engraving No. 2 on page 397.

They are an industrious people, and make baskets with considerable skill, using a sharp-pointed spear, and doing nearly as much of the work with their feet as with their hands. They also work in metals, and have a kind of bellows made of wood, with cane handles,--very small, but efficient enough for the purpose. The dances with which the Watusi amuse themselves in the evening are as simple and peaceful as the dancers, and women take equal part with the men in them. They array themselves in a circle, singing, and clapping hands in time. Presently a woman passes into the ring, dances alone, and then, making a graceful obeisance to some favorite in the ring, she retires backward to her place. A young man then comes forward, goes through a number of evolutions, bows to one of the girls, and then makes way for a successor.

Captain Grant always speaks in the highest terms of the Watusi, whom he designates as his favorite race. He states that they never will permit themselves to be sold into slavery, but prefer death to such dishonor. This people are always distinguishable by their intelligence and the easy politeness of their manners. They are also remarkable for their neatness and personal cleanliness, in which they present a strong contrast to the neighboring tribes.

THE WAGANDA TRIBE.

Passing still northward, and keeping to the westward of the Victoria N’yanza, we come to the UGANDA district, the inhabitants of which are named WAGANDA.

This country is situated on the equator, and is a much more pleasant land than might be supposed from its geographical position, being fertile, and covered with vegetation. It is a peculiarly pleasant land for a traveller, as it is covered with roads, which are not only broad and firm, but are cut almost in a straight line from one point to another. Uganda seems to be unique in the matter of roads, the like of which are not to be found in any part of Africa, except those districts which are held by Europeans. The roads are wide enough for carriages, but far too steep in places for any wheeled conveyance; but as the Waganda do not use carriages of any kind, the roads are amply sufficient for their purposes. The Waganda have even built bridges across swamps and rivers, but their knowledge of engineering has not enabled them to build a bridge that would not decay in a few years.

Like many other tribes which bear, but do not deserve, the name of savages, the Waganda possess a curiously strict code of etiquette, which is so stringent on some points that an offender against it is likely to lose his life, and is sure to incur a severe penalty. If, for example, a man appears before the king with his dress tied carelessly, or if he makes a mistake in the mode of saluting, or if, in squatting before his sovereign, he allows the least portion of his limbs to be visible, he is led off to instant execution. As the fatal sign is given, the victim is seized by the royal pages, who wear a rope turban round their heads, and at the same moment all the drums and other instruments strike up, to drown his cries for mercy. He is rapidly bound with the ropes snatched hastily from the heads of the pages, dragged off, and put to death, no one daring to take the least notice while the tragedy is being enacted.

They have also a code of sumptuary laws which is enforced with the greatest severity. The skin of the serval, a kind of leopard cat, for example, may only be worn by those of royal descent. Once Captain Speke was visited by a very agreeable young man, who evidently intended to strike awe into the white man, and wore round his neck the serval-skin emblem of royal birth. The attempted deception, however, recoiled upon its author, who suffered the fate of the daw with the borrowed plumes. An officer of rank detected the imposture, had the young man seized, and challenged him to show proofs of his right to wear the emblem of royalty. As he failed to do so, he was threatened with being brought before the king, and so compounded with the chief for a fine of a hundred cows.

Heavy as the penalty was, the young man showed his wisdom by acceding to it; for if he had been brought before the king, he would assuredly have lost his life, and probably have been slowly tortured to death. One punishment to which M’tesa, the king of Uganda, seems to have been rather partial, was the gradual dismemberment of the criminal for the sake of feeding his pet vultures; and although on some occasions he orders them to be killed before they are dismembered, he sometimes omits that precaution, and the wretched beings are slowly cut to pieces with grass blades, as it is against etiquette to use knives for this purpose.

The king alone has the privilege of wearing a cock’s-comb of hair on the top of his head, the remainder being shaved off. This privilege is sometimes extended to a favorite queen or two, so that actual royalty may be at once recognized. Even the mode of sitting is carefully regulated. Only the king is allowed to sit on a chair, all his subjects being forced to place themselves on the ground. When Captains Speke and Grant visited Uganda, there was a constant struggle on this point, the travellers insisting on sitting in their arm-chairs, and the king wanting them to sit on the ground. On one occasion, when walking with M’tesa and his suite, a halt was ordered, and Captain Speke looked about for something to sit upon. The king, seeing this, and being determined not to be outdone, called a page, made him kneel on all fours, and then sat on his back. The controversy at last ended in a compromise, the travellers abandoning their chairs in the king’s presence, but sitting on bundles of grass which were quite as high.

When an inferior presents any article to his superior, he always pats and rubs it with his hands, and then strokes with it each side of his face. This is done in order to show that no witchcraft has been practised with it, as in such a case the intended evil would recoil on the donor. This ceremony is well enough when employed with articles of use or apparel; but when meat, plantains, or other articles of food are rubbed with the dirty hands and well-greased face of the donor, the recipient, if he should happen to be a white man, would be only too happy to dispense with the ceremony, and run his risk of witchcraft.

The officers of the court are required to shave off all their hair except a single cockade at the back of the head, while the pages are distinguished by two cockades, one over each temple, so that, even if they happen to be without their rope turbans, their rank and authority are at once indicated. When the king sends the pages on a message, a most picturesque sight is presented. All the commands of the king have to be done at full speed, and when ten or a dozen pages start off in a body, their dresses streaming in the air behind them, each striving to outrun the other, they look at a distance like a flight of birds rather than human beings.

Here, as in many other countries, human life, that of the king excepted, is not of the least value. On one occasion Captain Speke had given M’tesa a new rifle, with which he was much pleased. After examining it for some time, he loaded it, handed it to one of his pages, and told him to go and shoot somebody in the outer court. The page, a mere boy, took the rifle, went into the court, and in a moment the report of the rifle showed that the king’s orders had been obeyed. The urchin came back grinning with delight at the feat which he had achieved, just like a schoolboy who has shot his first sparrow, and handed back the rifle to his master. As to the unfortunate man who was fated to be the target, nothing was heard about him, the murder of a man being far too common an incident to attract notice.

On one occasion, when M’tesa and his wives were on a pleasure excursion, one of the favorites, a singularly good-looking woman, plucked a fruit, and offered it to the king, evidently intending to please him. Instead of taking it as intended, he flew into a violent passion, declared that it was the first time that a woman had ever dared to offer him anything, and ordered the pages to lead her off to execution. “These words were no sooner uttered by the king than the whole bevy of pages slipped their cord turbans from their heads, and rushed like a pack of Cupid beagles upon the fairy queen, who, indignant at the little urchins daring to touch her majesty, remonstrated with the king, and tried to beat them off like flies, but was soon captured, overcome, and dragged away, crying in the names of the Kamraviona and M’zungu (myself [i. e. Captain Speke]) for help and protection, whilst Lubuga, the pet sister, and all the other women clasped the king by his legs, and, kneeling, implored forgiveness for their sister. The more they craved for mercy, the more brutal he became, till at last he took a heavy stick and began to belabor the poor victim on the head. The artist has represented this scene in the engraving on previous page.

“Hitherto I had been extremely careful not to interfere with any of the king’s acts of arbitrary cruelty, knowing that such interference at an early stage would produce more harm than good. This last act of barbarism, however, was too much for my English blood to stand; and as I heard my name, M’zungu, imploringly pronounced, I rushed at the king, and, staying his uplifted arm, demanded from him the woman’s life. Of course I ran imminent risk of losing my own in thus thwarting the capricious tyrant, but his caprice proved the friend of both. The novelty of interference made him smile, and the woman was instantly released.”

On another occasion, when M’tesa had been out shooting, Captain Grant asked what sport he had enjoyed. The unexpected answer was that game had been very scarce, but that he had shot a good many men instead. Beside the pages who have been mentioned, there were several executioners, who were pleasant and agreeable men in private life, and held in great respect by the people. They were supposed to be in command of the pages who bound with their rope turbans the unfortunates who were to suffer, and mostly inflicted the punishment itself.

This particular king seems to have been rather exceptionally cruel, his very wives being subject to the same capriciousness of temper as the rest of his subjects. Of course he beat them occasionally, but as wife beating is the ordinary custom in Uganda, he was only following the ordinary habits of the people.

There is a peculiar whip made for the special purpose of beating wives. It is formed of a long strip of hippopotamus hide, split down the middle to within three or four inches of the end. The entire end is beaten and scraped until it is reduced in size to the proper dimensions of a handle. The two remaining thongs are suffered to remain square, but are twisted in a screw-like fashion, so as to present sharp edges throughout their whole length. When dry, this whip is nearly as hard as iron, and scarcely less heavy, so that at every blow the sharp edges cut deeply into the flesh. Wife flogging, however, was not all; he was in the habit of killing his wives and their attendants without the least remorse. While Captain Speke was residing within the limits of the palace, there was scarcely a day when some woman was not led to execution, and some days three or four were murdered. Mostly they were female attendants of the queens, but frequently the royal pages dragged out a woman whose single cockade on the top of her head announced her as one of the king’s wives.

M’tesa, in fact, was a complete African Bluebeard, continually marrying and killing, the brides, however, exceeding the victims in number. Royal marriage is a very simple business in Uganda. Parents who have offended their king and want to pacify him, or who desire to be looked on favorably by him, bring their daughters and offer them as he sits at the door of his house. As is the case with all his female attendants, they are totally unclothed, and stand before the king in ignorance of their future. If he accept them, he makes them sit down, seats himself on their knees, and embraces them. This is the whole of the ceremony, and as each girl is thus accepted, the happy parents perform the curious salutation called “n’yanzigging,” i. e. prostrating themselves on the ground, floundering about, clapping their hands, and ejaculating the word “n’yans,” or thanks, as fast as they can say it.

Twenty or thirty brides will sometimes be presented to him in a single morning, and he will accept more than half of them, some of them being afterward raised to the rank of wives, while the others are relegated to the position of attendants. It was rather remarkable, that although the principal queen was most liberal with these attendants, offering plenty of them to Captain Speke and his companions, not one of them would have been permitted to marry a native, as she might have betrayed the secrets of the palace.

Life in the palace may be honorable enough, but seems to be anything but agreeable, except to the king. The whole of the court are abject slaves, and at the mercy of any momentary caprice of the merciless, thoughtless, irresponsible despot. Whatever wish may happen to enter the king’s head must be executed at once, or woe to the delinquent who fails to carry it out. Restless and captious as a spoiled child, he never seemed to know exactly what he wanted, and would issue simultaneously the most contradictory orders, and then expect them to be obeyed.

As for the men who held the honorable post of his guards, they were treated something worse than dogs--far worse, indeed, than M’tesa treated his own dog. They might lodge themselves as they could, and were simply fed by throwing great lumps of beef and plantains among them. For this they scramble just like so many dogs, scratching and tearing the morsels from each other, and trying to devour as much as possible within a given number of seconds.

The soldiers of M’tesa were much better off than his guards, although their position was not so honorable. They are well dressed, and their rank is distinguished by a sort of uniform, the officers of royal birth wearing the leopard-skin tippet, while those of inferior rank are distinguished by colored cloths, and skin cloaks made of the hide of oxen or antelopes. Each carries two spears, and an oddly-formed shield, originally oval, but cut into deep scallops, and having at every point a pendent tuft of hair. Their heads are decorated in a most curious manner, some of the men wearing a crescent-like ornament, and some tying round their heads wreaths made of different materials, to which a horn, a bunch of beads, a dried lizard, or some such ornament, is appended.

Not deficient in personal courage, their spirits were cheered in combat by the certainty of reward or punishment. Should they behave themselves bravely, treasures would be heaped upon them, and they would receive from their royal master plenty of cattle and wives. But if they behaved badly, the punishment was equally certain and most terrible. A recreant soldier was not only put to death, but holes bored in his body with red-hot irons until he died from sheer pain and exhaustion.

Now and then the king held a review, in which the valiant and the cowards obtained their fitting rewards. These reviews offered most picturesque scenes. “Before us was a large open sward, with the huts of the queen’s Kamraviona or commander-in-chief beyond. The battalion, consisting of what might be termed three companies, each containing two hundred men, being drawn up on the left extremity of the parade ground, received orders to march past in single file from the right of companies at a long trot, and re-form again at the end of the square.

“Nothing conceivable could be more wild or fantastic than the sight which ensued; the men all nearly naked, with goat or cat skins depending from their girdles, and smeared with war colors, according to the taste of the individual; one half of the body red or black, the other blue, not in regular order; as, for instance, one stocking would be red, and the other black, whilst the breeches above would be the opposite colors, and so with the sleeves and waistcoat. Every man carried the same arms, two spears and one shield, held as if approaching an enemy, and they thus moved in three lines of single rank and file, at fifteen or twenty paces asunder, with the same high action and elongated step, the ground leg only being bent, to give their strides the greater force.

“After the men had all started, the captains of companies followed, even more fantastically dressed; and last of all came the great Colonel Congow, a perfect Robinson Crusoe, with his long white-haired goat-skins, a fiddle-shaped leather shield, tufted with hair at all six extremities, bands of long hair tied below the knees, and a magnificent helmet covered with rich beads of every color in excellent taste, surmounted with a plume of crimson feathers, in the centre of which rose a bent stem tufted with goat’s-hair. Next, they charged in companies to and fro, and finally the senior officers came charging at their king, making violent professions of faith and honesty, for which they were applauded. The parade then broke up, and all went home.”

At these reviews, the king distributes rewards and metes out his punishments. The scene is equally stirring and terrible. As the various officers come before the king, they prostrate themselves on the ground, and, after going through their elaborate salutation, they deliver their reports as to the conduct of the men under their command. To some are given various presents, with which they go off rejoicing, after floundering about on the ground in the extremity of their gratitude; while others are seized by the ever-officious pages, bound, and dragged off to execution, the unfortunate men struggling with their captors, fighting, and denying the accusation, until they are out of hearing. As soon as the king thinks that he has had enough of the business, he rises abruptly, picks up his spears, and goes off, leading his dog with him.

The native account of the origin of the Waganda kingdom is very curious. According to them, the country which is now called Uganda was previously united with Unyoro, a more northerly kingdom, of which we shall presently treat. Eight generations back there came from Unyoro a hunter named Uganda, bringing with him a spear, a shield, a woman, and a pack of dogs. He began to hunt on the shores of the lake, and was so successful that he was joined by vast numbers of the people, to whom he became a chief.

Under his sway, the hitherto scattered people assumed the character of a nation, and began to feel their strength. Their leading men then held a council on their government, and determined on making Uganda their king. “For,” said they, “of what avail to us is the king of Unyoro? He is so far distant that, when we sent him a cow as a present, the cow had a calf, and that calf became a cow and gave birth to another calf, and yet the present has not reached the king. Let us have a king of our own.” So they induced Uganda to be their king, changed his name to Kimera, and assigned his former name to the country.

Kimera, thus made king, took his station on a stone and showed himself to his new subjects, having in his hand his spears and shield, and being accompanied by a woman and a dog; and in this way all succeeding kings have presented themselves to their subjects. All the Waganda are, in consequence, expected to keep at least two spears, a shield and a dog, and the officers are also entitled to have drums. The king of Unyoro heard of the new monarch, but did not trouble himself about a movement at such a distance, and so the kingdom of Uganda became an acknowledged reality.

However, Kimera organized his people in so admirable a manner, that he became a perfect terror to the king of Unyoro, and caused him to regret that, when Kimera’s power was not yet consolidated, he had not crushed him. Kimera formed his men into soldiers, drafted them into different regiments, drilled and organized them thoroughly. He cut roads through his kingdom, traversing it in all directions. He had whole fleets of boats built, and threw bridges over rivers wherever they interrupted his line of road. He descended into the minutest particulars of domestic polity, and enforced the strictest sanitary system throughout his country, not even suffering a house to be built unless it possessed the means of cleanliness.

Organization, indeed, seems now to be implanted in the Waganda mind. Even the mere business of taking bundles of wood into the palace must be done in military style. “After the logs are carried a certain distance, the men charge up hill with walking sticks at the slope, to the sound of the drum, shouting and chorusing. On reaching their officer, they drop on their knees to salute, by saying repeatedly in one voice the word ‘n’yans’ (thanks). Then they go back, charging down hill, stooping simultaneously to pick up the wood, till step by step, it taking several hours, the neatly cut logs are regularly stacked in the palace yards.”

Each officer of a district would seem to have a different mode of drill. The Wazeewah, with long sticks, were remarkable well-disciplined, shouting and marching all in regular time, every club going through the same movement; the most attractive part of the drill being when all crouched simultaneously, and then advanced in open ranks, swinging their bodies to the roll of their drums.

By such means Kimera soon contrived to make himself so powerful that his very name was dreaded throughout Unyoro, into which country he was continually making raids. If, for example, at one of his councils he found that one part of his dominions was deficient in cattle or women, he ordered one or two of his generals to take their troops into Unyoro, and procure the necessary number. In order that he might always have the means of carrying his ideas into effect, the officers of the army are expected to present themselves at the palace as often as they possibly can, and, if they fail to do so, they are severely punished; their rank is taken from them; their property confiscated, and their goods, their wives, and their children are given to others.

In fact, Kimera proceeded on a system of reward and punishment: the former he meted out with a liberal hand; the latter was certain, swift, and terrible. In process of time Kimera died, and his body was dried by being placed over an oven. When it was quite dry, the lower jaw was removed and covered with beads; and this, together with the body, were placed in tombs, and guarded by the deceased monarch’s favorite women, who were prohibited even from seeing his successor.

After Kimera’s death, the people proceeded to choose a king from among his many children, called “Warangira,” or princes. The king elect was very young, and was separated from the others, who were placed in a suite of huts under charge of a keeper. As soon as the young prince reached years of discretion, he was publicly made king, and at the same time all his brothers except two were burned to death. The two were allowed to live in case the new king should die before he had any sons, and also as companions for him. As soon as the line of direct succession was secured, one of the brothers was banished into Unyoro, and the other allowed to live in Uganda.

When Captains Speke and Grant arrived in Uganda, the reigning sovereign was M’tesa, the seventh in succession from Kimera. He was about twenty-five years of age, and, although he had not been formally received as king, wielded a power as supreme as if he had passed through this ceremony. He was wise enough to keep up the system which had been bequeathed to him by his ancestors, and the Uganda kingdom was even more powerful in his time than it had been in the days of Kimera. A close acquaintance proved that his personal character was not a pleasant one, as indeed was likely when it is remembered that he had possessed illimitable power ever since he was quite a boy, and in consequence had never known contradiction.

He was a very fine-looking young man, and possessed in perfection the love of dress, which is so notable a feature in the character of the Waganda. They are so fastidious in this respect, that for a man to appear untidily dressed before his superiors would entail severe punishment, while, if he dared to present himself before the king with the least disorder of apparel, immediate death would be the result. Even the royal pages, who rush about at full speed when performing their commissions, are obliged to hold their skin cloaks tightly round them, lest any portion of a naked limb should present itself to the royal glance.

The appearance of M’tesa is well described by Captain Speke:--“A more theatrical sight I never saw. The king, a good-looking, well-formed young man of twenty-five, was sitting upon a red blanket, spread upon a square platform of royal grass, encased in tiger-grass reeds, scrupulously dressed in a new ’mbugu (or grass-cloth). The hair of his head was cut short, except upon the top, where it was combed up into a high ridge, running from stem to stern, like a cock’s comb. On his neck was a very neat ornament--a large ring of beautifully-worked small beads, forming elegant patterns by their various colors. On one arm was another bead ornament, prettily devised, and on the other a wooden charm, tied by a string covered with a snake skin. On every finger and toe he had alternate brass and copper rings, and above the ankles, half-way up the calf, a stocking of very pretty beads.

“Everything was light, neat, and elegant in its way; not a fault could be found with the taste of his ‘getting-up.’ For a handkerchief, he had a well-folded piece of bark, and a piece of gold-embroidered silk, which he constantly employed to hide his large mouth when laughing, or to wipe it after a drink of plantain wine, of which he took constant and copious draughts from little gourd cups, administered by his ladies in waiting, who were at once his sisters and his wives. A white dog, spear, shield, and woman--the Uganda cognizance--were by his side, as also a host of staff officers, with whom he kept up a brisk conversation, on one side; and on the other was a band of ‘Wichwézi,’ or lady sorcerers.”

These women are indispensable appendages to the court, and attend the king wherever he goes, their office being to avert the evil eye from their monarch, and to pour the plantain wine into the royal cups. They are distinguished by wearing dried lizards on their heads, and on their belts are fastened goat-skin aprons, edged with little bells. As emblems of their office, they also carry very small shields and spears, ornamented with cock-hackles.

M’tesa’s palace is of enormous dimensions, and almost deserves the name of a village or town. It occupies the whole side of a hill, and consists of streets of huts arranged as methodically as the houses of an European town, the line being preserved by fences of the tall yellow tiger-grass of Uganda. There are also squares and open spaces, and the whole is kept in perfect order and neatness. The inner courts are entered by means of gates, each gate being kept by an officer, who permits no one to pass who has not the king’s permission. In case his vigilance should be evaded, each gate has a bell fastened to it on the inside, just as they are hung on shop-doors in England.

In the illustration No. 1, opposite, the artist has selected the moment when the visitor is introduced to the immediate presence of the king. Under the shade of the hut the monarch is seated on his throne, having on one side the spears, shield, and dog, and on the other the woman, these being the accompaniments of royalty. Some of his pages are seated near him, with their cord turbans bound on their tufted heads, ready to obey his slightest word. Immediately in front are some soldiers saluting him, and one of them, to whom he has granted some favor, is floundering on the ground, thanking, or “n’yanzigging,” according to the custom of the place. On the other side is the guest, a man of rank, who is introduced by the officer of the gate. The door itself, with its bells, is drawn aside, and over the doorway is a rope, on which are hung a row of charms. The king’s private band is seen in the distance, performing with its customary vigor.

The architecture of the huts within these enclosures is wonderfully good, the Waganda having great natural advantages, and making full use of them. The principal material in their edifices is reed, which in Uganda grows to a very great height, and is thick and strong in the stem. Grass for thatching is also found in vast quantities, and there is plenty of straight timber for the rafters. The roof is double, in order to exclude the sunbeams, and the outer roof comes nearly to the ground on all sides. The fabric is upheld by a number of poles, from which are hung corn-sacks, meat, and other necessaries.

The interior is separated into two compartments by a high screen made of plantain leaf, and within the inner apartment the cane bedstead of the owner is placed. Yet, with all this care in building, there is only one door, and no window or chimney; and although the Waganda keep their houses tolerably clean, the number of dogs which they keep fill their huts with fleas, so that when a traveller takes possession of a house, he generally has the plantain screen removed, and makes on the floor as large a fire as possible, so as to exterminate the insect inhabitants.

The ceremonies of receiving a royal guest are as elaborate as the architecture. Officers of rank step forward to greet him, while musicians are in attendance, playing on the various instruments of Uganda, most of them being similar to those which have already been described. Even the height of the seat on which the visitor is to place himself is rigorously determined, the chief object seeming to be to force him to take a seat lower than that to which he is entitled. In presence of the king, who sits on a chair or throne, no subject is allowed to be seated on anything higher than the ground; and if he can be induced to sit in the blazing sunbeams, and wait until the king is pleased to see him, a triumph of diplomacy has been secured.

When the king has satisfied himself with his guest, or thinks that he is tired, he rises without any warning, and marches off to his room, using the peculiar gait affected by the kings of Uganda, and supposed to be imitated from the walk of the lion. To the eyes of the Waganda, the “lion’s step,” as the peculiar walk is termed, is very majestic, but to the eyes of an European it is simply ludicrous, the feet being planted widely apart, and the body swung from side to side at each step. If any of my readers should have known Christ’s Hospital, they may remember the peculiar style of walking which was termed “spadging,” and which used to be, and may be now, an equivalent to the “lion-step” of the Uganda king.

After M’tesa had received his white visitor, he suddenly rose and retired after the royal custom, and, as etiquette did not permit him to eat until he had seen his visitors, he took the opportunity of breaking his fast.

Round the king, as he sits on his grass-covered throne, are his councillors and officers, squatted on the ground, with their dresses drawn tightly around them, and partly seated on the royal leopard skins which are strewed on the ground. There is also a large drum, decorated with little bells strung on wire arches, and some smaller drums, covered with beads and cowrie shells, worked into various patterns. Outside the inner circle sit the ordinary officers, and while the king is present not a word is spoken, lest he should take offence at it; and not an eye is lifted, lest a casual glance might fall on one of the king’s women, and be the precursor of a cruel death.

The Waganda are much given to superstition, and have a most implicit faith in charms. The king is very rich in charms, and, whenever he holds his court, has vast numbers of them suspended behind him, besides those which he carries on his person. These charms are made of almost anything that the magician chooses to select. Horns, filled with magic powder, are perhaps the most common, and these are slung on the neck or tied on the head if small, and kept in the huts if large.

Their great object of superstitious dread is a sort of water-spirit, which is supposed to inhabit the lake, and to wreak his vengeance upon those who disturb him. Like the water-spirits of the Rhine, this goblin has supreme jurisdiction, not only on the lake itself, but in all rivers that communicate with it; and the people are so afraid of this aquatic demon, that they would not allow a sounding-line to be thrown into the water, lest perchance the weight should happen to hit the water-spirit and enrage him. The name of this spirit is M’gussa, and he communicates with the people by means of his own special minister or priest, who lives on an island, and is held in nearly as much awe as his master.

M’tesa once took Captain Speke with him to see the magician. He took also a number of his wives and attendants, and it was very amusing, when they reached the boats, to see all the occupants jump into the water, ducking their heads so as to avoid seeing the royal women, a stray glance being sure to incur immediate death. They proceeded to the island on which the wizard lived.

“Proceeding now through the trees of this beautiful island, we next turned into the hut of the M’gussa’s familiar, which at the further end was decorated with many mystic symbols, among them a paddle, the badge of high office; and for some time we sat chatting, when pombé was brought, and the spiritual medium arrived. He was dressed Wichwézi fashion, with a little white goatskin apron, adorned with various charms, and used a paddle for a walking-stick. He was not an old man, though he articled to be so, walking very slowly and deliberately, coughing asthmatically, glimmering with his eyes, and mumbling like a witch. With much affected difficulty he sat at the end of the hut, beside the symbols alluded to, and continued his coughing full half an hour, when his wife came in in the same manner, without saying a word, and assumed the same affected style.

“The king jokingly looked at me and laughed, and then at these strange creatures by turns, as much as to say, ‘What do you think of them?’ but no voice was heard, save that of the old wife, who croaked like a frog for water, and, when some was brought, croaked again because it was not the purest of the lake’s produce--had the first cup changed, wetted her lips with the second, and hobbled away in the same manner as she had come.”

On their pathways and roads, which are very numerous and well kept, they occasionally place a long stick in the ground, with a shell or other charm on the top, or suspend the shell on the overhanging branch of a tree. Similar wands, on a smaller scale, are kept in the houses, and bits of feathers, rushes, and other articles are tied behind the door. Snake-skin is of course much used in making these charms, and a square piece of this article is hung round the neck of almost every man of this country.

The religion of the Waganda is of course one inspired by terror, and not by love, the object of all their religious rites being to avert the anger of malignant spirits. Every new moon has its own peculiar worship, which is conducted by banging drums, replenishing the magic horns, and other ceremonies too long to describe. The most terrible of their rites is that of human sacrifice, which is usually employed when the king desires to look into the future.

The victim is always a child, and the sacrifice is conducted in a most cruel manner. Having discovered by his incantations that a neighbor is projecting war, the magician flays a young child, and lays the bleeding body in the path on which the soldiers pass to battle. Each warrior steps over the bleeding body, and thereby is supposed to procure immunity for himself in the approaching battle. When the king makes war, his chief magician uses a still more cruel mode of divination. He takes a large earthen pot, half fills it with water, and then places it over the fireplace. On the mouth of the pot he lays a small platform of crossed sticks, and having bound a young child and a fowl, he lays them on the platform, covering them with another pot, which he inverts over them. The fire is then lighted, and suffered to burn for a given time, when the upper pot is removed, and the victims inspected. If they should both be dead, it is taken as a sign that the war must be deferred for the present; but if either should be alive, war may be made at once.

Speaking of these and other black tribes, Captain Speke very rightly observes: “How the negro has lived so many ages without advancing seems marvellous, when all the countries surrounding Africa are so forward in comparison. And, judging from the progressive state of the world, one is led to suppose that the African must soon either step out from his darkness, or be superseded by a being superior to himself. Could a government be formed for them like ours in India, they would be saved, but without it I fear there is very little chance. For at present the African neither can help himself nor be helped by others, because his country is in such a constant state of turmoil that he has too much anxiety on hand looking out for his food to think of anything else.

“As his fathers did, so does he. He works his wife, sells his children, enslaves all he can lay hands on, and, unless when fighting for the property of others, contents himself with drinking, singing, and dancing like a baboon, to drive dull care away. A few only make cotton cloth, or work in wool, iron, copper, or salt, their rule being to do as little as possible, and to store up nothing beyond the necessities of the next season, lest their chiefs or neighbors should covet and take it from them.”

The same experienced traveller then proceeds to enumerate the many kinds of food which the climate affords to any one of ordinary industry, such as horned cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, fowls, ducks, and pigeons, not to mention the plantain and other vegetable products, and expresses a feeling of surprise that, with such stores of food at his command, the black man should be so often driven to feed on wild herbs and roots, dogs, cats, rats, snakes, lizards, insects, and other similar animals, and should be frequently found on the point of starvation, and be compelled to sell his own children to procure food. Moreover, there are elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamus, buffaloes, giraffes, antelopes, guinea-fowls, and a host of other animals, which can be easily captured in traps or pitfalls, so that the native African lives in the midst of a country which produces food in boundless variety. The reasons for such a phenomenon are simple enough, and may be reduced to two,--namely, utter want of foresight and constitutional indolence.

As to the question of slavery, it may perhaps be as well to remark that slaves are not exclusively sold to white men. On the contrary, there is no slave-holder so tenacious of his acquired rights as the black man, and, for every slave sold to a white man, ten are bought by the dark races, whether on the east or west of Africa. And, when a slave begins to raise himself above a mere menial rank, his first idea is to buy slaves for himself, because they are the articles of merchandise which is most easily to be procured, and so, as Captain Speke well observes, slavery begets slavery ad infinitum. The summary of Captain Speke’s experience is valuable. “Possessed of a wonderful amount of loquacity, great risibility, but no stability--a creature of impulse--a grown child in short--at first sight it seems wonderful how he can be trained to work, for there is no law, no home to bind him. He would run away at any moment, and, presuming on this, he sins, expecting to be forgiven. Great forbearance, occasionally tinctured with a little fatherly severity, is, I believe, the best dose for him. For he says to his master, after sinning, ‘You ought to forgive and to forget, for are you not a big man who would be above harboring spite, though for a moment you may be angry? Flog me if you like, but do not keep count against me, or else I shall run away, and what will you do then?’”

The burying-places of the Waganda are rather elaborate. Captain Grant had the curiosity to enter one of them, and describes it as follows: “Two huts on a height appeared devoted to the remains of the dead. On getting over the fence surrounding them, a lawn having straight walks led up to the doors, where a screen of bark cloth shut out the view of the interior. Conquering a feeling of delicacy, I entered one of the huts. I found a fixed bedstead of cane, curtained as if to shade its bed of grass from the mosquito, spears, charms, sticks with strange crooks, tree-creepers, miniature idol-huts of grass, &c. These were laid in order in the interior, but no one was there, and we were told that it was a mausoleum.”

Many of such houses were seen on the hill-sides, but few so elaborately built. Usually they were little more than square patches of ground enclosed with a reed fence. These were called by the name of “Looaleh,” or sacred ground.

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XL. THE WANYORO

CHARACTER OF THE WANYORO TRIBE -- DIRTY HABITS -- MODE OF GOVERNMENT -- KING KAMRASI -- HIS DESPOTIC CHARACTER -- HIS BODY-GUARD AND THEIR PRIVILEGES -- HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE -- HIS GRASPING SELFISHNESS -- A ROYAL VISIT -- KAMRASI’S COWARDICE -- EXECUTION OF CRIMINALS -- CRUSHING A REBELLION -- LAWS OF SUCCESSION -- THE KING’S SISTERS -- WANYORO SINGING -- CONDITION OF WOMEN -- FOOD OF THE WANYORO -- CARRYING PROVISIONS ON THE MARCH -- USES OF THE PLANTAIN TREE -- FRAUDS IN TRADE -- SUPERSTITIONS -- THE MAGICIAN AT WORK -- THE HORNED DOG -- SPADE-MONEY.

Proceeding still northward, we come to the land of Unyoro, from which, as the reader will remember, the country of Uganda was separated. The inhabitants of Unyoro form a very unpleasant contrast to those of Uganda, being dirty, mean-looking, and badly dressed. The country, too, is far inferior to Uganda, which might be made into a perpetually blooming garden; for, as the traveller leaves the equator and passes to the north, he finds that the rains gradually decrease, and that vegetation first becomes thin, then stunted, and lastly disappears altogether. The same structure of language prevails here as in Uganda, so that the people of Unyoro are called Wanyoro, and a single person is a M’yoro.

The character of the Wanyoro is quite on a par with their appearance, for they are a mean, selfish, grasping set of people, sadly lacking the savage virtue of hospitality, and always on the lookout for opportunities to procure by unfair means the property of others. They seem, indeed, to be about as unpleasant a nation as can well be imagined, and in almost every point afford a strong contrast to others which have already been described.

They are singularly dirty in their domestic habits, their huts being occupied equally by men, goats, and fowls, and the floor, which is thickly covered with straw, is consequently in a most abominable condition. It is so bad, indeed, that even the natives are obliged to make a raised bedstead on which to sleep. Even the king’s palace is no exception to the general rule; the cattle are kept within the enclosure, and even his very sleeping-hut is freely entered by calves. To visit the “palace” without stilts and a respirator was too severe a task even to so hardened a traveller as Captain Speke, but the king walked about among the cows, ankle-deep in all sorts of horrors, and yet perfectly at his ease.

The government of this country is pure despotism, the king possessing irresponsible and unquestioned power. The subject can really possess property, but only holds it by the king’s pleasure. This theory is continually reduced to practice, the king taking from one person, and giving, or rather lending, to another, anything that he chooses,--land, cattle, slaves, wives, and children being equally ranked in the category of property.

The king who reigned over Unyoro at the time when Captain Speke visited it was named Kamrasi. He was a man who united in himself a singular variety of characters. Merciless, even beyond the ordinary type of African cruelty; capricious as a spoiled child, and scattering death and torture around for the mere whim of the moment; inhospitable and repellant according to the usual Wanyoro character; covetous and grasping to the last degree; ambitious of regaining the lost portion of his kingdom, and yet too cowardly to declare war. He was a man who scarcely seemed likely to retain his hold on the sceptre.

Yet, although contemptible as he was in many things, he was not to be despised, and, although no one cared to meet him as a friend, all knew that he could be a most dangerous enemy. For he possessed a large share of cunning, which stood him in stead of the nobler virtues which ought to adorn a throne, and ruled his subjects by a mixture of craft and force. His system of espionage would have done honor to M. de Sartines, and there was nothing that happened in his country that he did not know.

The whole land was divided into districts, and over each district was set an officer who was responsible for everything which occurred in it, and was bound to give information to the king. The least failure in this respect entailed death or the “shoe,” which was nearly as bad, and often terminated in death. The “shoe” is simply a large and heavy log of wood with an oblong slit cut through it. Into this slit the feet are passed, and a stout wooden peg is then driven through the log and between the ankles, so as to hold the feet tightly imprisoned. As to the exact position of the peg, the executioner is in no way particular; and if he should happen to drive it against, instead of between, the ankles, he cares nothing about it. Consequently, the torture is often so great, that those who have been so imprisoned have died of sheer exhaustion.

In order to be able to carry out his orders without having a chance of disobedience, he kept a guard of armed soldiers, some five hundred in number. These men always carried their shields and spears; the latter have hard blades, kept very sharp, and their edges defended by a sheath, neatly made of antelope skin, sewed together with thongs. The ordinary spears are not nearly so good, because the Wanyoro are not remarkable for excellence in smith’s work, and the better kind of spear heads which are hawked through the country are bought by the Waganda, who are a richer people.

This body-guard is dressed in the most extraordinary manner, their chief object seeming to be to render themselves as unlike men and as like demons as possible. They wear leopard or monkey skins by way of tunic, strap cows’ tails to the small of their backs, and tie a couple of antelope’s horns on their heads, while their chins are decorated with long false beards, made of the bushy ends of cows’ tails.

When Sir S. Baker visited Kamrasi, this body-guard rushed out of the palace to meet him, dancing, yelling, screaming, brandishing their spears, pretending to fight among themselves, and, when they reached their visitors, flourishing their spears in the faces of the strangers, and making feints of attack. So sudden was their charge, and so menacing their aspect, that several of his men thought that they were charging in real earnest, and begged him to fire at them. Being, however, convinced that their object was not to kill, but to do him honor, he declined to fire, and found that the threatening body of men were simply sent by Kamrasi as his escort. Had his armed Turks been with him, they would certainly have received these seeming demons with a volley.

A curious instance of his craft was given by his reception of Sir S. Baker. When the traveller was first promised an interview, Kamrasi ordered his brother, M’Gambi, to personate him, while he himself, disguised as one of the escort, secretly watched the travellers. M’Gambi executed his office admirably, and personated his royal brother to perfection, asking for everything which he saw--guns, watches, beads, and clothes being equally acceptable,--and finished by asking for Lady Baker. In case the article should be thought more valuable than the others, he offered to give one of his own wives in exchange. This proposal nearly cost M’Gambi his life, and it may be that the wily king had foreseen the possibility of some such result when he ordered his brother to personate him, and permitted him to take his place on the copper stool of royalty. In fact. M’Gambi did admit that the king was afraid that his visitors might be in league with an adverse power.

In order to attach his guards to his person, Kamrasi allowed them all kinds of license, permiting them to rob and plunder as much as they liked; his theory being that, as everything within his reach belonged to him, he in reality did no harm to his subjects, the loss eventually falling on himself. Thus it will be seen that the king was a far-sighted man in some things, and that he knew how to rule by fear, if not by love.

He was tall and slender, and scarcely looked his age, which was about forty, and his features on the whole were good, as were his eyes, which were soft and gentle, sadly belying his character. His face was, however, disfigured by the national custom of removing the lower incisor and eye-teeth, and he said that the dentist who performed the operation had been rewarded with a fee of a hundred cows. His color was dark brown, and, but for the sinister expression of his countenance, he would really be a handsome man. His features were, however, rather disfigured by the scars which covered his forehead, and which still remained as vestiges of sundry cauterizations. In Unyoro, the actual cautery, i. e. a red-hot iron, is in great favor as a means of cure; and whenever a man chooses to intoxicate himself with native beer or imported rum, and to suffer the usual penalty of a headache on the following morning, he immediately thinks that he is bewitched, and proceeds to drive out the demon by burning his forehead in a multitude of spots. Kamrasi had gone a little beyond the ordinary custom, and had applied the hot iron to his nose, causing such a scar that he was anxious to have it removed, and his nose restored to its ordinary color.

He did not take to European clothing, preferring the manufactures of his own country. His ordinary dress was a mantle tied round his waist and descending to his feet. Sometimes it was made of cloth, and at others of skins; but it was always of a light red color, and was decorated with little patches of black cloth, with which it was covered. He had his head shaved at intervals, but between the times of shaving his hair grew in little knobby tufts, like those of the Bosjesman. He wore but few ornaments, the chief being a necklace of beads, which hung to his waist.

Kamrasi had a very tolerable idea of effect, as was seen from the manner in which he received his guests. A hut was built for the express purpose, and within it was the royal throne, i. e. a stool--to sit on which is the special privilege of royalty. A quantity of grass was formed into a rather high platform, which was covered first with cow-hides and then with leopard skins, the latter being the royal fur. Over this throne was hung a canopy of cow-skin, stretched on every side and suspended from the roof, in order to keep dust off the royal head. On the throne sat Kamrasi, enveloped in fine grass cloth, his left wrist adorned with a bracelet, and his hair carefully dressed. He sat calm, motionless, and silent, like an Egyptian statue, and with unchanged countenance contemplated the wonderful white men of whom he had heard so much.

It is hardly possible to conceive a more unpleasant person than Kamrasi, putting aside the total want of cleanliness which he exhibited, and which may be considered as a national and not as an individual characteristic. His avarice induced him to wish for the presence of travellers who would create a new line of trade, while his intense cowardice made him fear a foe in every stranger. He was horribly afraid of M’tesa, and when he found that white travellers had been hospitably received by that potentate, he thought that they must come with sinister intentions, and therefore was on his guard against his fancied foes. When he got over his fears, he was as provoking in the character of mendicant as he had been in that of a terrified despot. When Sir S. Baker was in his dominions, Kamrasi insisted on paying him a visit, although he knew well that his guest was only just recovering from fever, and therefore had not been able to attend at the palace.

“Although I had but little remaining from my stock of luggage except the guns, ammunition, and astronomical instruments, I was obliged to hide everything underneath the beds, lest the avaricious eyes of Kamrasi should detect a ‘want.’ True to his appointment, he appeared with numerous attendants, and was ushered into my little hut. I had a very rude but serviceable arm-chair that one of my men had constructed--in this the king was invited to sit. Hardly was he seated, when he leant back, stretched out his legs, and, making some remark to his attendants concerning his personal comfort, he asked for the chair as a present. I promised to have one made for him immediately. This being arranged, he surveyed the barren little hut, vainly endeavoring to fix his eyes upon something that he could demand. But, so fruitless was his search, that he laughingly turned to his people and said, ‘How was it that they wanted so many porters if they have nothing to carry?’ My interpreter explained that many things had been spoiled during the storms on the lake, and had been left behind; that our provisions had long since been consumed, and that our clothes were worn out--that we had nothing left but a few beads.

“‘New varieties, no doubt,’ he replied; ‘give me all that you have of the small blue and the large red.’

“We had carefully hidden the main stock, and a few had been arranged in bags to be produced as the occasion might require. These were now unpacked by the boy Saat, and laid before the king. I told him to make his choice, which he did, precisely as I had anticipated, by making presents to his surrounding friends out of my stock, and monopolizing the remainder for his share. The division of the portions among his people was a modest way of taking the whole, as he would immediately demand their return on quitting my hut.

“No sooner were the beads secured than he repeated the original demand for my watch and the No. 24 double rifle; these I resolutely refused. He then requested permission to see the contents of a few of the baskets and bags that formed our worn-out luggage. There was nothing that took his fancy except needles, thread, lancets, medicines, and a small tooth comb. The latter interested him exceedingly, as I explained that the object of the Turks in collecting ivory was to sell it to Europeans, who manufactured it into many articles, among which were small tooth combs, such as he then examined. He could not understand how the teeth could be so finely cut.

“Upon the use of the comb being explained, he immediately attempted to practise upon his woolly head. Failing in the operation, he adapted the instrument to a different purpose, and commenced scratching beneath the wool most vigorously. The effect being satisfactory, he at once demanded the comb, which was handed to each of the surrounding chiefs, all of whom had a trial of its properties. Every head having been scratched, it was returned to the king, who handed it to Quonga, the headman that received his presents. So complete was the success of the comb, that he proposed to send me one of the largest tusks, which I was to take to England and cut into as many small tooth combs as it would produce for himself and his chiefs.”

During this interview, Kamrasi discovered a case of lancets, and begged for them, as they were so well adapted for paring his nails. Also, he opened the medicine chest, and was so determined to take a dose at once that Sir S. Baker took a little revenge, and administered three grains of tartar emetic, not to be taken until he reached his own hut. As to the No. 24 rifle, which has already been mentioned, Kamrasi was always hankering after it, at one time openly begging for it, and at another asking to borrow it just for a day or two, when, of course, it never would have escaped the grasp of the royal clutches.

This provoking man evidently considered his guests to be sent especially for his own aggrandizement, and his only idea was, how to use them best for his service. Having once got them safely into his domains, he had no intention of letting them go again until he had squeezed them quite dry. First, he wanted to make them pay for the privilege of entering his dominions; and, when they had once entered, he was sure to make them pay before they got out again. His first ruse was, to pretend that they were weak and insignificant, whereas he was great and strong, and that, if they wanted his protection, they must pay for it. When once they had entered his district, and had shown themselves to be more formidable than he had chosen to admit, he asked them to aid him against his enemies, and to lead his army against the adverse tribe.

This stratagem failing, even though he was good enough to offer half his kingdom for the privilege of alliance, he had still one resource,--namely, forbidding them to leave his kingdom until he gave permission, i. e. until he had extracted from them everything of value. To leave the country without his permission was simply impossible, on account of the system of espionage which has already been mentioned, and, although it might have been possible to force a way by dint of superior arms, such a struggle would have neutralized the very object of the expedition.

Bully though he was where he could tyrannize with safety, he was a most contemptible coward when he thought himself in the least danger. A very amusing example was shown during the visit of Sir S. Baker. One morning, just at sunrise, Kamrasi came hastily into his hut shorn of all regal dignity. In his hands he grasped two spears and a rifle, and wanted to bring them into the hut, contrary to all etiquette. This could not be allowed, and he reluctantly left them outside. He had laid aside his usual cold and repellent manner, and was full of eagerness. He had also thrown off his ordinary apparel of beautifully-dressed skins, and only wore a kind of short kilt and a scarf across his shoulders. Knowing that an attack was meditated by a neighboring chief, and having seen the people all in war costume--horned, bearded, and tailed--Sir S. Baker naturally thought that Kamrasi was in fighting costume, and congratulated him on its appropriate lightness.

“I fight!” exclaimed the king. “I am not going to fight; I am going to run away, and put on this dress to be able to run faster.”

He then explained in great trepidation that the enemy were approaching with a hundred and fifty muskets, and that, as it was useless to fight against such odds, he meant to run away and hide himself in the long grass, and his guest had better follow his example. From the anticipated attack he was saved by the timely intervention of his guest, and the only mark of gratitude which he showed was to ask again for the double-barrelled rifle.

Still, in spite of these unamiable characteristics, the man had his redeeming points; and although he was, on occasions and on a large scale, almost as cruel as a man could be, he did not commit those continual murders of his subjects which disgraced the reign of M’tesa. Personal chastisement was used in many cases in which M’tesa would have inflicted death, and probably a lengthened torture besides.

The mode of passing sentence on a prisoner was very remarkable. Should the king or his brother M’Gambi touch him with the point of a spear, the executioners immediately fall upon him with their clubs, and beat him to death. But, if he should touch the prisoner with his stick, the executioners instantly pierce him with their spears; so that the instrument used in killing the man is always the opposite to that with which the king touches him.

Even in cases where death was inflicted, the criminal was generally killed by a blow with a club on the back of the neck. There were of course exceptions to this rule. For example, a hostile chief, named Rionga, one of his thirty brothers, had been taken prisoner by a treacherous act on the part of Kamrasi, who first pretended to make peace, then invited him to a banquet, and seized upon him while he was off his guard. Kamrasi then ordered him to die by a cruel death. There was a hut with high mud walls and no doorway. Into this hut Rionga was hoisted, and the king gave orders that on the following morning the hut should be fired, and its inmate burned to death.

Another chief, however, named Sali, ingeniously brought out great quantities of beer, knowing that the guards would be sure to assemble in any spot where beer was to be found. This they did; and while they were engaged at one side of the prison drinking, dancing, and singing, Sali’s men were engaged on the other side in digging a hole through the mud wall of the hut, and soon succeeded in making an aperture large enough to allow the prisoner to make his escape.

After this feat, Sali, having seen how treacherous Kamrasi could be, ought to have secured his own safety by flight, but chose to remain, thinking that his share in the rescue would not be discovered. Kamrasi, however, suspected his complicity, and had him arrested at once. He was sentenced to the cruel death of being dismembered while alive, and the sentence was carried out by cutting off his hands at the wrists, his arms at the elbows, and so on until every joint was severed. While undergoing this torture, he proved himself a brave man by trying to help his friends, calling aloud from the stake that they had better escape while they could, lest they should suffer the same penalty.

A curious custom prevails in Unyoro with regard to the king’s sisters. Like other women of rank, they are fattened on curdled milk, and attain such a size that they are not able to walk, and, whenever they leave the hut, each has to be borne on a litter by eight men. Each woman consumes daily the milk of fifteen or twenty cows, a cow producing barely one quart of milk. Yet, though this fattening process is an ordinary preliminary to marriage, the king’s sisters are forbidden to marry, and are kept in strict seclusion in his palace. So are his brothers; but, unlike the king of Uganda, he does not think it necessary to kill them when he reaches the throne.

During the short interval of peace which followed upon Sir S. Baker’s intervention, the people gave themselves up to debauchery, the men drinking and dancing and yelling, blowing horns and beating drums all through the night. The women took no part in this amusement, inasmuch as they had been hard at work in the fields all day, while their husbands had been sleeping at home. Consequently they were much too tired to dance, and tried to snatch what rest they could in the midst of the night-long din.

“The usual style of singing was a rapid chant, delivered as a solo, while at intervals the crowd burst out in a deafening chorus, together with the drums and horns. The latter were formed of immense gourds, which, growing in a peculiar shape, with long, bottle necks, were easily converted into musical instruments. Every now and then a cry of ‘Fire!’ in the middle of the night enlivened the ennui of our existence. The huts were littered deep with straw, and the inmates, intoxicated, frequently fell asleep with their huge pipes lighted, which, falling in the dry straw, at once occasioned a conflagration. In such cases the flames spread from hut to hut with immense rapidity, and frequently four or five hundred huts in Kamrasi’s large camp were destroyed by fire, and rebuilt in a few days. I was anxious concerning my powder, as, in the event of fire, the blaze of the straw hut was so instantaneous that nothing could be saved; should my powder explode, I should be entirely defenceless. Accordingly, after a conflagration in my neighborhood, I insisted on removing all huts within a circuit of thirty yards of my dwelling. The natives demurring, I at once ordered my men to pull down the houses, and thereby relieved myself from drunken and dangerous neighbors.”

The condition of the women in Unyoro is not at all agreeable, as indeed may be inferred from the brief mention of the hard work which they have to perform. They are watched very carefully by their husbands, and beaten severely if they ever venture outside the palisades after sunset. For unfaithfulness, the punishment seems to be left to the aggrieved husband, who sometimes demands a heavy fine, sometimes cuts off a foot or a hand, and sometimes inflicts the punishment of death.

Dirty as are the Wanyoro in some things, in others they are very neat and clean. They are admirable packers, and make up the neatest imaginable parcels. Some of these parcels are surrounded with the bark of the plantain, and some with the pith or interior of a reed, from which the outside has been carefully stripped, so as to leave a number of snow-white cylinders. These are laid side by side, and bound round the object, producing a singularly pretty effect. Little mats, formed of shreds of these reeds, are very much used, especially as covers to beer jars. When a M’yoro is on the march, he always carries with him a gourd full of plantain wine. The mouth of the gourd is stopped with a bundle of these reed-shreds, through which passes a tube, so that the traveller can always drink without checking his pace, and without any danger of spilling the liquid as he walks.

In their diet the Wanyoro make great use of the plantain, and it is rather remarkable that, in a land which abounds with this fruit, it is hardly possible to procure one in a ripe state, the natives always eating them while still green. The plantain tree is to the Wanyoro the chief necessity of existence, as it affords them means for supplying all the real wants of life. Sometimes the plantain is boiled and eaten as a vegetable, and sometimes it is dried and ground into meal, which is used in making porridge. The fruit is also peeled, cut into slices, and dried in the sun, so as to be stowed away for future consumption, and from this dried plantain the Wanyoro make a palatable and nutritious soup. Wine, or rather beer, is made from the same fruit, which thus supplies both food and drink.

The tree itself is most useful, the leaves being split into shreds, and woven into cloth of remarkable elegance, and the bark is stripped off, and employed like paper in wrapping up parcels of the meal. Strong ropes and the finest thread are twisted from the plantain fibre, and the natives are clever at weaving ornamental articles, which look so like hair, that a very close inspection is needful to detect the difference. In all these manufactures the Wanyoro show a neatness of hand and delicacy of taste that contrast strangely with the slovenly, careless, and repulsive habits of their daily life.

Curdled milk is much used by the natives, who employ it in fattening their wives and daughters, but, unlike the Arabs, they will not mix red pepper with it, believing that those who eat the capsicum will never be blessed with children. Butter is used as an unguent, and not for food, and the natives are very much scandalized at seeing the white visitors eat it. According to the custom of their nation, they once played a clever trick. Butter is packed most carefully in leaves, a little bit being allowed to project as a sample. One day the natives brought some butter to their white visitors, but as it was quite rancid it was rejected. They took it away, and then brought a fresh supply, which was approved and purchased. But, when the wrapper was taken off, it was found that the butter was the same that had been refused, the natives having put a little piece of fresh butter at the top. Itinerant cheesemongers play very similar tricks at the present day, plugging a totally uneatable cheese with bits of best Cheshire, and scooping out the plugs by way of sample.

As to religion, the Wanyoro have none at all. They are full of superstition, but, as far as is known, they have not the least idea of a religion which can exercise any influence on the actions. In common with most uncivilized people, they make much of each new moon, this being the unit by which they reckon their epochs, and salute the slender crescent by profuse dancing and gesticulation.

They have a wonderful faith in demons, with whom the prophets or wizards aver that they hold communication. Some of their guesses at the future occasionally come true. For example, one of the men of the expedition was said to be possessed by a demon, who told him that the expedition would succeed, but that the demon required one man’s life and another man’s illness. This prediction was literally accomplished, one of the escort being murdered, and Captain Grant falling seriously ill. Again the same man saw the demon, who said that in Uganda one man’s life would be required, and accordingly Kari, a man belonging to the expedition, was murdered. A third time, when in Unyoro, he saw the demon, who said that no more lives were needed, but that the expedition would succeed, though it would be protracted. And such eventually proved to be the case.

The magicians lay claim to one most valuable power,--namely, that of finding lost articles. On one occasion Captain Speke saw the whole process. A rain-gauge and its bottle had been stolen, and every one disclaimed knowledge of it. A sorcerer was therefore summoned to find the missing article. The following account of the proceeding is given by Captain Speke:--

“At 9 A. M., the time for measuring the fall of rain for the last twenty-four hours, we found the rain-gauge and bottle had been removed, so we sent to Kidgwiga to inform the king we wished his magicians to come at once and institute a search for it. Kidgwiga immediately returned with the necessary adept, an old man, nearly blind, dressed in strips of old leather fastened to the waist, and carrying in one hand a cow’s horn primed with magic powder, carefully covered on the mouth with leather, from which dangled an iron bell.”

The curious scene now to be described the artist has reproduced in the engraving No. 2 on page 417.

“The old creature jingled the bell, entered our hut, squatted on his hams, looked first at one, then at the other--inquired what the missing things were like, grunted, moved his skinny arm round his head, as if desirous of catching air from all four sides of the hut, then dashed the accumulated air on the head of his horn, smelt it to see if all was going right, jingled the bell again close to his ear, and grunted his satisfaction; the missing articles must be found. To carry out the incantation more effectually, however, all my men were sent for to sit in the open air before the hut, but the old doctor rose, shaking the horn and tinkling the bell close to his ear. He then, confronting one of the men, dashed the horn forward as if intending to strike him on the face, then smelt the head, then dashed at another, and so on, till he became satisfied that my men were not the thieves.

“He then walked into Grant’s hut, inspected that, and finally went to the place where the bottle had been kept. Then he walked about the grass with his arm up, and jingling the bell to his ear, first on one side, then on the other, till the track of a hyæna gave him the clue and in two or three more steps he found it. A hyæna had carried it into the grass and dropped it. Bravo, for the infallible horn! and well done the king for his honesty in sending it! so I gave the king the bottle and gauge, which delighted him amazingly; and the old doctor, who begged for pombé, got a goat for his trouble.”

As in Uganda, the sorcerers are distinguished by the odd ornaments which they wear; dried roots, lizards, lions’ claws, crocodiles’ teeth, little tortoise shells, and other objects being strung together and tied on their heads. There is also an order of religious mendicants called “Bandwa,” both sexes being eligible to the office. They are distinguished by an abundance of ornaments, such as bits of shining metal, and little tinkling bells, and one man had distinguished himself greatly by wearing the skin of a long-haired monkey down his back from the top of his head, to which he had attached a couple of antelope horns. The women when dressed in the full robes of office look very handsome, being clothed in colored skins, and wearing turbans made of the plaintain bark. They walk about from house to house singing their peculiar songs, and always expecting a present. The office of a Bandwa is not hereditary, for any one may join them by undergoing certain ceremonies, and the children of a Bandwa are at liberty to follow any business that they may happen to like. Although they are mendicants, they do not wholly depend on their profession, having cattle and other property of their own.

In many countries where superstition takes the place of religion, the birth of twins is looked upon as a bad omen, which must be averted by the sacrifice of one or both of the children. In Unyoro the case is different. Captain Speke had been annoyed by certain drums and other musical instruments which were played day and night without cessation, and, when he inquired as to their object, was told that they were in honor of twins that had been born to Kamrasi, and that they would be played in the same manner for four months.

The use of the cow’s horn in magic is explained by a tradition that once upon a time there was a dog with a horn. When the dog died, the horn was stuffed with magic powder, and was a powerful charm in war, soldiers who stepped over it when on the march being thereby rendered victorious. Kamrasi possessed several magic horns, and when he sent an ambassador to a neighboring potentate, one of these horns was hung round the man’s neck as his credentials; and when he returned, he brought with him another magic horn as a proof that his message had been delivered. No one dared to touch a man who bore so potent an emblem, and this was peculiarly fortunate, as on one occasion Kamrasi had sent an expedition which took with them six hundred majembé or iron spades, which form a sort of currency, the expenditure of two majembé per diem being sufficient to buy food for the whole party. Laden with wealth therefore as they were, the magic horn protected the party, and they performed their journey in safety.

War charms are in great request, and while Captain Speke was in Unyoro he saw the preliminary act in charm making. A feud was in action between Kamrasi and the Chopi tribe. Kamrasi therefore sent spies into the Chopi district, with orders to bring some grass from the hut of a chief. This they did, with the addition of a spear, much to Kamrasi’s delight, who thought that the possession of this weapon would enable him to bewitch the spears as well as the courage of his enemies, and so prevent the weapons from hurting his tribe.

In order to ensure prosperity to their family, or to cure a sick relative, the Wanyoro kill some animal, split it open, and lay it at the intersection of two cross roads, such spot being held by them, as by the Balonda, in great reverence. If the man is rich enough, he sacrifices a goat, but, if not, a fowl will answer; and if a man is very poor indeed, he makes a frog serve his purpose.

These people seem to have kept their burial ceremonies very secret, as a funeral was never seen in Central Africa, but it is said that the dead are buried near the house or in the cattle-fold, wrapped in bark cloth or a cow-skin. When the king dies his body is first dried, and then the lower jaw-bone is removed and buried by itself. Officers of the palace are privileged to have their heads and hands treated in the same manner.

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XLI. GANI, MADI, OBBO, AND KYTCH

POSITION OF THE GANI TRIBE -- THEIR HOSPITABLE CHARACTER -- GANI ARCHITECTURE -- SINGULAR MODE OF DRESS -- THE GANI QUEUE -- TOILET MAKING IN PUBLIC -- THE MADI TRIBE -- CARE OF CHILDREN -- DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- VARIOUS DANCES -- MADI VILLAGES -- ILL TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES -- POSITION OF THE OBBO TRIBE -- GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES -- SINGULAR MODE OF DRESS -- KATCHIBA, THE OBBO CHIEF -- HIS LARGE FAMILY -- HIS REPUTATION AS A SORCERER -- INGENIOUS ESCAPE FROM A DILEMMA -- KATCHIBA’S PALACE -- A VISIT TO THE CHIEF -- HIS HOSPITALITY AND GENEROUS CONDUCT -- CHARACTER OF KATCHIBA.

We now come to a large district about lat. 3° N. and long. 32° E. This country is inhabited by a group of tribes, who are perhaps more remarkable for their style of dress than any which we have yet noticed. We will first take the GANI.

The Gani are a hospitable people, and, when Captains Speke and Grant passed through their country, received them with great kindness, even though they had never seen white men before, and might be expected to take alarm at an armed party penetrating into their land.

One day, when Captain Grant was walking in search of plants, he was hailed by a native, who contrived to make him understand that he wished to conduct the white man. He was very polite to his guest, acting as pioneer, beating down the thorny branches that obstructed the path, and pointing out the best places for crossing rocks. He evidently thought that Captain Grant had lost his way, and so guided him back to the camp, previously leaving his spear in a hut, because to appear armed in the presence of a superior is contrary to their system of etiquette.

The mode of welcome was rather remarkable. The old chief of the village advanced to meet the strangers, accompanied by his councillors and a number of women, one of whom carried a white chicken, and the others beer and a bunch of a flowering plant. When the two parties met, the chief, whose name was Chongi, took the fowl by one leg, stooped, and swung it backward and forward close to the ground, and then passed it to his male attendants, who did the same thing. He then took a gourd full of beer, dipped the plant in it, and sprinkled the liquid over his guests, and then spread cow-skins under a tree by way of couches, on which his guests might repose. They were next presented with a supply of beer, which was politely called water.

The villages of the Gani are extremely neat, and consist of a quantity of huts built round a flat cleared space which is kept exceedingly smooth and neat. In the middle of this space are one or two miniature huts made of grass, and containing idols, and a few horns are laid near them. When the Gani lay out plans for a new village, they mostly allow one large tree to remain in the centre of the cleared space, and under its shade the inhabitants assemble and receive their guests. The houses are shaped like beehives, are very low, and composed simply of a mud wall, and a roof made of bamboo thatched with grass. The doors are barely two feet high, but the supple-bodied Gani, who have never been encumbered with clothes, can walk through the aperture with perfect ease. The floor is made of clay beaten hard, and is swept with great care. Cow-skins are spread on the floor by way of beds, and upon these the Gani sleep without any covering.

Close to the huts are placed the grain stores, which are very ingeniously made. First, a number of rude stone pillars are set in a circle, having flat stones laid on their tops, much resembling the remains of Stonehenge. Upon these is secured an enormous cylinder of basket work plastered with clay, the top of which is covered with a conical roof of bamboo and grass. When a woman wishes to take grain out of the storehouse, she places against it a large branch from which the smaller boughs have been cut, leaving stumps of a foot or ten inches in length, and by means of this rude ladder she easily ascends to the roof.

The appearance of this tribe is most remarkable, as they use less clothing and more ornament than any people at present known. We will begin with the men. Their dress is absolutely nothing at all as far as covering the body is concerned, but, as if to compensate for this nudity, there is scarcely a square inch of the person without its adornment. In the first place, they use paint as a succedaneum for dress, and cover themselves entirely with colors, not merely rubbing themselves over with one tint, but using several colors, and painting themselves in a wonderful variety of patterns, many of them showing real artistic power, while others are simply grotesque.

Two young men who came as messengers from Chongi had used three colors. They had painted their faces white, the pigment being wood ashes, and their bodies were covered with two coats of paint, the first purple, and the second ashen gray. This latter coat they had scraped off in irregular patterns, just as a painter uses his steel comb when graining wood, so that the purple appeared through the gray, and looked much like the grain of mahogany. Some of the men cover their bodies with horizontal stripes, like those of the zebra, or with vertical stripes running along the curve of the spine and limbs, or with zigzag markings of light colors. Some very great dandies go still further, and paint their bodies chequer fashion, exactly like that of a harlequin. White always plays a large part in their decorations, and is often applied in broad bands round the waist and neck.

The head is not less gorgeously decorated. First the hair is teased out with a pin, and is then dressed with clay so as to form it into a thick felt-like mass. This is often further decorated with pipe-clay laid on in patterns, and at the back of the neck is inserted a piece of sinew about a foot in length. This odd-looking queue is turned up, and finished off at the tip with a tuft of fur, the end of a leopard’s tail being the favorite ornament. Shells, beads, and other ornaments are also woven into the hair, and in most cases a feather is added by way of a finishing touch. The whole contour of the headdress is exactly like that of the pantaloon of the stage, and the sight of a man with the body of a harlequin and the head of a pantaloon is too much for European gravity to withstand.

Besides all this elaborate decoration, the men wear a quantity of bracelets, anklets; and earrings. The daily toilet of a Gani dandy occupies a very long time, and in the morning the men may be seen in numbers sitting under the shade of trees, employed in painting their own bodies or dressing the hair of a friend, and applying paint where he would not be able to guide the brush. As may be inferred, they are exceedingly vain of their personal appearance; and when their toilet is completed, they strut about in order to show themselves, and continually pose themselves in attitudes which they think graceful, but which might be characterized as conceited.

Each man usually carries with him an odd little stool with one leg, and instead of sitting on the ground, as is done by most savages, the Gani make a point of seating themselves on these little stools, which look very like those which are used by Swiss herdsmen when they milk the cows, and only differ from them in not being tied to the body. The engraving No. 1 on page 431 will help the reader to understand this description.

The women are not nearly such votaries of fashion as their husbands, principally because they have to work and to nurse the children, who would make short work of any paint that they might use. Like the parents, the children have no clothes, and are merely suspended in a rather wide strap passing over one shoulder of the mother and under the other. As, however, the rays of the sun might be injurious to them, a large gourd is cut in two pieces, hollowed out, and one of the pieces inverted over the child’s head and shoulders.

The Gani have cattle, but are very poor herdsmen, and have suffered the herd to deteriorate in size and quality. They cannot even drive their cattle properly, each cow recognizing a special driver, who grasps the tail in one hand and a horn in the other, and thus drags and pushes the animal along.

THE MADI TRIBE.

Not very far from the Gani are situated the MADI tribe. They are dressed, or rather undressed, in a somewhat similar fashion. (See engraving on page 431.) The women are very industrious, and are remarkable for the scrupulously neat and clean state in which they keep their huts. Every morning the women may be seen sweeping out their houses, or kneeling in front of the aperture which serves as a door, and patting and smoothing the space in front of the doorway. They are also constantly employed in brewing beer, grinding corn, and baking bread.

They take great care of their children, washing them daily with warm water, and then, as they have no towels, licking them dry as a cat does with her kittens. When the child is washed and dried, the mother produces some fat with which vermilion has been mixed, and rubs it over the child’s body until it is all red and shining. The next process is to lay the child on its back upon a goatskin, the corners of which are then gathered up and tied together so as to form a cradle. Should the mother be exceedingly busy, she hangs the cradle on a peg or the branch of a tree, the child offering no objection to this treatment.

The dress of the women consists of a petticoat reaching a little below the knees, but they often dispense with this article of dress, and content themselves with a few leathern thongs in front, and another cluster of thongs behind. In default of leathern thongs, a bunch of chickweed answers every purpose of dress. They wear iron rings round their arms above the elbow, and generally have a small knife stuck between the rings and the arm.

They are fond of wearing little circular disks cut from a univalve shell. These shells are laid out to bleach on the tops of the huts, and, when whitened, are cut into circles about as large as fourpenny pieces, each having a hole bored through the middle. They are then strung together and worn as belts, and have also the advantage of being used as coin with which small articles of food, as fruit or beer, could be purchased. The men are in the habit of wearing ornaments made of the tusks of the wild boar. The tusks are tied on the arm above the elbow, and contrast well with the naturally dark hue of the skin and the brilliant colors with which it is mostly painted.

Whenever a child is born, the other women assemble round the hut of the mother, and make a hideous noise by way of congratulation. Drums are beaten violently, songs are sung, hands are clapped, gratulatory sentences are yelled out at the full stretch of the voice, while a wild and furious dance acts as an accompaniment to the noise. As soon as the mother has recovered, a goat is killed, and she steps backward and forward over its body. One of the women, the wife of the commandant, went through a very curious ceremony when she had recovered her health after her child was born. She took a bunch of dry grass, and lighted it, and then passed it from hand to hand three times round her body while she walked to the left of the door. Another grass tuft was then lighted, and she went through a similar performance as she walked to the front of the door, and the process was again repeated as she walked to the right.

The dances of the Madi are rather variable. The congratulatory dance is performed by jumping up and down without any order, flinging the legs and arms about, and flapping the ribs with the elbows. The young men have a dance of their own, which is far more pleasing than that of the women. Each takes a stick and a drum, and they arrange themselves in a circle, beating the drums, singing, and converging to the centre, and then retiring again in exact time with the rhythm of the drumbeats.

Sometimes there is a grand general dance, in which several hundred performers take part. “Six drums of different sizes, slung upon poles, were in the centre; around these was a moving mass of people, elbowing and pushing one another as at a fair; and outside them a ring of girls, women, and infants faced an outer circle of men sounding horns and armed with spears and clubs, their heads ornamented with ostrich feathers, helmets of the cowrie shell, &c. Never had I seen such a scene of animated savage life, nor heard a more savage noise. As the two large circles of both sexes jumped simultaneously to the music, and moved round at every leap, the women sang and jingled their masses of bracelets, challenging and exciting the men, forcing them to various acts of gallantry, while our Seedees joined in the dance, and no doubt touched many a fair breast.”

The weapons of the Madi are spears and bows and arrows. The spears are about six feet long, with bamboo shafts, and with an iron spike at the butt for the purpose of sticking it in the ground. They are better archers than the generality of African tribes, and amuse themselves by setting up marks, and shooting at them from a distance of forty or fifty yards. The arrows are mostly poisoned, and always so when used for war.

The villages of the Madi are constructed in a very neat manner, the floors being made of a kind of red clay beaten hard and smoothed. The thresholds of the doors are of the same material, but are paved with pieces of broken earthenware pressed into the clay, and ingeniously joined so as to form a kind of pattern. In order to prevent cattle from entering the huts, movable bars of bamboo are generally set across the entrance. The villages are enclosed with a fence, and the inhabitants never allow the sick to reside within the enclosure. They do not merely eject them, as they do in some parts of Africa, but build a number of huts outside the walls by way of a hospital.

The roofs of the huts are cleverly made of bamboo and grass, and upon them is lavished the greater part of the labor of house-building. If therefore the Madi are dissatisfied with the position of a village, or find that neighboring tribes are becoming troublesome, they quietly move off to another spot, carrying with them the most important part of their houses, namely, the roofs, which are so light that a few men can carry them. A village on the march presents a most curious and picturesque spectacle, the roofs of the huts carried on the heads of four or five men, the bamboo stakes borne by others, while some are driving the cattle, and the women are carrying their children and their simple household furniture. The engraving No. 2 on page 431 represents such a removal.

The Turkish caravans that occasionally pass through the country are the chief cause of these migrations, as they treat the Madi very roughly. When they come to a village, they will not take up their abode inside it, but carry off the roofs of the huts and form a camp with them outside the enclosure. They also rob the corn-stores, and, if the aggrieved owner ventures to remonstrate, he is knocked down by the butt of a musket, or threatened with its contents. In some parts of the country these men had behaved so cruelly to the natives that, as soon as the inhabitants of a village saw a caravan approaching, all the women and children forsook their dwellings, and hid themselves in the bush and grass.

THE OBBO.

We now come to OBBO, a district situated in lat. 4° 55´ N. and long. 31° 45´ E. Sir S. Baker spent a considerable time in Obbo,--much more, indeed, than was desirable,--and in consequence learned much of the peculiarities of the inhabitants.

In some respects the natives look something like the Gani and Madi, especially in their fondness for paint, their disregard of clothing, and the mode in which they dress their heads. In this last respect they are even more fastidious than the tribes which have been just mentioned, some of them having snowy white wigs descending over their shoulders, and finished off with the curved and tufted pigtail. The shape of the Obbo headdress has been happily compared to that of a beaver’s tail, it being wide and flat, and thicker in the middle than at the edges. The length of this headdress is not owing to the wearer’s own hair, but is produced by the interweaving of hair from other sources. If, for example, a man dies, his hair is removed by his relations, and woven with their headdresses as a souvenir of the departed, and an addition to their ornaments. They also make caps of shells, strung together and decorated with feathers; and instead of clothing they wear a small skin slung over one shoulder.

The men have an odd fashion of wearing round their necks several thick iron rings, sometimes as many as six or eight, all brightly polished, and looking like a row of dog collars. Should the wearer happen to become stout, these rings press so tightly on his throat that he is nearly choked. They also are fond of making tufts of cow’s tails, which they suspend from their arms just above the elbows. The most fashionable ornaments, however, are made of horse tails, the hairs of which are also highly prized for stringing beads. Consequently, a horse’s tail is an article of considerable value, and in Obbo-land a cow can be purchased for a horse’s tail in good condition.

Paint is chiefly used as a kind of war uniform. The colors which the natives use are vermilion, yellow, and white, but the particular pattern is left much to their own invention. Stripes of alternate scarlet and yellow, or scarlet and white, seem, however, to form the ordinary pattern, probably because they are easily drawn, and present a bold contrast of color. The head is decorated with a kind of cap made of cowrie shells, to which are fixed several long ostrich plumes that droop over the shoulders.

Contrary to usual custom, the women are less clad than the men, and, until they are married, wear either no clothing whatever, or only three or four strings of white-beads, some three inches in length. Some of the prudes, however, tie a piece of string round their waists, and stick in it a little leafy branch, with the stalk uppermost. “One great advantage was possessed by this costume. It was always clean and fresh, and the nearest bush (if not thorny) provided a clean petticoat. When in the society of these very simple, and, in demeanor, always modest Eves, I could not help reflecting upon the Mosaical description of our first parents.” Married women generally wear a fringe of leathern thongs, about four inches long and two wide. Old women mostly prefer the leaf branch to the leathern fringe. When young they are usually pretty, having well-formed noses, and lips but slightly partaking of the negro character. Some of the men remind the spectators of the Somauli.

Katchiba, the chief of Obbo, was rather a fine-looking man, about sixty years of age, and was a truly remarkable man, making up by craft the lack of force, and ruling his little kingdom with a really firm, though apparently lax, grasp. In the first place, having a goodly supply of sons, he made them all into sub-chiefs of the many different districts into which he divided his domains. Owing to the great estimation in which he was held by his people, fresh wives were continually being presented to him, and at first he was rather perplexed by the difficulty of accommodating so many in his palace. At last he hit on the expedient of distributing them in the various villages through which he was accustomed to make his tour, so that wherever he was he found himself at home.

It so happened that when Sir S. Baker visited Katchiba he had one hundred and sixteen children living. This may not seem to be a very wonderful fact when the number of his wives is considered. But, in Africa, plurality of wives does not necessarily imply a corresponding number of children, several of these many-wived chiefs having only one child to every ten or twelve wives. Therefore the fact that Katchiba’s family was so very large raised him greatly in the minds of his people, who looked upon him as a great sorcerer, and had the most profound respect for his supernatural power.

Katchiba laid claim to intercourse with the unseen world, and to authority over the elements; rain and drought, calm and tempest, being supposed by his subjects to be equally under his command. Sometimes, if the country had been afflicted with drought beyond the usual time of rain, Katchiba would assemble his people, and deliver a long harangue, inveighing against their evil doings, which had kept off the rain. These evil doings, on being analyzed, generally proved to be little more than a want of liberality toward himself. He explained to them that he sincerely regretted their conduct, which “has compelled him to afflict them with unfavorable weather, but that it is their own fault. If they are so greedy and so stingy that they will not supply him properly, how can they expect him to think of their interests? No goats, no rain; that’s our contract, my friends,” says Katchiba. “Do as you like: I can wait; I hope you can.” Should his people complain of too much rain, he threatens to pour storms and lightning upon them forever, unless they bring him so many hundred baskets of corn, &c., &c. Thus he holds his sway.

“No man would think of starting on a journey without the blessing of the old chief, and a peculiar ‘hocus-pocus’ is considered necessary from the magic hands of Katchiba, that shall charm the traveller, and preserve him from all danger of wild animals upon the road. In case of sickness he is called in, not as M. D. in our acceptation, but as Doctor of Magic, and he charms both the hut and patient against death, with the fluctuating results that must attend professionals, even in sorcery. His subjects have the most thorough confidence in his power; and so great is his reputation, that distant tribes frequently consult him, and beg his assistance as a magician. In this manner does old Katchiba hold his sway over his savage but credulous people; and so long has he imposed upon the public, that I believe he has at length imposed upon himself, and that he really believes that he has the power of sorcery, notwithstanding repeated failures.”

Once, while Sir S. Baker was in the country, Katchiba, like other rain-makers, fell into a dilemma. There had been no rain for a long time, and the people had become so angry at the continued drought, that they assembled round his house, blowing horns, and shouting execrations against their chief, because he had not sent them a shower which would allow them to sow their seed. True to his policy, the crafty old man made light of their threats, telling them that they might kill him if they liked, but that, if they did so, no more rain would ever fall. Rain in the country was the necessary result of goats and provisions given to the chief, and, as soon as he got the proper fees, the rain should come. The rest of the story is so good, that it must be told in the author’s own words.

“With all this bluster, I saw that old Katchiba was in a great dilemma, and that he would give anything for a shower, but that he did not know how to get out of the scrape. It was a common freak of the tribes to sacrifice their rain-maker, should he be unsuccessful. He suddenly altered his tone, and asked, ‘Have you any rain in your country?’ I replied that we had every now and then. ‘How do you bring it? Are you a rain-maker?’ I told him that no one believed in rain-makers in our country, but that we knew how to bottle lightning (meaning electricity). ‘I don’t keep mine in bottles, but I have a house full of thunder and lightning,’ he most coolly replied; ‘but if you can bottle lightning, you must understand rain-making. What do you think of the weather to-day?’

“I immediately saw the drift of the cunning old Katchiba; he wanted professional advice. I replied that he must know all about it, as he was a regular rain-maker. ‘Of course I do,’ he answered; ‘but I want to know what you think of it.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we shall have any steady rain, but I think we may have a heavy shower in about four days’ (I said this, as I had observed fleecy clouds gathering daily in the afternoon). ‘Just my opinion,’ said Katchiba, delighted. ‘In four, or perhaps in five, days I intend to give them one shower--just one shower; yes. I’ll just step down to them, and tell the rascals that if they will give me some goats by this evening, and some corn by to-morrow morning, I will give them in four or five days just one shower.’

“To give effect to his declaration, he gave several toots on his magic whistle. ‘Do you use whistles in your country?’ inquired Katchiba. I only replied by giving so shrill and deafening a whistle on my fingers, that Katchiba stopped his ears, and, relapsing into a smile of admiration, he took a glance at the sky from the doorway, to see if any effect had been produced. ‘Whistle again,’ he said; and once more I performed like the whistle of a locomotive. ‘That will do; we shall have it,’ said the cunning old rain-maker; and, proud of having so knowingly obtained ‘counsel’s opinion’ in his case, he toddled off to his impatient subjects. In a few days a sudden storm of rain and violent thunder added to Katchiba’s renown, and after the shower horns were blowing and nogaras beating in honor of their chief. Entre nous, my whistle was considered infallible.”

When his guests were lying ill in their huts, struck down with the fever which is prevalent in hot and moist climates such as that of Obbo, Katchiba came to visit them in his character of magician, and performed a curious ceremony. He took a small leafy branch, filled his mouth with water, and squirted it on the branch, which was then waved about the hut, and lastly stuck over the door. He assured his sick guests that their recovery was now certain; and, as they did recover, his opinion of his magical powers was doubtless confirmed.

After their recovery they paid a visit to the chief, by his special desire. His palace consisted of an enclosure about a hundred yards in diameter, within which were a number of huts, all circular, but of different sizes; the largest, which was about twenty-five feet in diameter, belonging to the chief himself. The whole of the courtyard was paved with beaten clay, and was beautifully clean, and the palisades were covered with gourds and a species of climbing yam. Katchiba had but little furniture, the chief articles being a few cow-hides, which were spread on the floor and used as couches. On these primitive sofas he placed his guests, and took his place between them. The rest of his furniture consisted of earthen jars, holding about thirty gallons each, and intended for containing or brewing beer.

After offering a huge gourdful of that beverage to his guests, and having done ample justice to it himself, he politely asked whether he should sing them a song. Now Katchiba, in spite of his gray hairs, his rank as chief, and his dignity as a sorcer, was a notable buffoon, a savage Grimaldi, full of inborn and grotesque fun, and so they naturally expected that the performances would be, like his other exhibitions, extremely ludicrous. They were agreeably disappointed. Taking from the hand of one of his wives a “rababa,” or rude harp with eight strings, he spent some time in tuning it, and then sang the promised song. The air was strange and wild, but plaintive and remarkably pleasing, with accompaniment very appropriate, so that this “delightful old sorcerer” proved himself to be a man of genius in music as well as in policy.

When his guests rose to depart, he brought them a sheep as a present; and when they refused it, he said no more, but waited on them through the doorway of his hut, and then conducted them by the hand for about a hundred yards, gracefully expressing a hope that they would repeat their visit. When they reached their hut, they found the sheep there, Katchiba having sent it on before them. In fine, this chief, who at first appeared to be little more than a jovial sort of buffoon, who by accident happened to hold the chief’s place, turned out unexpectedly to be a wise and respected ruler, a polished and accomplished gentleman.

THE KYTCH.

Not far from Obbo-land there is a district inhabited by the KYTCH tribe. In 1825 there was exhibited in the principal cities of Europe a Frenchman, named Claude Ambroise Seurat, who was popularly called the “Living Skeleton,” on account of his extraordinary leanness, his body and limbs looking just as if a skeleton had been clothed with skin, and endowed with life. Among the Kytch tribe he would have been nothing remarkable, almost every man being formed after much the same model. In fact, as Sir S. Baker remarked of them, they look at a distance like animated slate-pencils with heads to them. The men of the Kytch tribe are tall, and, but for their extreme emaciation, would be fine figures; and the same may be said of the women. These physical peculiarities are shown in the engraving No. 1 on the next page.

Almost the only specimens of the Kytch tribe who had any claim to rounded forms were the chief and his daughter, the latter of whom was about sixteen, and really good-looking. In common with the rest of the tribe she wore nothing except a little piece of dressed hide about a foot square, which was hung over one shoulder and fell upon the arm, the only attempt at clothing being a belt of jingling iron circlets, and some beads on the head.

Her father wore more clothing than his inferiors, though his raiment was more for show than for use, being merely a piece of dressed leopard skin hung over his shoulders as an emblem of his rank. He had on his head a sort of skull-cap made of white beads, from which drooped a crest of white ostrich feathers. He always carried with him a curious instrument,--namely, an iron spike about two feet in length, with a hollow socket at the butt, the centre being bound with snake skin. In the hollow butt he kept his tobacco, so that this instrument served at once the offices of a tobacco box, a dagger, and a club.

It is hardly possible to conceive a more miserable and degraded set of people than the Kytch tribe, and, were it not for two circumstances, they might be considered as the very lowest examples of humanity.

For their food they depend entirely upon the natural productions of the earth, and pass a life which is scarcely superior to that of a baboon, almost all their ideas being limited to the discovery of their daily food. From the time when they wake to the hour when they sleep, they are incessantly looking for food. Their country is not a productive one; they never till the ground, and never sow seed; so that they are always taking from the ground, and never putting anything into it. They eat almost every imaginable substance, animal and vegetable, thinking themselves very fortunate if they ever find the hole of a field-mouse, which they will painfully dig out with the aid of a stick, and then feed luxuriously upon it.

So ravenous are they, that they eat bones and skin as well as flesh; and if by chance they should procure the body of an animal so large that its bones cannot be eaten whole, the Kytch break the bones to fragments between two stones, then pound them to powder, and make the pulverized bones into a sort of porridge. In fact, as has been forcibly remarked, if an animal is killed, or dies a natural death, the Kytch tribe do not leave enough for a fly to feed upon.

The two facts that elevate the Kytch tribe above the level of the beasts are, that they keep cattle, and that they have a law regarding marriage, which, although repugnant to European ideas, is still a law, and has its parallel in many countries which are far more advanced in civilization.

The cattle of the Kytch tribe are kept more for show than for use, and, unless they die, they are never used as food. A Kytch cattle-owner would nearly as soon kill himself, and quite as soon murder his nearest relation, as he would slaughter one of his beloved cattle. The milk of the one is, of course, a singular luxury in so half-starved a country, and none but the wealthiest men are likely ever to taste it. The animals are divided into little herds, and to each herd there is attached a favorite bull, which seems to be considered as possessing an almost sacred character. Every morning, as the cattle are led out to pasture, the sacred bull is decorated with bunches of feathers tied to his horns, and, if possible, with little bells also. He is solemnly adjured to take great care of the cows, to keep them from straying, and to lead them to the best pastures, so that they may give abundance of milk.

The law of marriage is a very peculiar one. Polygamy is, of course, the custom in Kytch-land, as in other parts of Africa, the husband providing himself with a succession of young wives as the others become old and feeble, and therefore unable to perform the hard work which falls to the lot of African wives. Consequently, it mostly happens that when a man is quite old and infirm he has a number of wives much younger than himself, and several who might be his grandchildren. Under these circumstances, the latter are transferred to his eldest son, and the whole family live together harmoniously, until the death of the father renders the son absolute master of all the property.

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XLII. THE NEAM-NAM, DÔR, AND DJOUR TRIBES

LOCALITY OF THE NEAM-NAM TRIBE -- THEIR WARLIKE NATURE -- A SINGULAR RECEPTION -- EFFECT OF FIRE-ARMS -- DRESS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE NEAM-NAM TRIBE -- MODE OF HUNTING ELEPHANTS -- REMARKABLE WEAPONS -- THE DÔR TRIBE AND ITS SUBDIVISIONS -- WEAPONS OF THE DÔR -- A REMARKABLE POUCH OR QUIVER -- THE ARROWS AND THEIR TERRIBLE BARBS -- A DÔR BATTLE -- TREATMENT OF DEAD ENEMIES -- “DROPPING DOWN” UPON THE ELEPHANT -- DRESS OF THE DÔR -- THE LIP-ORNAMENT -- THEIR ARCHITECTURE -- CURIOUS APPROACH TO THE VILLAGE -- THE WOODEN CHIEFS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS -- MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS -- THE DJOUR TRIBE -- ABSENCE OF CATTLE -- THE TSETSE-FLY -- METALLURGY -- INGENIOUS SMELTING FURNACE -- WOMEN’S KNIVES -- EXTENSIVE TRAFFIC -- SMOKING -- THE BARK “QUIDS.”

Just over the Equator, and in the Nile district, is a very remarkable tribe called the NEAM-NAM. They are a fierce and warlike people, and aggressive toward all the surrounding tribes, making incursions into their territories, and carrying off their children into slavery. Consequently they are held in the utmost dread, and the lands that surround the Neam-Nam borders are left uncultivated, no one daring to occupy them for fear of their terrible neighbors. The Neam-Nam seem not only to have firmly established themselves, but even to have gradually extended their boundaries, their neighbors falling farther and farther back at each successive raid.

When Mr. Petherick passed through their country, many of his porters could not be induced to enter the territory of such a terrible tribe, even though protected by the white man’s weapons. Several of them deserted on the way, and at last, when they were come in sight of the first village, the rest flung down their loads and ran away, only the interpreter being secured.

As they neared the village, the menacing sound of the alarm drum was heard, and out came the Neam-Nams in full battle array, their lances in their right hands and their large shields covering their bodies. They drew up in line, and seemed disposed to dispute the passage; but as the party marched quietly and unconcernedly onward, they opened their ranks and allowed them to enter the village, from which the women and children had already been removed. They then seated themselves under the shade of a large sycamore tree, deposited the baggage, and sat in a circle round it, keeping on all sides a front to the armed natives, who now began to come rather nearer than was agreeable, some actually seating themselves on the traveller’s feet. They were all very merry and jocose, pointing at their visitors continually, and then bursting into shouts of approving laughter. There was evidently some joke which tickled their fancy, and by means of the interpreter it was soon discovered.

The fact was, that the Neam-Nam were cannibals, and meant to eat the strangers who had so foolishly trusted themselves in the country without either spears, swords, or shields, but they did not like to kill them before their chief arrived. When this pleasant joke was explained, the astonished visitors were nearly as amused as the Neam-Nam, knowing perfectly well that their weapons were sufficient to drive off ten times the number of such foes.

Presently the chief arrived--an old, gray-headed man, who, by his sagacity, certainly showed himself worthy of the post which he held. After a colloquy with the interpreter, he turned to his people, and the following extraordinary discourse took place:--

“Neam-Nam, do not insult these strange men. Do you know whence they come?”

“No; but we will feast on them,” was the rejoinder. Then the old man, holding up his spear, and commanding silence, proceeded thus:

“Do you know of any tribe that would dare to approach our village in such small numbers as these men have done?”

“No!” was again vociferated.

“Very well; you know not whence they come, nor do I, who am greatly your senior, and whose voice you ought to respect. Their country must indeed be distant, and to traverse the many tribes between their country and ours ought to be a proof to you of their valor. Look at the things they hold in their hands: they are neither spears, clubs, nor bows and arrows, but inexplicable bits of iron mounted on wood. Neither have they shields to defend their bodies from our weapons. Therefore, to have travelled thus far, depend on it their means of resistance must be as puzzling to us, and far superior to any arms that any tribe, ay, even our own, can oppose to them. Therefore, Neam-Nam, I, who have led you to many a fight, and whose counsels you have often followed, say, shed not your blood in vain, nor bring disgrace upon your fathers, who have never been vanquished. Touch them not, but prove yourselves to be worthy of the friendship of such a handful of brave men, and do yourselves honor by entertaining them, rather than degrade them by the continuance of your insults.”

It is impossible not to admire the penetration of this chief, who was wise enough to deduce the strength of his visitors from their apparent weakness, and to fear them for those very reasons that caused his more ignorant and impetuous people to despise them.

Having thus calmed the excitement, he asked to inspect the strange weapons of his guests. A gun was handed to him--the cap having been removed--and very much it puzzled him. From the mode in which it was held, it was evidently not a club; and yet it could not be a knife, as it had no edge; nor a spear, as it had no point. Indeed, the fact of the barrel being hollow puzzled him exceedingly. At last he poked his finger down the muzzle, and looked inquiringly at his guest, as if to ask what could be the use of such an article. By way of answer, Mr. Petherick took a gun, and, pointing to a vulture that was hovering over their heads, fired, and brought it down.

“But before the bird touched the ground, the crowd were prostrate, and grovelling in the dust, as if every man of them had been shot. The old man’s head, with his hands on his ears, was at my feet; and when I raised him, his appearance was ghastly, and his eyes were fixed on me with a meaningless expression. I thought that he had lost his senses.

“After shaking him several times, I at length succeeded in attracting his attention to the fallen bird, quivering in its last agonies between two of his men. The first sign of returning animation he gave was putting his hand to his head, and examining himself as if in search of a wound. He gradually recovered, and, as soon as he could regain his voice, called to the crowd, who one after the other first raised their heads, and then again dropped them at the sight of their apparently lifeless comrades. After the repeated call of the old man, they ventured to rise, and a general inspection of imaginary wounds commenced.”

This man, Mur-mangae by name, was only a sub-chief, and was inferior to a very great chief, whose name was Dimoo. There is one single king among the Neam-Nam, who are divided into a number of independent sub-tribes, each ruled by its own chief, and deriving its importance from its numbers. While they were recovering from the effect of the shot, Dimoo himself appeared, and, after hearing the wonderful tale, seemed inclined to discredit it, and drew up his men as if to attack. Just then an elephant appeared in the distance, and he determined to use the animal as a test, asking whether the white men’s thunder could kill an elephant as well as a vulture, and that, if it could do so, he would respect them. A party was at once despatched, accompanied by the chief and all the savages. At the first volley down went most of the Neam-Nam, including the chief, the rest running away as fast as their legs could carry them.

After this event the whole demeanor of the people was changed from aggressive insolence to humble respect, and they immediately showed their altered feelings by sending large quantities of milk and porridge for the party, and half a fat dog for Mr. Petherick’s own dinner. They also began to open a trade, and were equally astonished and amused that such common and useless things as elephants’ tusks could be exchanged for such priceless valuables as beads, and were put in high good-humor accordingly. Up to that time trade had been entirely unknown among the Neam-Nam, and, though the people made great use of ivory in fashioning ornaments for themselves, they never had thought of peaceful barter with their neighbors, thinking that to rob was better than to exchange.

Dimoo, however, still retained some of his suspicious nature, which showed itself in various little ways. At last Mr. Petherick invented on the spur of the moment a plan by which he completely conquered his host. Dimoo had taken an inordinate fancy for the tobacco of his guests, and was always asking for some. As the supply was small, Mr. Petherick did not like to make it still smaller, while, at the same time, a refusal would have been impolitic. So, one day, when the usual request was made, he acceded to it, at the same time telling Dimoo that the tobacco was unsafe to smoke, because it always broke the pipes of those who meditated treachery toward him.

Meanwhile, a servant, who had been previously instructed, filled Dimoo’s pipe, at the same time inserting a small charge of gunpowder, for which there was plenty of room, in consequence of the inordinate size of the bowl. Dimoo took the pipe and began to smoke it defiantly, when all at once an explosion took place, the bowl was shattered to pieces, and Dimoo and his councillors tumbled over each other in terror. Quite conquered by this last proof of the white man’s omniscience, he humbly acknowledged that he did meditate treachery--not against his person, but against his goods--and that his intention was to detain the whole party until he had got possession of all their property.

The appearance of the Neam-Nam tribe is very striking. They are not quite black, but have a brown and olive tint of skin. The men are better clothed than is usually the case in Central Africa, and wear a homemade cloth woven from bark fibres. A tolerably large piece of this cloth is slung round the body in such a way as to leave the arms at liberty. The hair is plaited in thick masses, extending from the neck to the shoulders.

In the operation of hair dressing they use long ivory pins, varying from six to twelve or fourteen inches in length, and very slightly curved. One end is smoothly pointed, and the other is much thicker, and for some four inches is carved into various patterns, mostly of the zigzag character which is so prevalent throughout Africa. When the hair is fully combed out and arranged, two of the largest pins are stuck through it horizontally, and a number of shorter pins are arranged in a radiating form, so that they form a semi-circle, something like the large comb of a Spanish lady.

One of these pins is now before me. It is just a foot in length, and at the thick end is almost as large as a black-lead pencil, tapering gradually to the other end. The butt, or base, is covered with a multitude of scratches, which are thought to be ornamental, but which look exactly as if they had been cut by a child who for the first time had got hold of a knife, and they are stained black with a decoction of some root.

The dress of the women consists partly of a piece of cloth such as has been described, but of smaller dimensions, and, besides this, they wear a rather curious apron made of leather. The one in my collection somewhat resembles that of the Zulu apron, shown in “Articles of Costume,” at page 33, fig. 3, but is not nearly so thick nor so heavy, and indeed is made on a different plan. The top is a solid square of thick leather doubled in the middle and then beaten flat. To both of the edges has been firmly sewed a triple row of flat leathern thongs, almost the eighth of an inch in width, and scarcely thicker than brown paper. Six rows of these flat thongs are therefore attached to the upper leather. All the ornament, simple as it is, is confined to the front layer of thongs, and consists entirely of iron. Flat strips of iron, evidently made by beating wire flat, are twisted round the thongs and then hammered down upon them, while the end of each thong is further decorated with a ring or loop of iron wire.

The centre of the solid leather is ornamented with a circular piece of iron, boss-shaped, scratched round the edges, and having an iron ring in its centre. The strap which supports the apron is fastened to a couple of iron rings at the upper corners. In some aprons bead ornaments take the place of the iron boss, but in almost every instance there is an ornament of some kind. The women have also an ornament made by cutting little flat pieces of ivory, and placing them on a strip of leather, one over the other, like fish scales. This ornament is worn as a necklace. They also carve pieces of ivory into a tolerable imitation of cowrie-shells, and string them together as if they were the veritable shells.

There is another ornament that exhibits a type of decoration which is prevalent throughout the whole of Central Africa. It is composed of a belt of stout leather--that of the hippopotamus being preferred, on account of its strength and thickness--to which are attached a quantity of empty nutshells. Through the upper end of the nut a hole is bored with a redhot iron, and an iron ring passes through this hole and another which has been punched through the leather. The shell is very hard and thick, and, when the wearer dances with the energetic gestures which accompany such performances, the nuts keep up a continual and rather loud clatter.

The Neam-Nam all wear leathern sandals, and although their clothing is so scanty, they are remarkable for their personal cleanliness, a virtue which is so rare in Africa that it deserves commemoration whenever it does occur.

As may already have been seen, the Neam-Nam are a cannibal race, and always devour the bodies of slain enemies. This repulsive custom is not restricted to enemies, but is extended to nearly all human beings with whom they come in contact, their own tribe not proving any exception. Mr. Petherick was told by themselves that when a Neam-Nam became old and feeble, he was always killed and eaten, and that when any were at the point of death, the same fate befell them.

Should one of their slaves run away and be captured, he is always slain and eaten as a warning to other slaves. Such an event, however, is of very rare occurrence, the slaves being treated with singular kindness, and master and slave being mutually proud of each other. Indeed, in many families the slaves are more valued than the children. Indeed, much of the wealth of the Neam-Nam consists of slaves, and a man measures his importance by the number of slaves whom he maintains. All these slaves belong to some other tribe, and were captured by their owners, so that they are living witnesses of prowess as well as signs of wealth. They are never sold or bartered, and therefore a slave dealer is not known among them, and they are spared one of the chief curses of Africa. As a general rule, the slaves are so faithful, and are so completely incorporated with the household to which they belong, that in case of war they are armed, and accompany their masters to battle.

The Neam-Nam are skilful hunters, and make great use of fire when chasing the elephant. As they were desirous of procuring tusks to exchange for Mr. Petherick’s beads, they anxiously awaited the first rains, which would bring the elephants into their country.

“Successive showers followed, and, after a fortnight’s sojourn, a herd of eighteen elephants was announced by beat of tom-tom, as being in the vicinity. Old men, boys, women, and children, collected with most sanguine expectations; and, anxious to witness the scene, I accompanied the hunters. A finer body of well-grown and active men I never beheld. The slaves, many of them from the Baer, but most of them appertaining to unknown tribes from the west, were nearly black, and followed their more noble-looking and olive-colored masters. Two hours’ march--the first part through cultivated grounds and the latter through magnificent bush--brought us to the open plain, covered hip-deep with dry grass, and there were the elephants marching leisurely toward us.

“The negroes, about five hundred, swift as antelopes, formed a vast circle round them, and by their yells brought the huge game to a standstill. As if by magic, the plain was on fire, and the elephants, in the midst of the roar and crackling of the flames, were obscured from our view by the smoke. Where I stood, and along the line, as far as I could see, the grass was beaten down to prevent the outside of the circle from being seized in the conflagration; and, in a short time--not more than half an hour--the fire having exhausted itself, the cloud of smoke, gradually rising, again displayed the group of elephants standing as if petrified. As soon as the burning embers had become sufficiently extinct, the negroes with a whoop closed from all sides upon their prey. The fire and smoke had blinded them, and, unable to defend themselves, they successively fell by the lances of their assailants. The sight was grand, and, although their tusks proved a rich prize, I was touched at the massacre.”

When the Neam-Nam warrior goes out to battle, he takes with him a curious series of weapons. He has, of course, his lance, which is well and strongly put together, the blade being leaf-shaped, like that of a hog spear, only very much longer. On his left arm he bears his shield, which is made of bark fibre, woven very closely together, and very thick. The maker displays his taste in the patterns of the work, and in those which he traces upon it with variously colored dyes. Within the shield he has a sort of wooden handle, to which are attached one or two most remarkable weapons.

One of these is wholly flat, the handle included, and is about the thickness of an ordinary sword-blade. The projecting portions are all edged, and kept extremely sharp, while the handle is rather thicker than the blade, and is rounded and roughened, so as to afford a firm grip to the hand. (See the “Neam-Nam Fight” on p. 437.)

When the Neam-Nam comes near his enemy, and before he is within range of a spear thrust, he snatches one of these strange weapons from his shield, and hurls it at the foe, much as an Australian flings his boomerang, an American Indian his tomahawk, and a Sikh his chakra, giving it a revolving motion as he throws it. Owing to this mode of flinging, the weapon covers a considerable space, and if the projecting blades come in contact with the enemy’s person, they are sure to disable, if not to kill, him on the spot.

And as several of these are hurled in rapid succession, it is evident that the Neam-Nam warrior is no ordinary foe, and that even the possessor of fire-arms might in reality be overcome if taken by surprise, for, as the “boomerangs” are concealed within the shield, the first intimation of their existence would be given by their sharp blades whirling successively through the air with deadly aim.

Besides the lance and the “boomerangs,” each Neam-Nam carries a strangely-shaped knife in a leathern sheath, and oddly enough the hilt is always downward. It is sharp at both edges, and is used as a hand-to-hand weapon after the boomerangs have been thrown, and the parties have come too close to use the spear effectually. From the projection at the base of the blade a cord is tied loosely to the handle, and the loop passed over the wrist, so as to prevent the warrior from being disarmed.

Some of the Neam-Nam tribes use a very remarkable shield. It is spindle-shaped, very long and very narrow, measuring only four or five inches in breadth in the middle, and tapering to a point at either end. In the middle a hole is scooped, large enough to contain the hand, and a bar of wood is left so as to form a handle. This curious shield is carried in the left hand, and is used to ward off the lances or arrows of the enemy, which is done by giving it a smart twist.

In principle and appearance it resembles so closely the shield of the native Australian, that it might easily be mistaken for one of those weapons. Sometimes a warrior decorates his shield by covering it with the skin of an antelope, wrapped round it while still wet, and then sewed together in a line with the handle. The Shilloch and Dinka tribes use similar weapons, but their shields are without the hollow guard for the hand, and look exactly like bows without the strings.

Each warrior has also a whistle, or call, made of ivory or antelope’s horn, which is used for conveying signals; and some of the officers, or leaders, have large war trumpets, made of elephants’ tusks. One form of these trumpets is seen in the illustration “Caboceer and soldiers,” on page 564. The reader will observe that, as is usual throughout Africa, they are sounded from the side, like a flute, and not from the end, like ordinary trumpets.

Altogether Mr. Petherick passed a considerable time among this justly dreaded tribe, and was so popular among them, that when he left the country he was accompanied by crowds of natives, and the great chief Dimoo not only begged him to return, but generously offered his daughter as a wife in case the invitation were accepted, and promised to keep her until wanted.

THE DÔR.

Passing by a number of small and comparatively insignificant tribes, we come to the large and important tribe of the Dôr. Like all African tribes of any pretence, it includes a great number of smaller or sub-tribes, which are only too glad to be ranked among so important and powerful a tribe, and, for the sake of belonging to it, they forego their own individuality.

Like the Neam-Nam, the Dôr acknowledged no paramount chief, the innumerable sub-tribes of which it is composed being each independent, and nearly all at feud with one another. Indeed the whole political condition of the Dôr is wonderfully similar to that of Scotland, when clan was set against clan, and a continual state of feud prevailed among them, though they all gloried in the name of Scotchman.

As in the old days of Chevy Chase, a hunt is almost a sure precursor of a fight. The Dôr are much given to hunting, and organize battues on a grand scale. They weave strong nets of bark fibre, and fasten them between trunks of trees, so as to cover a space of several miles. Antelopes and other game are driven from considerable distances into these nets; and as the hunters have to pass over a large space of country, some of which is sure to be claimed by inimical tribes, a skirmish, if not a regular battle, is sure to take place.

The weapons carried by the Dôr are of rather a formidable description. One of the most curious is the club. It is about two feet six inches in length, and is remarkable for the shape of the head, which is formed like a mushroom, but has sharp edges. As it is made of very hard wood, it is a most effective weapon, and not even the stone-like skull of a Dôr warrior can resist a blow from it. The bow exhibits a mode of construction which is very common in this part of Africa, and which must interfere greatly with the power of the weapon. The string does not extend to the tips of the bow, so that eighteen inches or so of the weapon are wasted, and the elasticity impaired. The reader will see that, if the ends of the bow were cut off immediately above the string, the strength and elasticity would suffer no diminution, and that, in fact, the extra weight at each end of the bow only gives the weapon more work to do.

The Africans have a strange habit of making a weapon in such a way that its efficiency shall be weakened as much as possible. Not content with leaving a foot or so of useless wood at each end of the bow, some tribes ornament the weapon with large tufts of loose strings or fibres, about half way between the handle and the tip, as if to cause as much disturbance to the aim as possible. Spears again are decorated with tufts to such an extent that they are rendered quite unmanageable.

Much more care is taken with the arrows than with the bows. There is a great variety in the shape of the arrows, as also in their length. They are all iron-headed, and every man seems to make his arrows after his own peculiar fashion; sometimes large and broad-headed, sometimes slightly barbed, though more commonly slender and sharply pointed.

In my collection there is a most remarkable quiver, once belonging to a warrior of one of the Dôr sub-tribes. It was brought from Central Africa by Mr. Petherick. Nothing can be simpler than the construction of this quiver. The maker has cut a strip of antelope hide rather more than three feet in length and fourteen inches in width. He has then poked his knife through the edges at moderately regular intervals, so as to make a series of holes. A thong about half an inch wide has next been cut from the same hide, and passed through the topmost hole or slit, a large knot preventing it from slipping through. It has then been passed through the remaining slits, so as to lace the edges together like the sides of a boot. The bottom is closed by the simple plan of turning it up and lacing it by the same thong to the side of the quiver.

It is hardly possible to conceive any rougher work. The maker has cut the slits quite at random, so that he has occasionally missed one or two, and he has not taken the least pains to bring the sides of the quiver together throughout their length. So stupid or careless has he been, that he has begun by cutting the strip of skin much too narrow, and then has widened it, never taking the pains to sew up the cut, which extends two-thirds down the quiver.

Four or five of the arrows have the leaf-shaped head and need not be particularly described. The largest of the arrows, being a “cloth-yard shaft,” but for the absence of feathers, might vie with the weapons of the old English archers. The head is remarkable for a heavy ridge which runs along the centre on both sides. There is another not so boldly barbed as that which has just been mentioned, but which is quite as formidable a weapon, on account of a thick layer of poison that begins just behind the head, and extends nearly as far as the shaft.

The most characteristic forms, however, are these two. The first is an arrow which is barbed with a wonderful ingenuity, the barbs not being mere projections, but actual spikes, more than an inch in length, and at the base nearly as thick as a crow quill. They have been separated from the iron head by the blow of a chisel, or some such implement, and have then been bent outward, and sharpened until the points are like those of needles. Besides these long barbs, the whole of the square neck of the iron is jagged exactly like the Bechuana assagai which has been figured on page 281.

Such an arrow cannot be extracted, and the only mode of removing it is to push it through the wound. But the Central Africans have evidently thought that their enemy was let off too cheaply by being allowed to rid himself of the arrow by so simple a process, and accordingly they have invented a kind of arrow which can neither be drawn out nor pushed through. In the second of these arrows there is a pair of reversed barbs just at the junction of the shaft and the iron head, so that when the arrow has once penetrated, it must either be cut out or allowed to remain where it is. Such an arrow is not poisoned, nor does it need any such addition to its terrors. Both these arrows are remarkable for having the heads fastened to the shaft, first in the ordinary way, by raw hide, and then by a band of iron, about the sixth of an inch in width. Though shorter than some of the other arrows, they are on that account much heavier.

One of the fights consequent on a hunt is well described by Mr. Petherick. He was sitting in the shade at noon-day, when he perceived several boys running in haste to the village for an additional supply of weapons for their fathers. “The alarm spread instantly that a fight was taking place, and the women en masse proceeded to the scene with yellings and shrieks indescribable. Seizing my rifle, and accompanied by four of my followers, curiosity to see a negro fight tempted me to accompany them. After a stiff march of a couple of hours through bush and glade, covered with waving grass reaching nearly to our waists, the return of several boys warned us of the proximity of the fight, and of their fear of its turning against them, the opposing party being the most numerous. Many of the women hurried back to their homes, to prepare, in case of emergency, for flight and safety in the bush. For such an occurrence, to a certain extent, they are always prepared; several parcels of grain and provisions, neatly packed up in spherical forms in leaves surrounded by network, being generally kept ready in every hut for a sudden start.

“Accelerating our pace, and climbing up a steep hill, as we reached the summit, and were proceeding down a gentle slope, I came in contact with Djau and his party in full retreat, and leaping like greyhounds over the low underwood and high grass. On perceiving me, they halted, and rent the air with wild shouts of ‘The White Chief! the White Chief!’ and I was almost suffocated by the embraces of the chief. My presence gave them courage to face the enemy again; a loud peculiar shrill whoop from the gray-headed but still robust chief was the signal for attack, and, bounding forward, they were soon out of sight. To keep up with them would have been an impossibility; but, marching at the top of our pace, we followed them as best we could. After a long march down a gentle declivity, at the bottom of which was a beautiful glade, we again came up with them drawn up in line, in pairs, some yards apart from each other, within the confines of the bush, not a sound indicating their presence.

“Joining them, and inquiring what had become of the enemy, the man whom I addressed silently pointed to the bush on the opposite side of the glade, some three hundred yards across. Notwithstanding my intention of being a mere spectator, I now felt myself compromised in the fight; and, although unwilling to shed blood, I could not resist my aid to the friends who afforded me an asylum amongst them. Marching, accordingly, into the open space with my force of four men, I resolved that we should act as skirmishers on the side of our hosts, who retained their position in the bush. We had proceeded about a third of the way across the glade, when the enemy advanced out of the wood and formed, in a long line of two or three deep, on its confines opposite to us. I also drew up my force, and for an instant we stood looking at each other. Although within range, at about two hundred yards’ distance, I did not like to fire upon them; but in preference continued advancing, thinking the prestige of my fire-arms would be sufficient.

“I was right. We had scarcely marched fifty yards when a general flight took place, and in an instant Djau and his host, amounting to some three or four hundred men, passed in hot pursuit. After reflection on the rashness of exposing myself with so few men to the hostility of some six hundred negroes, and in self-congratulation on the effect my appearance in the fight had produced, I waited the return of my hosts. In the course of an hour this took place; and, as they advanced, I shall never forget the impression they made upon me. A more complete picture of savage life I could not have imagined. A large host of naked negroes came trooping on, grasping in their hands bow and arrow, lances and clubs, with wild gesticulations and frightful yells proclaiming their victory, whilst one displayed the reeking head of a victim. I refused to join them in following up the defeat of their enemies by a descent on their villages.

“With some difficulty they were persuaded to be content with the success already achieved--that of having beaten off a numerically superior force--and return to their homes. Their compliance was only obtained by an actual refusal of further co-operation; but in the event of a renewed attack upon their villages, the probability of which was suggested, I promised them my willing support.”

The death of an enemy and the capture of his body are always causes of great rejoicing among the Dôr tribes, because they gain trophies whereby they show their skill in warfare. In the centre of every village there is a large open space, or circus, in the middle of which is the venerated war tree. Beneath this tree are placed the great war drums, whose deep, booming notes can be heard for miles. On the branches are hung the whitened skulls of slain warriors, and the war drums only sound when a new head is added to the trophy, or when the warriors are called to arms.

Four of the enemy were killed in this skirmish, and their bodies were thrown into the bush, their heads being reserved for the trophy. On the same evening they were brought into the village circus, and dances performed in honor of the victors. The great drums were beaten in rhythmic measure, and the women advanced in pairs, dancing to the sound of the drum and chanting a war-song. As they approached the heads of the victims, they halted, and addressed various insulting epithets to them, clanking their iron anklets and yelling with excitement. On the following day the heads were taken into the bush to be bleached, and, after they were completely whitened, they were hung on the trophy with the accompaniment of more shouts and dances.

All their hunting parties, however, are not conducted in this manner, nor do they all lead to bloodshed. When they hunt the elephant, for example, the animal is attacked by a small party, and for the sufficient reason, namely, that he who first wounds the elephant takes the tusks, and therefore every additional man only decreases the chance.

They have one singularly ingenious mode of hunting the elephant, which is conducted by one man alone. The hunter takes with him a remarkable spear made for the express purpose. One of these spears, which was brought from Central Africa by Mr. Petherick, is in my collection, and a representation of it may be seen on page 103, fig. 2. They vary slightly in size, but my specimen is a very fair example of the average dimensions. It is rather more than six feet in length, three feet of which are due to the iron head and the socket into which the shaft passes. As may be seen, the shaft tapers gradually, so as to permit it to pass into the socket. To the butt is fastened a heavy piece of wood, rather more than four inches in diameter. It is a heavy weapon, its whole weight being a little more than seven pounds, and is so ill-balanced and so unwieldy, that, unless its use were known, it would seem to be about the most clumsy weapon that ever was invented. This, however, is the spear by which the Dôr and Baer tribes kill the elephant, and very ingeniously they do it.

Knowing the spots where the elephant loves to hide itself in the noon-tide, and which are always in the depths of the forest, the hunter proceeds thither in the early morning, and carries with him his heavy spear and some rope. When he approaches the place, he proceeds to take some large stones, and binds them to the butt of the spear, plastering them over thickly with lumps of clay, so as to make his heavy weapon still heavier. He then ties one end of the rope to the spear, and after selecting a suitable tree, climbs it, and works his way out upon one of the horizontal branches, hauling up his weapon when he has settled himself.

He now awaits the coming of the herd, and, when they are close to the tree, unties the spear, and holds it in readiness. When an elephant with good tusks passes under him, he drops the spear upon the animal’s back, the weight of the weapon causing it to penetrate deeply into the body. Startled at the sudden pang, the elephant rushes through the trees, trying to shake off the terrible spear, which sways about from side to side, occasionally striking against the trunks or branches of the trees, and so cutting its way deeper among the vital organs, until the unfortunate animal falls from loss of blood. The hunter does not trouble himself about chasing his victim at once. He can always track it by its bloody traces, and knows full well that within a moderate distance the unfortunate animal will halt, and there die, unless it is disturbed by the presence of man, and urged to further exertions.

The reader will note the curious similarity between this mode of elephant hunting and the Banyai method of trapping the hippopotamus, as described on page 342. The Dôr also use lances, at least eleven feet long, for elephant hunting, the blades measuring between two and three feet in length. These, however, are not dropped from a tree, but wielded by hand, the hunters surrounding the animal, and each watching his opportunity, and driving his spear into its side when its attention is directed toward some on the other side.

The Dôr hold in great contempt the perfect nudity which distinguishes the Kytch and several other tribes, but no one on first entering their villages would suppose such to be the case. The dress which the men wear is simply a little flap of leather hanging behind them. This, however, in their ideas constitutes dress; and when some of the Djour people entered a Dôr village, the latter, as a mark of respect to the visitors, turned their little aprons to the front, and so were considered as having put on full dress.

The women use a still simpler dress. Until they are married, they wear no dress at all; but when that event takes place, they clothe themselves in a very simple manner. In their country is an abundance of evergreens and creepers, and with these they form their dress, a branch tucked into the girdle in front, and another behind, answering all purposes of clothing. They use these leafy dresses of such a length that they fall nearly to the ground. Ornaments, however, they admire exceedingly, and the weight of a Dôr woman’s decorations is more than an ordinary man would like to carry about with him for a whole day. Heavy strings of beads are hung on their necks and tied round their waists, the most valued beads being as large as pigeon’s eggs, and consequently very heavy. Strings of beads also fall from their ears. On their wrists they wear bracelets, made simply of iron bars cut to the proper length, and bent round the wrist. Others, but of greater dimensions, encircle the ankles; and as some of them are fully an inch thick, and quite solid, their united weight is very considerable.

Like most African tribes, the Dôr are fond of wearing amulets, though they do not seem to have any particular idea of their meaning, and certainly do not attach any sanctity to them. They have a hazy idea that the possession of a certain amulet is a safeguard against certain dangers, but they do not trouble themselves about the modus operandi.

In this tribe we may notice the re-appearance of the lip ornament. In the manner in which it is worn it resembles the “pelele” described on page 356, but it is worn in the under instead of the upper lip. One of these ornaments is now before me. It is cylindrical, with a conical top, and measures three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and exactly an inch in length. The base, which comes against the lower teeth and gum, is nearly flat, and well polished, while the conical top, which projects in front of the mouth, is carved very neatly with a “cross-hatching” sort of a pattern, the effect of which is heightened by the charring of a certain portion of it, the blackened and polished surfaces contrasting well with the deep-red color of the wood. In order to keep it in its place, a shallow groove runs round it. This is one of the smaller specimens, but it is the custom of the owner to wear larger and larger lip ornaments, until some of them contrive to force into their lips pieces of wood three inches in circumference. Before taking leave of the Dôr costume, it may be as well to observe that in the Botocudo tribe of Tropical America both sexes wear a similar ornament in their lips, and in most instances have these strange decorations twice as large as those of the Dôr women.

The villages of the Dôr tribes are really remarkable. The houses are neatly constructed of canes woven into a sort of basket work. The perpendicular walls are about six feet high, and are covered by a conical roof, the whole shape of the hut being almost exactly like that of the lip ornament which has just been described. The reed roof is ornamented on the exterior with pieces of wood carved into the rude semblance of birds.

In the middle of each hut is the bedstead, and, as no cooking is done within it, the interior of the hut is very clean, and in that respect entirely unlike the sooty homes of the Kaffir tribes. All the cooking is performed in a separate hut, or kitchen, and is of a rather simple character, the chief food being a kind of porridge. The doorway is very small, and is barricaded at night by several logs of wood laid horizontally upon each other, and supported at each end by two posts driven into the ground. The whole village is kept as clean as the individual houses, and the central circus is not only swept, but kept well watered, so as to lay the dust.

The most singular point in the Dôr village lies in the approaches to it, which are narrow footpaths, marked out on each side by wooden posts roughly carved into the human form. They are placed about four feet apart, and are different in size. The one nearest the village is the largest, while the others are much smaller, and are represented as carrying bowls on their heads. The natives say that the first is the chief going to a feast, and that the others are his attendants carrying food on their heads.

Several of these wooden figures were brought to England by Mr. Petherick, and two of the chiefs are represented on the next page. They are about four feet in length. It may be imagined that a double row of such figures must give a most curious aspect to the road.

“The village,” writes Mr. Petherick, “was prettily situated at the foot of a hill, around which were two or three other villages, this forming the entire community of a large district. From its summit a beautiful view of the surrounding country was obtained. Surrounding the village at a moderate distance were the unfenced gardens of the villagers, in which cucurbits, vegetables, and seeds were grown; and beyond, to the eastward, was a large plain of cultivated dourra fields; and southward, at about a mile distant, a winding brook was to be seen, bordered with superb trees and flourishing canes. The bush supplied a variety of game, consisting of partridges, guinea-fowl, a large white boar, gazelles, antelopes, and giraffes. Elephants and buffaloes I did not encounter, and I was told that they only frequented the locality in the rainy season.”

There are three forms of the guitar, or rababa, yet in neither instrument is the neck rigid, as in the guitars and violins with which we are all familiar. This is, however, intentional on the part of the maker, its object being to keep the strings at a proper tension. The mode in which it is tuned is equally simple and effective. A ring, mostly made of the same fibre as the strings, is passed over each neck, so that, as it is slipped up or down, the sound becomes proportionately grave or acute. It can be thus tuned with reasonable accuracy, as I can testify by experience, the only drawback being that the notes cannot be altered by pressure of the fingers upon the strings, on account of the angle which they make with the neck. Five sounds only can be produced by this instrument, but it is worthy of notice that one string is very much longer than the others, so that it produces a deep tone, analogous to the “drone” in the bagpipes.

Although tolerably well-mannered to travellers with whom they were acquainted, the Dôr are very apt to behave badly to those whom they do not know. Mr. Petherick nearly lost his life by a sudden and treacherous attack that was made on him by some of this tribe. Accompanied by the friendly chief, Djau, he went to a village, and began to purchase ivory. In spite of Djau’s presence the people were suspicious, and became more and more insolent, asking higher prices for every tusk, and at last trying to run off with a tusk and the beads that had been offered in payment for it. The tusk was regained, whereupon a sudden attack was made, and a lance hurled at Mr. Petherick, whom it missed, but struck one of his men in the shoulder. Three more were wounded by a volley of spears, and there was nothing for it but to fire. One of the assailants having been wounded in the leg, firing was stopped. On going for their donkey, who had been brought to carry back the tusks, he was found lying dead, having been killed by the vengeful Dôr.

Hereupon Djau recommended that the village should be sacked as a warning, which was done, and the spoil carried home. Next day the chief of the village came very humbly to apologize, bringing some tusks as an equivalent for the donkey, and as a proof of good-will for the future. So the tusks were accepted, the plunder of the village restored, and harmony was thus established, a supplementary present of beads being added as a seal to the bargain.

THE DJOUR.

The Djour tribe afford a remarkable instance of the influence which is exercised over man by the peculiarities of the country in which he is placed. Surrounded by pastoral tribes, which breed cattle and trouble themselves but little about the cultivation of the ground, the Djour are agriculturists, and have no cattle except goats. The sole reason for this fact is, that the dread tsetse-fly is abundant in the land of Djour, and consequently neither horse nor ox has a chance of life. This terrible insect, harmless to man and to most animals, is certain death to the horse, dog, and ox tribe.

It is very little larger than the horse-fly, and its only weapons are a kind of lancet, which projects from its mouth, as one may see in the gad-fly. Like the gad-fly, the tsetse only causes a temporary irritation when it bites a human being, and the strangest thing is that it does no harm to calves until they are weaned. It does not sting, but, like the gnat, inserts its sharp proboscis into the skin for the purpose of sucking the blood. After an ox has been bitten, it loses condition, the coat starts, the muscles become flaccid, and in a short time the animal dies, even the muscle of the heart having become so soft that, when pinched, the fingers can be made to meet through it.

Yet the mule, ass, and goat enjoy a perfect immunity from this pest, and consequently the only domesticated animal among the Djour is the goat. The tsetse is a singularly local insect. It will swarm along one bank of a river, and the other bank be free; or it will inhabit little hills, or perhaps a patch of soil on level ground. Tsetse-haunted places are well known to the natives, and it has often happened that, when a herd of oxen has been driven through one of these dreaded spots, not a single animal has escaped.

Being deprived of cattle, the Djour do not depend wholly upon agriculture, but are admirable workers in iron, and by them are made many of the weapons and polished iron ornaments which are so much in request throughout Central Africa. Iron ore is abundant in their country, and, after they have finished getting in their crops, the industrious Djour set to work at their metallurgy, at which every man is more or less an adept. After procuring a sufficient quantity of ore, they proceed to smelt it in furnaces very ingeniously built.

“The cupolas are constructed of stiff clay, one foot thick, increasing toward the bottom to about fourteen inches in diameter, and four feet in height. Underneath is a small basin for the reception of the metal, and on a level with the surface are four apertures, opposite each other, for the reception of the blast pipes. These are made of burnt clay, and are attached to earthen vessels about eighteen inches in diameter and six inches in height, covered with a loose dressed goat-skin tied tightly over them, and perforated with a few small holes. In the centre there is a loop to contain the fingers of the operator. A lad, sitting between two of these vessels, by a rapid alternate vertical motion with each hand drives a current of air into the furnace, which, charged with alternate layers of ore and charcoal, nourished by eight of these rude bellows, emits a flame some eighteen inches in height at the top.

“Relays of boys keep up a continual blast, and, when the basin for the reception of the metal is nearly full, the charging of the furnace is discontinued, and it is blown out. Through an aperture at the bottom the greater part of the slag is withdrawn, and the temperature of the furnace not being sufficient to reduce the metal to the fluid state, it is mixed up with a quantity of impurities, and broken, when still warm, into small pieces. These are subsequently submitted to the heat of a smith’s hearth, and hammered with a huge granite boulder on a small anvil, presenting a surface of one and a half inches square, stuck into an immense block of wood. By this method the metal is freed from its impurities, and converted into malleable iron of the best quality. The slag undergoes the operations of crushing and washing, and the small globules of iron contained in it are obtained. A crucible charged with them is exposed to welding heat on the hearth, and its contents are welded and purified as above.

“The iron being reduced to small malleable ingots, the manufacture of lances, hoes, hatchets, &c., is proceeded with. These are beaten into shape by the boulder wielded by a powerful man; and the master smith with a hammer, handleless, like the pestle of a mortar, finishes them. With these rude implements, the proficiency they have attained is truly astonishing, many lances and other articles of their manufacture which I now possess having been pronounced good specimens of workmanship for an ordinary English smith.”

In an illustration on page 449 may be seen an example of the workmanship of the Djour tribe. The remarkable ornament with a long hook is an armlet, the hooked portion being passed over the arm, and then bent, so as to retain its hold. The singular objects entitled “Women’s knives” are good examples of the patient skill displayed by the Djour tribe with such very imperfect tools.

These and other products of their ingenuity are dispersed throughout several of the tribes of Central Africa, many of them being recognized as currency, just as is the English sovereign on the Continent. As if to illustrate the truth of the proverb, that men are always longing for that which they do not possess, the Djours are always hankering after beef, and in consequence buy cattle largely from their warlike neighbors, the Dinka tribe. The tsetse prevents the Djour from keeping the cattle just purchased, and so they only buy them in order to kill and eat them at once.

Owing to this traffic, the Djour are recognized as the chief smiths of Central Africa, and they can always find a market for their wares. Consequently, they are a very prosperous tribe, as even the Dinkas would not wish to destroy a people from whom they procure the very weapons with which they fight; and there is not a Djour man who cannot with ordinary industry earn enough for the purchase and maintenance of a wife as soon as he is old enough to take one. Among themselves they do not care particularly about wearing as ornaments the products of their own skill, but prize beads above every other personal decoration; and so far do they carry this predilection, that their wives are purchased with beads, and not with goats--the only cattle which they can breed. There is scarcely a Djour of full age who has not a wife, if not in fact, yet in view; and so brisk is the matrimonial market, that there is not a girl in the country above eight years of age who has not been purchased by some one as a wife.

Tobacco is as dear to the Djour as to other African tribes, and they are fond of smoking it in pipes of very great capacity. They have a rather odd mode of managing their pipes. The bowl is of reddish clay, worked on the outside into a kind of pattern like that in frosted glass. The stem is of bamboo, and is very thick, and the junction between the stem and the bowl is made tolerably air-tight by binding a piece of raw hide round it. A long and narrow gourd forms the mouthpiece, and round it is wrapped a piece of leather like that which fastens the bowl to the stem. Lest the mouthpiece should fall off, a string is passed round it, and the other end fastened to the lower end of the stem.

When the pipe is used, a quantity of fine bark fibres are rolled up into little balls, and, the gourd mouthpiece being removed, they are thrust into it and into the stem, so that, when the pipe is lighted, they may become saturated with tobacco oil. This fibre is not inserted for the purpose of purifying the smoke, for the tobacco oil is thought to be much too valuable an article to be wasted, and the fibre balls, when thoroughly saturated, are taken out and chewed as if they were the best pigtail tobacco.

It is thought to be a delicate attention for two friends to exchange “quids” from each other’s pipe, and, when one person has obtained as much tobacco oil as he cares for, he passes the quid to another, and so on, until the flavor has all been extracted. I have in my collection one of these pipes. It is two feet in length, and the bowl is capable of holding a large handful of tobacco. Pipes of this description, though differing slightly in details, prevail through the whole of Central Africa, and especially along the east bank of the Nile. In the splendid collection gathered by Mr. Petherick, and exhibited in London in 1862, more than twenty such pipes were exhibited, several with horn stems, some mounted with iron, and in one or two the bark “quids” were still in their places. The specimen described above belonged to the collection.

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