The Arab was right. The rainy season was fairly setting in, and very soon a tremendous storm burst forth. Then, as he had said, the natives rushed towards their prisoner, cut his bonds, and prostrated themselves before him.
Did the slave, thus miraculously saved, really believe that he was protected by the sun? Did he seriously regard himself as a sorcerer? We did not seek to enquire, but we saw him, as soon as he was released, look proudly round him, and, followed by his former persecutors, now become his admirers, wend his way towards the village, where he would be looked upon as a demi-god, be worshipped by all, and be held capable of causing rain or sunshine as he pleased.
Perhaps, too, he counted upon being able to resume his particular trade as a poisoner, but there would no longer be any one to say him nay—in his capacity as sorcerer and demi-god, his poisoning would be carried out under official sanction.
10th March.—We are progressing very rapidly, for, thanks to extra rations and a few presents, we are getting double stages out of our escort. We now rest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., continuing on the road from the latter hour until nine or ten o'clock at night in the clear, bright moonlight. We start, as usual, for our first stage at 5 a.m., and have now reached a kind of neutral ground, about three hundred square miles in extent, in which are situated, some five or six leagues from each other, the celebrated seribas, or depôts, of the Khartoum merchants. Owing to the letters of introduction presented to us at that town, we have been received most hospitably at all these depôts, thatched and roomy huts being placed at our disposal, as well as provisions for both ourselves and the caravan generally.
The denizens of these seribas are very far from being morally irreproachable; in fact, they fully deserve the bad character given to them by European travellers. But it must, in justice, be confessed that they perfectly understand the duties of hospitality, and that, in this regard, they do not in any way fall behind the Creoles of South America or of our French colonies.
Notwithstanding the efforts of our hospitable entertainers to induce us to remain at the seriba, the last days of March found us still continuing on our way southwards, impelled onwards, because, amongst other reasons, the attractions of the seribas were causing frequent desertions from our ranks. Five of the soldiers and twenty bearers had already left us, and the absentees would have been more numerous still, had it not been for the exertions and eloquence of our two interpreters, Omar and Ali, whose influence over our followers is very great.
But if there is a falling off in the number of our men, there is no corresponding lack in the quantity of our provisions, for not only do we possess a quantity of sheep and oxen, but our bearers are also laden with all the eatables we could lay our hands on.
Two days' marching sufficed to take us across a portion of the territory belonging to the Djour tribe, whose name signifies "man of the woods," or "wild man." This tribe consists of about twenty thousand souls, devoted entirely to agriculture, and greatly resembling, in language, personal appearance, and habits, our old friends the Shillooks.
We passed, the seriba of Geer and the village of Koolongo without halting at either, and we soon afterwards entered the district inhabited by the Bongos or Dours (Dohrs, according to the German authorities), who must not be confounded with the Djours already mentioned.
The Bongos occupy a territory lying between lat. 6° and 8° N., almost deserted, but equal in extent to those of our Departments, and joining, on the south, the outer portion of the extensive country of the Niam-Niam. It is evident, therefore, that the caravan is adhering closely to the route traversed by M. de Guéran.
The Khartoum merchants, assisted by the Nubians and Dinkas, invaded this territory about five and twenty years ago, and reduced its inhabitants to subjection, but the Bongos, notwithstanding their condition of vassalage, have managed to preserve their primitive manners and customs almost intact. As soon as ever we set foot in this district we perceived very easily that we had entered upon a region perfectly novel, and were amongst a series of tribes extending southwards and possessing essentially original characteristics. Amongst the Bongos we found individuals as black as ebony, but the prevailing tint, the ground of their complexions, is red-brown, approaching to copper-colour. De Morin yesterday attempted a portrait of a Bongo, and he found it necessary to use the colour known under the name of Pompeian red.
The men, who are of medium height and very muscular, have short and curly hair, differing from the other tribes whose acquaintance we have made in this respect, as well as in the matter of clothing. Amongst the Bongos the men wear an apron of leather, or a strip of stuff fastened to the girdle, but the women are, as a rule, completely nude, a few only of them, after the fashion of our first parents, depending on leaves for their toilet. Ugly enough naturally, they add to their hideous appearance by extending the lower lip, by the insertion of cylindrical plugs of wood, until it projects two or three inches beyond the upper one. And, not content even with this, they allow themselves to grow so fat that they become positively deformed. With them all the curves and lines of the body disappear beneath a shapeless mass of fat. They have neither waist nor hips, and a perpendicular line can be drawn from their shoulders to their feet. By the side of these phenomena Joseph, the unwieldly, appeared thin, and, as for Miss Beatrice Poles, when she drew near a female Bongo, it was like a lucifer match approaching an elephant.
The match, it must be confessed, had the best of it, for leanness, ungraceful though it be, is less repulsive than excessive obesity. Our beloved Englishwoman, consequently, was withering in her contempt for the Bongo ladies, regarding them as the very lowest in the scale of female humanity, and venting all her most biting sarcasm on their rotundity.
"That is just how you would like to see me, is it not?" she says occasionally, and with asperity, to Doctor Delange, whose admiration for the Bayaderes and dancing girls of the Soudan she has never forgiven.
"By no means. Miss Poles," Delange replies, with his habitual coolness. "I should be very sorry to see you like these women, but you must admit that at all events there is some connection between a perfectly developed woman and monsters such as these."
"I see no connection at all," exclaimed Miss Poles. "All your perfectly-developed women, as you call them, become masses of obesity sooner or later, and, if I were a man, I should not admire them one bit."
Without attaching as much importance to theembonpointof the Bongo women, we could not help being somewhat curious to know whether it arose from natural causes or whether it was a matter of caprice. Nassar, who lived for a long time amongst them with Schweinfurth, declares that his master could never gain any information on the subject, but he says that if we really wish it, he will do his best to obtain for us an opportunity of settling the question. Delange and de Morin jumped at the offer, and we have commissioned Nassar to escort us to a species of harem, the proprietor of which, a Bongo chief, has expressed his willingness to receive us. Miss Poles wants to come also, and we do not see our way to saying no, especially as her presence in a harem is much more according to the proprieties than ours. We only exact from her a solemn promise that she will put a curb on her indignation as soon as she finds herself face to face with the phenomena we are about to see.
The extensive Bongo village, in which we were halting and whereNassar proposed to us a closer study of the manners and customs ofthe female inhabitants of the country, is situated close toDaggondoûd, an important seriba.
On our way we asked our guide about the individual to whose dwelling we were going. According to Nassar, he was formerly a powerful chief, but his village had been burnt, and his fields devastated by the Dinkas and Nubians. Three-fourths of his subjects had fled, and he was now living a quiet, retired life, so as not to attract the attention of his neighbours, and, to a certain extent, his masters, in the seriba. Nassar had informed him of our desire to see something of the interior economy of his household, and he had acquiesced in the hope of getting some presents from us.
These, and other details concerning the Bongo tribe generally, occupied our attention until we arrived at the habitation of the chief, who received us in the outer room of the house, a sort of unfurnished vestibule or antechamber, the walls of which were completely covered with trophies and warlike weapons. Here were hung lance-heads of exquisite native workmanship, and there was seen the dangabor, a series of accumulated rings, most artistically made, and forming an armlet as flexible as can well be conceived. In another place arrows were interspersed amongst elephants' tusks, on which varied designs were traced, for the Bongo, besides being skilled in the manipulation of iron, shows also a great aptitude for sculpture. The ceiling was ornamented with bows, the skins of beasts, and drums hollowed out of the trunks of the tamarind tree.
Our host compelled us to admire everything; he did not omit a single detail, but unfolded all his treasures with an air of complacency, as much as to say—"There! you have never seen anything like that, either amongst my neighbours, or in your own country." In his eyes we were evidently merely a set of savages, and he looked upon himself as the sole representative, in his country, of art and industry.
At length he pulled aside the skins which served as curtains, and introduced us to his drawing-room, carpeted with reed-grass. All around this apartment were symmetrically arranged small wooden stools, each made out of a single block of wood, calledhegbas. Although the room was empty of occupants, it evidently belonged to the ladies of the establishment, for the males of the Bongo tribe despise seats, and only allow them to be made use of by women and children. Above these stools, and hanging from the walls by carved pegs of wood, were round boxes containing flour, calabashes filled with beer made from sorghum, and calledleghuy, and large bamboo baskets full of grain.
The sight of these viands quite startled Miss Poles.
"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed in a tone of voice in which amusement and alarm were very comically blended, "is our host going to ask us to dinner?"
Our companion's alarm was, to a certain extent, natural, seeing that the Bongos, who live on the confines of a district where we were destined soon to see cannibalism in full swing, are themselves by no means delicate in their eating. No description of animal food, whatever may be its state of decomposition, comes amiss to them, vultures, even when the term carrion might more properly be applied to them, worms, maggots, and scorpions being amongst their standing dishes. Nothing sickens them, nothing is revolting to their sense either of taste or smell.
Miss Poles was soon reassured, as there was no intention on the part of the chief to invite us to partake of his hospitality. He was merely in compliance with our expressed wish, about to present to us his three lawful wives, but, in their position as the spouses of a once powerful personage, it was essential that they should appear surrounded with a certain amount ofprestige. Our host clapped his hands, and his private orchestra, for the Bongo is music mad, made its triumphal entry.
This orchestra consisted of four young slave girls, furnished with rude instruments. One had in her hand a species of guitar; the second, an empty calabash covered with a very flexible skin, which she beat with a bamboo stick, and the other two confined their exertions to violently shaking large gourds filled with pebbles. With these instruments an accompaniment was played to a melancholy chant, and musical talent is developed to such an extent amongst these people that their concert, though wild and strange, did not strike us as being at all grotesque. After a limited enjoyment of this triumphal march, the chief gave another signal, and his wives, lifting up the curtains, ponderously entered the room in single file.
We might very well have supposed ourselves to have lighted on a mountebank's show, or the booth of an exhibitor of monstrosities. We almost thought we heard the customary oration—"Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and take your places, and pay as you go out if you are satisfied with what you have seen. Here you behold a female savage from the heart of Africa, who has just made a tour of Europe. She has been exhibited before all the crowned heads on the Continent, and they have presented her with numerous and flattering tokens of their admiration. This woman, as heavy as she is savage, weighs, before eating &c., &c."
I stop—the phenomena are before us, and we are permitted to admire them at our leisure. The three women sit on the stools ranged along the wall. When I say "sit," I am exaggerating—such of their person as can be accommodated on the seats certainly rests thereon, but much more overhangs the sides, and even if their too unwieldy forms had not prevented their sitting according to the ordinary acceptation of the term, a certain appendage, with which they had decked themselves in our honour, would have prevented them. They had endued themselves with a species of switch tail, made of bass, which they wear only on grand occasions for the purpose of indicating their rank and position in the world, and, above all, in order to produce a still greater effect on those who are privileged to behold them.
As for the remainder of their costume, with the exception of a few feathers in their hair, another highly fashionable adornment, they were like any other Bongo female. From their flesh, pierced and perforated in all directions, hung an infinity of ornaments, necklets without number graced their podgy necks, and their noses and monstrous lips were adorned with their choicest copper rings.
The lord and master of these atrocious creatures took our astonishment for admiration. He positively swelled with importance, and, too pleased and proud to remain silent, he informed us, through the medium of Nassar, that we were the only people who had ever been favoured with a sight of his wives.
But the principal object of our visit was to gain information as to how these creatures were fattened up to their present prodigious size, and on this point we requested some explanation from the chief. Instead of replying verbally to the question put to him in our name by Nassar, the Bongo magnate, anxious to instruct us by example rather than precept, clapped his hands a third time.
A few moments elapsed, and then five fresh slaves made their appearance, three of whom carried an immense jar filled with milk, and the other two iron bowls containing a paste made of sorghum and eleusine flour, called by the Arabstéléboun, andtocussoby the Abyssinians.
"We are expected to eat, after all," exclaimed Miss Poles. "You see I was quite right."
"My dear Miss Poles," remarked Delange, "nobody wants to force you to eat, although, by the way, there is nothing at all repulsive about this food."
"Perhaps not, but I will never sit down at the same table with these creatures!"
"Did I understand you to say table? May I ask where you see one?"
"I was speaking metaphorically, M. Delange," replied Miss Poles, rather sarcastically, "a mode of conversation which, I regret to see, your education does not permit of your understanding."
This passage of arms over, we saw that the fears of our fair companion were groundless, and that the repast was really intended for the Bongo ladies, and, in addition, as a kind of illustrated lecture for our benefit.
The chief took a small calabash, filled it with paste, and then carried it to the lips of one of his wives. I say lips from the force of habit, and the generally received impression that the lips themselves open to receive food and drink. But in these regions that notion is altogether wrong, because, seeing that the mouth assumes, by the process already mentioned, the shape of a long beak, the Bougos are obliged to make use of their fingers to lift the upper lip, and let their nourishment slip down the throat. When, after being thus opened, the mouth, which sticks out like a fortification armed with plates of ivory and copper, is allowed to shut, it does so with a sharp, metallic, and very extraordinary click.
After having made the three monstrosities swallow at least a pound of paste each, the chief dipped his calabash in the jar and gorged them with milk, they all this time looking exactly like huge babies being fed with the bottle, or a trio of overgrown geese attached, as is the case in some countries, to a plank to be fattened.
They did not seem to object in the least to the treatment, and it would not have mattered much if they had, for their husband never left off until the whole of the paste and milk had disappeared. Then, turning towards us, and pointing to his treasures, he addressed us, through the medium of Nassar, of course, in the following terms—
"This is the way I feed them; this is how they attain to that perfection of form which renders them the handsomest women in the country, and makes them worthy of belonging to a man of my rank."
"At what age do they begin their excellentregimé?" asked Delange.
"From their earliest infancy," replied the chief. "It is to the interest of all fathers in this country to feed their daughters thus, because the fatter they are the higher is the price paid for them. It is our business afterwards to keep them in condition, and improve them if possible. The daughters of every man of any consequence are compelled, every morning, to imbibe a jar of milk under their father's eye. If they hesitate or refuse, he beats them until they make up their minds lo conform to this usage."
"And have all the men of your tribe," asked the Doctor, "wives as fat as yours, and do they all feed them as highly?"
"Oh, dear no!" replied the chief, drawing himself up. "We are agricultural people and have but little cattle, so that it is only men in my position who can afford cows. My neighbours use beer instead of milk, but they never arrive at such results as mine."
"Does he, I wonder," asked de Morin, "look upon us as judges of the show, and expect a medal?"
"I dare say he does," said Delange, "and as a still higher compliment to him I am going to ask permission to take a few measurements."
Much to the indignation of Miss Poles, Delange, in the interests of science, as he said, proceeded to carry out his intention, and, when he had finished, he stepped back with the exclamation—
"Superb!"
This was duly turned into Bongo idiom by Nassar, on which the chief, whose gratification was both evident and complete, replied—
"Are they not? You have never seen anything like them, have you?"
"Never!" said Delange, as if he were lost in admiration. "And what, may I ask, is the age of this charming woman?" pointing to the fattest of the three.
"Seventeen."
"And a very promising girl she is."
In the meantime the women had been scanning Miss Poles very narrowly, and that lady's attention being attracted to the notice which was being taken of her, she asked Nassar to find out what their ideas were.
"They are very much exercised by your style of dress," replied the guide, "and they want to know why you wear it."
"Why I dress in this style? Because it is customary amongst civilized people. Do they expect English ladies to imitate them, I should like to know?"
"These ladies," continued Nassar, "know quite well that white people are in the habit of covering their bodies with superfluous and useless clothing, but they are astonished that you do not wear a costume like your friends."
The bare idea of being mistaken for one of the other sex was too much for Miss Poles, who grew almost livid with rage, and, turning on her heel, exclaimed, indignantly—
"Not content with being mis-shapen, they are idiots to boot."
Her anger seemed to amuse the Bongo ladies immensely, but I am bound to say that their hilarity did not improve their personal appearance. Their three beaks moving convulsively, their under lips clicking against the upper ones, and the noise caused thereby, produced a most grotesque effect, and when we saw and heard them laughing, we fairly roared.
Miss Poles, however, did nothing of the sort, for the more we laughed the more angry she grew, and she would have ended by giving dire offence to both the chief and his wives, if Delange had not stepped in to the rescue by sending Nassar into the outer room for the presents which we had brought with us.
We lost no time in unfolding our Parisian treasures, consisting of cheap photographs, marionettes, dolls and their houses, and toy farm-yards. These playthings, which were just the very things to take the fancy of any African negress, gave immense pleasure to the women whose rising anger we wished to allay. They forgot Miss Poles and her indignation at once, and having, after desperate efforts, succeeded in standing up, they waddled towards the toys with childish glee, holding out their hands for the presents like overgrown babies.
Miss Poles, who had been meditating some terrible revenge, now produced a pocket looking-glass and held it suddenly before one of the women, fancying, undoubtedly, that the wretched creature, brought face to face with her deformity, would recoil with horror. Nothing of the kind. The woman's eyes danced with delight, her lips burlesqued a smile, and, to crown all, the huge mass of flesh began to wriggle about, for all the world like a penguin in a fit.
"Do you mean to say that she thinks herself pretty?" exclaimed MissPoles.
"Certainly," said Delange. "And I am quite willing to confess that I think she is so in her way, just as you, Miss Poles, are in yours."
Miss Beatrice shrugged her shoulders and was about to put her glass in her pocket again, when the Bongo woman seized hold of it with both hands, and declined to give it up.
"I will not give it to you," cried Miss Poles. "You have done quite enough in the way of insult by mistaking me for a man, without stealing my looking-glass. Give it up directly, I say. Do you think that I would inflict on a glass, accustomed to my features, the torture of reflecting yours?"
But the woman, who, naturally, did not understand a single syllable of this address, continued to pull her hardest, and things were once more beginning to look serious, when Delange again came to the rescue.
"You cannot think of making use of anything that has been touched by that odious creature," said he to Miss Poles.
"That is true," was the disgusted reply. "She has profaned it, and I give it up."
And, so saying, she marched out of the place, with her chin in the air, and without deigning to say good-by to the chief or his wives. Our curiosity, too, was more than satisfied, and consequently we lost no time in rejoining our huffy companion.
April 6th.—We are going straight through the Bongo territory without troubling ourselves about the neighbouring tribes. If we were differently circumstanced, and had not an object in view which we must reach as soon as possible, we should have halted for a few weeks at Sabbi, instead of only having made, a couple of days ago, a short stay there, as in that case we might have seen something of the Mittoos, who, we are told, are quite as remarkable as the Bongos.
Every day, in spite of our unceasing watchfulness, we have to record fresh desertions, caused by the increasing fear of the tribes in the South. It is a fact, also, that the inhabitants of the various seribas through which we pass, take care to enlarge upon the subject, because none of them, neither the traders, their soldiers, nor their servants, believe that we are undertaking so long a journey for the sole purpose of getting on the track of one of our friends. "It is all an excuse," they say. "The Franks are going southwards, as their fellow-countrymen, the brothers Poncet, formerly did, to collect ivory and come into competition with us."
These people dare not attack us openly, because our force is a respectable one, and they know that we are, as it were, under the protection of the principal inhabitants of Khartoum, with whom they are inseparably connected commercially, but they do their best to injure us indirectly by diminishing our escort and inducing our bearers to leave us. As far as our bodily wants are concerned, we are treated well, thanks to our letters of credit, and, above all, to our rifles; morally, we are no longer welcomed at these last commercial depôts, as we were in the earlier ones. But the country is safe, provisions are abundant, and we have still bearers enough to carry them. If the effective strength of the caravan proper has now been decreased by about thirty individuals, we do not suffer from the loss, because from one stage to another we find Bongos both ready and willing to fill up the vacant places. Unfortunately, they are only attached to us provisionally, and they cannot, by any amount of persuasion, be induced to pass beyond their own frontier.
The rainy season has now fairly set in, but, nevertheless, we have frequent intervals of fine weather and a tolerably equable temperature. The thermometer, which stands during the day at from thirty-five to forty degrees in the shade, goes down at night to between sixteen and eighteen, but that is a variation to which we are accustomed.
We suffer principally from the heavy showers which overtake us on the march, when it is impossible to change our clothes. The negroes, owing to their semi-nudity, take these shower-baths very stoically and often enjoy them, but our costume precludes us from sharing in these sentiments.
Madame de Guéran has lately been suffering from a succession of attacks of fever, and at first bore them courageously without a murmur or calling in our doctor, but Miss Poles, ever at her side, attentive to her slightest need, and truly good in spite of her little weaknesses, discovered how far from well our beloved Baroness was, and made her take quinine. Consequently, Madame de Guéran is already much better, and, after having been carried for two days in her palanquin, she is to-day once more on horseback.
April 9th.—This morning, after spending the night on the banks of a small river called the Tondy, a short distance from the village of Ngoly, just as we were emerging from our tents to get on the road again, Nassar appeared with the intelligence that both escort and porters refused to start. Their obstinacy this time appeared to him to be invincible, and he held it to be prudent to give the caravan a day's rest.
"So be it," said de Morin, after consulting with Madame de Guéran. "We had a hard day yesterday, the stages were long, the showers heavy, and the heat overpowering. We also think it better to rest here for a day, close to the river and in the shade, but we must not appear to give in to these people. We must make them believe that we, too, want a little peace and quietness. I'll manage it."
And, lighting a cigarette, he went quietly towards the encampment, and, accosting the first Nubian he met, he said in Arabic, which we were all beginning to speak with tolerable ease—
"Tell your comrades not to strike the tents, because we intend to remain here to-day. There is to be afêteto-night in a neighbouring village, and we want to see it. So much the worse for you all if you want to move on. There will be no marching to-day, and you can tell them all that I say so."
The news, spread at once throughout the kraal that the Europeans intended to be present at thefête, or orgie, which was in preparation in the village of Ngoly. In reality thisfêtewas the very reason why the negroes refused to move on, but they never expected that their white chief would partake in their wish. If they gave full value to his generosity and sense of justice, they also dread his anger, and it was not without a certain amount of alarm that they had entered into a conspiracy to remain where they were. Their fears now disappeared, and they gave themselves up gleefully to the sweets of idleness for the day, and the prospect of every sort of excess in the evening.
The moon was at the full, and the sky appeared as bright as at mid-day, on the evening when we were called upon to share in the games and mirth of the Africans. The two ladies remained in camp, there being too much license in equatorial revelry to admit of their presence.
The whole village at eight o'clock was summoned to thefêteby beat of drum, and the largest huts were at once transformed into cafés, where all the Bongos, with the chief at their head, set to work to drink themselves into a fitting state for the coming festivities. The intoxicating beverages were contained in large earthenware jars, ranged along the walls, and from these the liquid was ladled out wholesale, by means of small gourds and calabashes.
But presently the drinking gave place to a general outcry for the dancing to begin. The huts were deserted and the streets of the village crowded in proportion, and all the men, followed by the women and children, hurried at full speed, yelling and leaping, towards a neighbouring plain surrounded by dense thickets.
Thefête, properly so called, now commenced by a circle being formed round some toothless, wizened old sorcerers, who droned out a lengthy recitative in measured, almost melancholy rhythm. The bystanders, whose ears caught the strain at once, joined in the chant, and the whole of the voices formed one vast, reverberating chorus, in the midst of which, at intervals, could be heard the howling of a dog, the cackling of hens, the crowing of cocks, the roaring of a lion, or the shrill trumpeting of an elephant, serving as so many incentives to the concourse to give free scope to their talent for imitation.
As soon as the chant came to an end in a prolonged groan, there was a renewed outcry for the dancing, and an orchestra of instrumentalists proceeded to take up a position on the trunks of fallen trees, or any slight vantage ground that was at hand. One performer blew with all the force of his lungs into a gigantic wooden trumpet, decorated with carvings representing in nearly every case a human head; another hammered with his hands and feet at an enormous mass of wood, hollowed out of the thickest part of a tree and covered with bullock hide, whilst a third had in front of him theoupaton, or tom-tom, a piece of brass on which he banged at intervals with a kind of rude drum stick. The, to us, familiar Chinese bells, or handbells, were represented by large gourds filled with pebbles, which were rattled, without intermission, by the women and children.
Then the mob, men, women, and children, gave themselves up to a frightful hurly-burly, a series of contortions, bounding, leaping, throwing their arms and legs in all directions, after a fashion at first sight positively bewildering, but in reality quite regular, and carried out in concert. It was simply a delirium, an indescribable frenzy.
Suddenly the orchestra ceased, every sound was hushed, and each one remained where he was. To confusion succeeded utter silence and complete repose.
Scarcely a moment elapsed before the drummers gave the signal again, and the dance recommenced more wildly than ever. This goes on sometimes for hours, even until morning and the feet of these maniacs refuse their office. But we did not stop for the end, and towards 3.0 a.m. we made the best of our way towards our camp, feeling rather anxious as to whether our caravan, which had taken part in the orgie, would be in a fit state to start later on. The departure was, as it turned out, a matter of some difficulty, for it was not until the afternoon that we could move, and then only by dint of mingled threats, promises, and a distribution of rewards and punishments combined.
April 11th. To-day we met a caravan coming from the south. The drums beat, standards were unfurled, and a regularfeu de joiewas fired in honour of the occasion. We contrived, nevertheless, to prevent our escort from fraternising with the new comers, and compelled them to content themselves with shaking hands and embracing. The leader of the caravan, a rather disreputable looking Turk, saluted us as he passed, a piece of politeness which we solemnly returned.
Notwithstanding our coolness towards the Turk and his people, the meeting was a relief from the monotony of the route. It was like being out at sea, on a long voyage, and coming across a vessel appearing in the horizon, growing larger and larger by degrees, passing, hoisting her flag, growing smaller again, and, finally, disappearing from view.
April 13th. After passing, yesterday, through a district where game, both large and small, was plentiful, we have, to-day, left the low country and have gone up hill to about five hundred feet above our former level. On our way Nassar came up to us, and, pointing to the summit of a mountain lying to the south-west, said—
"That is the Mbala-Nguia, which separates the Bongo territory from that of the Niam-Niam. To-morrow you will set foot on the soil of that new tribe, and you will very soon be in a position to judge of the correctness of the information I have given you about the man of whom you are in search."
At last, then, we are on the point of entering the country visited by so few Europeans. At length we are in the midst of the famous race, supposititiously endowed with tails, about whom so many lies have been told, and amongst the man-eaters, who have been described to us as being so terrible.
As the caravan had not yet surmounted all the hills which form a barrier, natural but very little respected, between the territory of the Bongos and that of the Niam-Niam, the camp had been pitched on the final declivity of the mountain, on the edge of a large plain, whence we obtained a magnificent view. Everybody retired early, and the bearers and soldiers, tired out with a long march up the steep side of the mountain, succumbed to the influence of the drowsy god sooner than usual.
Before the final descent into the country of the Niam-Niam was made, M. Périères put together the notes jotted down with reference to the Bongos, and made up the register of the expedition. M. de Morin, meanwhile, spread a bullock hide on the grass, close to his tent, and, lying flat on his back, with a cigarette in his mouth, gave himself up to a lazy contemplation of the star-lit sky. Miss Poles, with folded arms and head in the air, paced to and fro with lengthy strides, from the camp to the nearest trees and back again. The movement of her lips showed that she was talking to herself, and she was, no doubt, debating the question whether Dr. Delange was really worthy of her, or whether she would not do better to transfer her affections to M. de Morin or M. Périères.
Madame de Guéran, in whom the loveliness of the night possibly caused a longing for solitude, was seated in front of her tent, but she, nevertheless, appeared insensible to the surrounding splendour, and looked straight before her: Were her thoughts flying backwards, over the vast expanse of memory? or were they, perchance, leading her on in an attempt to fathom the future?
Dr. Delange walked up and down in front of her for a few moments, without her seeing him. He seemed anxious to accost her, but yet unwilling to break in upon her reverie. At last he summoned up courage and joined her. Seeing him, she raised her head impatiently, as if to drive away the thoughts that had been oppressing her, and said, in her sweet voice—
"You have something to say to me, I suppose, my dear Doctor? Pray say on."
"Yes," he replied. "For some days past I have been anxious for a little conversation with you, but I could never find you alone. To-night, on the contrary, everybody appears inspired with a desire to respect your solitude, and I venture to disturb it."
"And you have done well. But why choose this late hour, and so isolated a position? Have you a secret to confide to me?"
"No," replied M. Delange, quietly, "but you have one, and I am come to ask you to confide in me. Do not be indignant with me," he continued, seeing that Madame de Guéran looked surprised. "Do not tell me that our friendship is of too recent a date to warrant me in any attempt to discover your secrets or seek your confidence. In so saying you would be guilty of an injustice, and would, moreover, cause me an amount of pain which I have not deserved. Our mode of life during the last six months has brought us into closer connection than many years of ordinary society would have done, and I know that you are good enough to give me a place in your friendship and esteem already. For you, Madame de Guéran, I have a sincere respect, I may say, a sacred regard. The term is not at all high-flown, for you recall to me, both in feature and disposition, a fondly-loved relative, whom I had the misfortune to lose two years ago. It was, I think, her death which caused my going astray to a certain extent, and led me to adopt a club life, up to that time a sealed book to me. There is no reason, therefore, why you should not honour me with your confidence, and I think you will not accuse me of being over-bold in asking you for it."
"That is true," she replied, holding out her hand. "But what have I to tell you? What do you want to know?"
"Many things; and if you still hesitate to throw off your reserve towards the friend, look upon me merely as your doctor. We medical men are, as you know, confessors, to whom everything may be revealed, but by whom nothing is repeated."
"But, my dear Doctor, I am not ill."
"There lies your great mistake. You are ill, and that is my reason for interfering, first of all, as a doctor. Have you not been suffering from fever for some days past?"
"Oh, yes; but that is unavoidable in this climate."
"Excuse me; the climate, so far as concerns the districts through which we have lately passed, and the altitude in which we now are, is excellent. If a constitution such as yours could be influenced by climate, you would have been ill during the first portion of our journey—at Khartoum, which is very unhealthy, on the Upper Nile, or the Gazelle River. You were, on the contrary, in perfect health there, better than any of us, and you only began to suffer when we left off."
"From a spirit of contradiction, perhaps," said she, smiling. "But what is the result of your diagnosis?"
"This. Africa has no effect whatever upon your organization, and I must, therefore, look to other causes to account for the fever from which you are suffering, the state of depression and prostration noticeable in you, and for certain nervous symptoms which you cannot conceal from me, notwithstanding all your efforts."
"And what are those causes, Mr. Inquisitor-General?"
"May I tell you?"
"I have made up my mind to hear all your have to say."
"Well, then, they are purely moral. Your mind is ill at ease, your imagination is ever at work, and your heart is distressed. Hence the physical disturbance and disorders which I have just mentioned to you."
Madame de Guéran changed colour and bent down her head without replying. She seemed to be uncomfortable and embarrassed by the close scrutiny to which she had been subjected, but, though at first she was pained by the dissection of her innermost feelings, she still felt less isolated, less thrown back upon herself.
This state of feeling was intelligible enough—instead of being called upon for a confession she would not have had the courage to make, it was made for her. Her silence was in itself an avowal, and in saying nothing she told all.
M. Delange hastened to follow up the advantages he had gained, and continued, with warmth—
"Confide in me. You know very well that for some time past you have been seeking a confidant, but you could not find one. It was impossible for you to know me as I really am—serious enough when occasion calls for it, and devoted heart and soul to those I care for. You could not open out your heart to Miss Poles, because her eccentricities prevent her claims being taken into serious consideration, and as for our two friends, they are the very last persons you would choose as confidants."
"Why so?" she asked, abruptly.
"You want to know?"
"Certainly; candour for candour."
"And if my candour displeases you?"
"So much the worse for me. I ask you for it."
"Very well. You can only confide in a friend, and both these gentlemen love you."
"Have they told you so?" asked the Baroness, quickly.
"Never, I assure you," replied M. Delange. "But you will admit," he added, with a smile, "that it was not a very difficult discovery to make."
"Yes, they do love me," she said, resolutely, "but you forget. Doctor, that we were dealing with my sufferings, and, I presume, you do not wish me to infer that they are due to these two gentlemen."
"To a certain extent they are."
"How so? Is it absolutely necessary that I, too, should respond to this two-fold love, and beéprisein my turn?"
"No; it is very clear to me that you have no love for either of them. But their suffering conduces to yours, and you cannot help a constant feeling of uneasiness as you say to yourself—'What is to be the end of all this? How am I to extricate myself from the difficulty? How am I to get out of the false situation in which I have put myself?'"
"And, according to you, this simple feeling of uneasiness has sufficed to render me susceptible of fever, to cause me to lose my colour, to throw me into a state of prostration, and to bring on a nervous attack? I thought I was stronger."
"And so you are, in reality. The sufferings of these gentlemen simply annoy you. Your illness is within yourself. Your nerves are over-excited by the continual struggle that is going on within you, and the state of hesitation and uncertainty in which you are living."
"What uncertainty?"
"You are not in love with either of our two friends, but you are not quite sure that it will not come to pass some day. They evidently please you, and their conversation is agreeable. When they do some good action, or render you some service, your heart beats somewhat more quickly. And, what grieves you, unnerves you more than all, and puts you in a fever, is the fact that you do not know which of the two pleases you most. You are continually hesitating between one and the other, you are carried away by your imagination, and you lose yourself in useless questions and futile self-examination."
"It is because I do not love at all!" she exclaimed. "Do you think a woman does not know when she loves? Do you think she can be deceived in that?"
This time she spoke with determination.
The shades of night had now fallen completely, and the moon, which had taken possession of the sky and was reigning there in undisputed sway, lighted up the countenance of Madame de Guéran with a silvery radiance, and enhanced the natural delicacy of her features.
The Doctor replied very quietly, without seeming to notice the outburst—
"I agree with you, Baroness, and I have already explained myself on this score. You are not in love. If our friends were to leave you to-morrow, you would forget them. It is their presence alone that makes you uneasy, I had almost said, irritable."
"In that case," replied Madame de Guéran, "my illness is known, and you have found out its cause. M. de Morin and M. Périères inspire me with a vague, indefinable, almost inexplicable interest, and this divided interest," she continued, smilingly, "upsets me, worries me, and is killing me by inches."
"No, no, my dear patient, we have not quite reached that point yet. You are not the woman to allow yourself to be done to death for so little. You are no ignorant girl, to languish and grow thin in such a case as this. The interest—the word is your own—you take in our friends has no such tremendous effect upon you. It does not give rise even to a feeling of remorse when you think of M. de Guéran and your hopes of recovering him. You had every reason to believe yourself to be a widow, and you were one from a legal or official point of view; you could, if you had so wished, have given your whole heart to either of your travelling companions, and one ought really to admire you for not having bestowed even a particle of that interest—shall I call it by that name?—on either of them, even though you were at perfect liberty to withdraw it if you thought fit. Therefore, I repeat, you have nothing wherewith to reproach yourself from this point of view."
"Is there another point, then?" said she, trying to smile, but unable entirely to hide the emotion caused by the last words addressed to her.
"Yes," said M. Delange, earnestly, "you are in love, seriously in love with him who could not accompany you, whose place I took. In other words, you are in love with Dr. Desrioux."
She trembled at the name, but she did not reply, neither did she attempt to impose silence on her indiscreet confidant.
He resumed, in a more sprightly tone—
"Do you think that one doctor can keep anything from another? I do not speak much, and I am, perhaps, looked upon as seeing less. People are apt to say—'Oh, M. Delange has only eyes for cards; you need not mind him.' They are wrong. T can see beyond my game, and I make my little mental notes. I subject my neighbours to a moral auscultation, though I appear only to be marking the king. The day on which I had the honour of being introduced to you, and of becoming acquainted, in your drawing-room, with M. Desrioux, I saw at once that myconfrèrewas sincerely attached to you. On the following day I discovered that he was not absolutely indifferent to you; but, to be perfectly open and leave nothing unexplained, I must also admit that on the day when you left France you had no idea of the strength of your affection for him. If it had come home to you, you would not have accepted MM. de Morin and Périères as your travelling companions. You knew that they wereéprisewith you, and it would have been repugnant to your delicacy of feeling to have allowed them to become more, and at the same time hopelessly so. It was only by degrees, later on, by reason of separation, absence, the exchange of letters, and the receipt of news, that you found out the strength of your attachment, as well as that, in all probability, it was ever on the increase."
Pensive, and with her nature stirred to its innermost depths by what she had heard, she continued to preserve absolute silence. She had, it is true, with reluctance, and almost, fearfully, confessed all these things to herself, but it was the first time she had been told of them by anyone else.
She listened to everything the Doctor had to say without interruption, without any appearance of a desire that he would be less explicit and more considerate, and the sad smile which hovered about her lips seemed to say—
"Be perfectly open. Your words hurt me, but I must listen to them. I must open my eyes resolutely to my position; and you appear to have realized it more completely than I have. Say on then, and if, after you have said all, you can apply your healing art to me, you will be doing me a real service, I assure you."
M. Delange, for his part, derived encouragement from the silence, and continued in the same calm, brotherly tone, but slightly moved, withal, against his will.
"This love," he resumed, "which you have unknowingly brought with you, is weakening you and wearing you out. You would fain tear it out of your heart, but you lack the power so to do. At times you are tempted to reproach MM. de Morin and Périères for not making you forget him who is away, and yet if you yield for a moment to the pleasure of their society—and it is pleasant—you are at once assailed by the fear that you are wanting in truth towards that other one. You return, as it were, to him in all humility and submission, and then comes a sudden apparition of your husband looming in the distance, in the unknown land whither our steps are bent. You want to find him, duty beckons you on, and his memory is dear to you; but you shudder at the thought that your heart is no longer your own, and that it is impossible for you to give it to him. There, my dear Baroness, I have told you all that you could tell me; I am a queer confidant, for it is I alone who have been speaking all this time. I asked you to let me know your secrets; you have kept them to yourself, and I have narrated to you my own discoveries. Not that I regret in the least either my indiscretion or my garrulity, since they have taught you to know me and to see in me a devoted friend, a brother anxious for your welfare. You will no longer keep me at a distance; but, when you find your troubles too heavy for you to bear, you will summon me to your aid and open out your heart to me. And in that way alone can you alleviate your distress."
He was silent, and she, equally mute, got up and, in token of friendship, took the Doctor's arm. In this way they returned to the encampment and soon gained the nearest tents. When she reached her own, Madame de Guéran turned towards M. Delange, and held out her hand, as if to say—
"I forgive you for the boldness of your speech. You have shown yourself my friend, and I am glad to know that it is so."
She disappeared within her tent, and he betook himself to his.
M. Périères and M. de Morin were not so completely absorbed, the one in his notes of the expedition, and the other in his cigarette and the contemplation of nature, as to be entirely unconscious of the proceedings of Madam de Guéran and the Doctor. By-and-by they met, and made their comments on the lengthytête-à-tête.
"What can he be saying to her?" asked M. Périères.
"I have not the remotest idea, but their conversation appears to be interesting."
"Yes, in this bright moonlight we can clearly distinguish Madame deGuéran's countenance, and she seems moved. Do you think that theDoctor is discussing our position with regard to her?"
"I am pretty sure of it," replied M, de Morin. "He is far too intelligent and observant not to have perceived the depth of our attachment. Why do you ask?"
"Because Delange is just the man to fall in love on his own account, if he did not see that we were in that plight."
"And, seeing it, you think that he would hold his hand?"
"Certainly, I do. He is too devoted to us, and he is too straightforward in his ideas to cross our path. Are you jealous, my dear fellow?"
"Of the Doctor? Oh, no. I have too much respect for Madame de Guéran; and, besides, I think she is too uncomfortable about her position with regard to us to wish to render it still more complicated."
"De Morin?"
"Périères?"
"Shall we be perfectly open with each other?"
"We have always been so."
"Except at Khartoum, where we were within an ace of falling out."
"True, but we profited by that escape to swear eternal friendship, and I have never gone back from my word."
"Nor I either. You are sure of that?"
"Perfectly. Moreover, we have adopted certain precautions against any temptation to tear each other to pieces which might assail us. Our agreement was both wise and just. If Madame de Guéran, whether by word or look, gives either of us to understand that he is the chosen one, the happy man is at once to inform his ill-fated companion of the fact, and the victim is at once to withdraw from the contest, abandon all hope, and quit the field."
"Yes, that was it. And I can only regret, my dear fellow, that I am not in a position to ask you to take yourself off."
"My dear Périères, I positively ache to tell you to make yourself scarce, and yet I have not the slightest authority for so doing."
"So much the better, because, as far as I am concerned, I should be in a regular fix if I had to make a solitary journey back through the land of those awful Bongos, those amiable Dinkas, not to mention the Shillooks and so many others. I am rather inclined to think that, for my sake, at all events, Madame de Guéran would do well not to decide in your favour."
"To tell you the truth, my dear fellow, I am afraid she will decide neither for one nor the other."
"Precisely my fear; she shrinks from inflicting too severe a wound on the rejected one. We are not behaving generously towards her; we take away from her all freedom of choice, and, very possibly, we prevent her from saying what she would like to say."
"Nevertheless, my very dear friend, I cannot propose that, instead of descending this hill to-morrow with all our companions, for the purpose of visiting the Niam-Niam, you should retrace your steps, cheered by the society of my faithful Joseph and the donkey, of which, in that case, you would be anxious to deprive the caravan."
"I am perfectly sure of it, my dear de Morin, and yet, if we had lived in another age than our own, we should hare found some means of coming to an understanding."
"Yes, the King's Musketeers, for instance, in our position, would not have hesitated to draw their swords. I have often thought about it myself. That age was a good one, and the sword settles matters so completely."
"We might revive the custom very easily. In the heart of Africa one cannot be said to belong to any age. I am sure that when we paid our visit to those Bongo women we had no very clear idea of what century we were in. At all events on that occasion nobody could have objected to our going a step backwards, to the seventeenth or eighteenth century in imagination."
"My notion, I perceive, makes you smile, and, after all, we had better let it drop. If I happened to kill you, or to be killed by you, Madame de Guéran, I am sure, would detest me, or hate you, as the case might be. She is not very fond of the eighteenth century; she belongs to the present day, and she is journeying on through Africa, pursuing one sole idea without paying much attention to Bongo customs."
"Very possibly so. Thus, my poor friend, we can only wait."
"As you say, we can only wait, and, in truth, it is the only course open to us just at present."
"There I differ from you—we can go to bed. It is two o'clock in the morning already, and we have to start at five."
"You are right. Yon do not mind my having thought of the King'sMusketeers?"
"Mind it? The idea was capital, only, like many other excellent ideas, it was not practicable."
"I'll try to hit upon something else."
"And so will I. Good night."
"Good-bye—for three hours."
On the following day, before noon, the caravan, preceded by its band, set foot on the territory of the Niam-Niam.
Whilst, in the centre of equatorial Africa, about five hundred leagues from all the waters which lave the shores of the African continent and communicate with Europe, the French expedition was making ready to penetrate still farther into the interior of the country, and to pass limits hitherto considered to be impassable, the Parisians continued their usual manner of life, and, without caring one jot for the intrepid travellers, applied themselves to their business on a small, and their pleasures on a large scale.
The various Geographical Societies had, however, in their journals published a few notes despatched from Khartoum, in January, 1873, but, as these journals do not come under the head of ordinary current literature, they receive little or no notice at the hands of society. In the drawing-room of the Marquise de Genevray, the aunt of M. de Morin, after discussing the last new play, the latestcause célébre, and the coming fashions, a word or two might be said about Egypt and the Red Sea, but there everybody stopped, for fear of falling into some gross geographical blunder. One day, when Madame de Genevray, to give a fillip to conversation, mentioned having received news of her nephew from Souakim, everybody stared in astonishment, but nobody dared say a word except a lady of a certain age, who, nodding her head as if she knew all about it, hazarded the observation that it was some distance from Paris, on which there was a general chorus of—"Oh, yes, a considerable distance!"
Some time afterwards her guests, on hearing the Marquise come out with such names as Oondokoro and Bahr-el-Ghazal, looked positively alarmed, and wondered what these outlandish, harsh-sounding names meant, and where those countries were situated, of whose existence nobody had ever dreamt. Consequently, Madame de Genevray made up her mind to be more reticent in future, at all events where geography was concerned.
In the club to which M. de Morin, Périères, and Delange belonged, several books on African travel, published by Hachette, lay on the library table for about three weeks, but these volumes, purchased simply as mementos of boon companions, were as a rule uncut, and were soon lost to view beneath the latest novels, the fortnightly reviews, and the evening papers. If, in October and November, a few members of the club in the afternoon or before betaking themselves to bouillotte or baccarat, mentioned the Parisian expedition, asking for news of it and appearing interested in its fate, in December and January it was forgotten. The last plays of Angier and Sardou, the exploits of Mdlle. X., the duel fought by Z., and the coming to grief of young D, with a slight sprinkling of politics, at that time were the sole topics of conversation.
Dr. Desrioux and the Count de Pommerelle alone had continued to follow, in thought and on the map, their African friends. But no news having been received from them since their departure from Khartoum, MM. de Pommerelle and Desrioux were perforce limited to the written programme of the expedition and the route therein laid down. It was merely on vague lines, by probabilities rather than assured facts, that they could accompany the travellers on the map, and with them travel towards the regions barely marked. To the friendly letters, in which the individuality of each of their former companions so clearly asserted itself, succeeded records of travel which any one might read. They studied Africa in books, instead of living in it, as they had up to this time done, in the society of those they held so dear.
The time, indeed, had come when the caravan having said adieu to the Monbuttoo country, they could not find any publication nor gain any information which could give them an idea even of the districts traversed. A large blank space, extending over hundreds of miles, was before them, and their imagination alone had to take the place of the reliable reports hitherto within their reach. So, calling to mind the regrets expressed by M. Périères, in his last letter from Khartoum, with regard to the route chosen, and remembering the possibly more direct route he had traced in a south-westerly direction, the two carpet travellers proposed to make a fresh start from Zanzibar, and go westwards, towards the great lakes to meet their friends. They had already got their pins ready, and were using their glasses to discover the points at which the expedition, according to their suppositions, was bound to halt.
These ideas and cares had not, however, entirely occupied MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle. The former divided his time between his patients and his mother, whose health was daily becoming more precarious, and caused him serious anxiety. The latter lived on in his usual style, idle,ennuyé, and tired of Paris, where he remained only from the force of habit. Even this became too weak to hold him, and at last he made up his mind to go away, but, before doing so, he had to say good-bye to Dr. Desrioux, whom for a week or so he had rather neglected. He found him at home, in deep mourning, and looking pale, worn, and sad.
"What is the matter with you?" exclaimed M. de Pommerelle, "what has happened to you, my dear fellow?"
"I have just lost my mother," said M. Desrioux, in a broken voice.
"And you never sent for me? Why did you not let me know of her illness?"
"I had no time, and, indeed, I thought of nothing but striving to save her. I studied her complaint, consulted myconfrères, tried everything, and, I fear, only tortured the poor woman in the hopes of restoring her. It would have been better to have left her alone, to have let her pass away in peace and quiet. Everybody told me so, but I could not believe them, and I went on, hoping against hope. I had wrought so many unexpected cures amongst strangers, but when it came to my mother's turn I could do nothing. And, now, she is dead—she whom I so fondly loved, whom I never left, and for whom I sacrificed everything. And I—I am alone."
"No," remonstrated the Count, "you have still faithful friends, and I am one of them. Come, rouse yourself and get away from this house. Come with me."
"I cannot, I must watch still beside her. To-morrow she will be buried, and I shall never see her more. Now I can see her and be with her. To-morrow, after—you know what I mean—to-morrow take me away, far away, I can never come back here. I could not bear it."
"I am yours," said the Count, "and I will go wherever you wish."
The journal of the expedition, under the command of Madame de Guéran, is very concise as regards the Niam-Niam, whose territory the Europeans were about to enter when we left them.
An irresistible impulse hurried the caravan forward. They scarcely rested, but marched, marched, marched. All trace of whatever apathy may have, existed had disappeared; they were drawing near the Equator, and yet, owing to the fact that the country is, on an average, over two thousand yards above the sea level, and owing still more to the numerous water courses to be met with at every step, the heat was less and the air lighter, and the travellers felt stronger and more active.
The escort, also, was in a better state of discipline. In the midst of the famous tribes whom they knew by hearsay only, they were afraid of accidents and misadventures, and they dared not leave the beaten track. Every one kept his place in the ranks, and the idlers and incorrigibles now hesitated either to lag behind or to make any expeditions on their own account into the brakes and thickets. Moreover, the caravan was not as numerous as it was when it started. We have already seen that it had diminished gradually, losing many of its members in the various seribas and amongst the Bongos. But, at the last stage before entering the Niam-Niam territory, there was a panic, a regular stampede, and more than sixty men bolted in all directions. Those who remained were at all events better worth having, because, having resisted every temptation, they might be looked upon as likely to be reliable in the future. They appeared to have unlimited confidence in their leaders, and they fully understood that, to make head against all dangers, they needed the support and assistance of the Europeans, and the influence which white men ever possess over their black brethren. Every step forward made desertion and flight more difficult. How, indeed, could they find their way back without a guide or counsellor in the midst of this tangled mass of woods, forests, and trees? They were very like our own sailors. Noisy and occasionally unmanageable when in harbour or ashore, they blindly obey their officers when at sea. They are conscious of their want of experience, and they know that, in spite of their numbers, they would be powerless to navigate the ship or fight against the elements. Brute force gives way before moral influence.
We may assume that the Europeans, according to all probability, though they are not explicit on this point, profited by the lower temperature and the improved discipline of the caravan to make longer stages and cross the territory of the Niam-Niam as quickly as possible. In the evening, tired out, they had not the heart to jot down in their journal their notes by the way. They confined themselves to a remark here and there, and a few curt paragraphs to which we may add the information we ourselves have gathered from the most reliable works on the subject. Thus, we are enabled to devote a few lines, very few, to a most curious and almost unknown race, whose savage nature in some respects passes all limits, but who also can boast of a species of civilization which one cannot help admiring.
Their cannibalism is admitted by every traveller except the Italian, Praggia, but even he confesses to have been a witness to one instance of it, though he puts it down to hatred and a spirit of revenge. We may, consequently, look upon it as a fact, and consider the Niam-Niam from other points of view, which certainly redound more to their credit.
Their vast territory is drained, to a certain extent, by countless streams, living sources of marvellous richness. In their land the glory of the tropics shines forth in all its splendour. "Trees with immense stems," says Schweinfurth, "and of a height surpassing all that we had elsewhere seen (not even excepting the palms of Egypt), here stood in masses which seemed unbounded except where at intervals some less towering forms rose gradually higher and higher beneath their shade. In the innermost recesses of these woods one would come upon an avenue like the colonnade of an Egyptian temple, veiled in the leafy shade of a triple roof above. Seen from without, they had all the appearance of impenetrable forests, but traversed within, they opened into aisles and corridors which were musical with many a murmuring fount. Hardly anywhere was the height of these woods less than seventy feet, and on an average it was much nearer a hundred. Far as the eye could reach it rested solely upon green, which did not admit a gap. The narrow paths that wound themselves partly through and partly around the growing thickets were formed by steps consisting of bare and protruding roots, which retained the light loose soil together. Mouldering stems, thickly clad with moss, obstructed the passage at well-nigh every turn. The air was no longer that of the sunny steppe, nor that of the shady grove; it was stifling as the atmosphere of a palm-house. Its temperature might vary from 70° to 80° Fahr., but it was so overloaded with an oppressive moisture exhaled by the rank foliage that the traveller could not feel otherwise than relieved to escape."
Praggia calls this part of the Niam-Niam territory "galleries," and he says that they reminded him of shady, perfume-laden paths in the enchanted gardens of the poets. But, instead of lovely nymphs, they are peopled with the ponderous rhinoceros, the savage buffalo, the massive elephant, and numerous varieties of monkeys.
The population of the known districts, for we have not yet reached the extreme western frontier, amounts to about three millions, spread over two degrees of longitude and six of latitude.
The appearance of this tribe, called amongst themselves Zandey or Sandey, for the word Niam-Niam is a nick-name, signifying "eaters," is startling to a degree, and puts in the shade everything seen from the Upper Nile to Khartoum, or in all the region situated to the south of the Gazelle River, making it appear tame and spiritless.
M. Périères relates, in his journal, that the caravan had scarcely set foot on the territory of the Niam-Niam than it was surrounded by an inquisitive crowd, which increased every moment. It was a question of who should be the first to see the white man, and, above all, the white woman, the Sultana, at the sight of whom there were universal cries of admiration. The news of the arrival of thecortégespread from hamlet to hamlet, and there was a regular human hedge along the road. The Europeans were not, however, the objects of any hostile demonstration. Some of the chiefs, it is true, demanded a tribute, but as soon as they had received it, they fraternized with the escort, offered their services as guides to the next district, and were often of great use. M. Périères took advantage of this curiosity, which brought him in close contact with the natives, to trace their portraits in a few lines, whilst M. de Morin, on horseback, made a sketch here and there of a picturesque costume, or an original type of countenance.