Although The People
Who Inhabited This District Were All Baris, There Was No Cohesion Among
Them.
They were divided into numerous small chiefdoms, each governed by
its sheik or head man.
Thus Allorron represented Gondokoro, while every
petty district was directed by a similar sheik. The Bari country was
thickly inhabited. The general features of the landscape were rolling
park-like grass lands; - very little actual flat, but a series of
undulations, ornamented with exceedingly fine timber-forests of
considerable extent, and mountains rising to about 2,500 or 3,000 feet
above their base. From these mountains numerous streams drained to the
Nile: these were generally dry in the summer season. The soil was poor
in the neighbourhood of Gondokoro, but at a distance from the river, the
country was fertile; the rocks were throughout granitic; the mountains
yielded the finest iron ore, especially those of Belinian, twelve miles
from Gondokoro, where the natives were expert black smiths. Cultivation
was carried on to a large extent throughout the country; the corn
generally used was the common dhurra (Sorghum vulgare). This was usually
the dark-red variety, which, being rather bitter, has a chance of escape
from the clouds of small birds which ruin the crops. Sesame was common
throughout all portions of Central Africa, and throve well upon the poor
and light soil of Gondokoro.
The Baris were exceedingly neat in their dwellings, and their villages
were innumerable. Each hut was surrounded by a small court composed of
cement made from the clay of the white-ant hills mixed with cow-dung and
smeared with ashes:
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