This was
commenced on the 28th August; thus my men had been four months engaged
in the work, owing to the extreme hardness of the subsoil, which was a
compact gravel resembling concrete.
The three faces of the fort measured 455 yards of fosse and earthen
rampart. The fosse was eight feet wide, eight feet deep, and the face of
the rampart was protected by chevaux-de-frise of sharpened stakes. The
west base of the fort was the rock citadel, which commanded the
surrounding country. Upon this solid foundation I had built an excellent
powder-magazine and store, of solid masonry. This fire-proof building
was roofed with a thick cement of clay from the white-ant hills, that
had been tempered for some weeks and mixed with chopped straw.
All my work was completed, and I could do nothing until the
reinforcements should arrive from Gondokoro. The natives paid their
trifling corn-tax with great good humour, and they generally arrived in
crowds of several hundreds, singing and dancing, with large baskets of
tullaboon upon their heads, with which they filled our rows of
granaries.
The grass was fit to burn, and the bunting season had fairly commenced.
All the natives now devoted themselves to this important pursuit. The
chase supplies the great tribe of Shooli with clothing. Although the
women are perfectly naked, every man wears the skin of an antelope slung
across his shoulders, so arranged as to be tolerably decent. The number
of animals that are annually destroyed may be imagined from the amount
of the skin-clad population.
Although the wilderness between Unyoro and Fatiko is uninhabited, in
like manner with extensive tracts between Fabbo and Fatiko, every
portion of that apparently abandoned country is nominally possessed by
individual proprietors, who claim a right of game by inheritance.
This strictly conservative principle has existed from time immemorial,
and may perhaps suggest to those ultra-radicals who would introduce
communistic principles into England, that the supposed original equality
of human beings is a false datum for their problem. There is no such
thing as equality among human beings in their primitive state, any more
than there is equality among the waves of the sea, although they may
start from the same level of the calm.
In a state of savagedom, the same rules of superiority which advance
certain individuals above the general level in civilized societies will
be found to exert a natural influence. Those who become eminent will be
acknowledged by their inferiors. The man who is clever and wise in
council will be listened to: the warrior who leads with courage and
judgment will be followed in the battle; the hunter who excels in
tracking up the game will be sent to the front when the party are on the
blood-track.
