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.
