The Latooka stream is now full, and has the
appearance of a permanent river carrying a considerable body of water to
the Sobat.
I met with two thieves while duck-shooting this morning - the one an
eagle, and the other a native. The beautiful white-throated fish-eagle
may generally be seen perched upon a bough overhanging the stream, ready
for any prey that may offer. This morning I shot two ducks right and
left as they flew down the course of the river - -one fell dead in the
water, but the other, badly hit, fluttered along the surface for some
distance, and was immediately chased and seized by a fish-eagle which,
quite reckless of the gun, had been watching the sport from a high tree,
and evinced a desire to share the results. My men, not to be done out of
their breakfast, gave chase, shouting and yelling to frighten the eagle,
and one of them having a gun loaded with buckshot, fired, and the
whirr-r of the charge induced the eagle to drop the duck, which was
triumphantly seized by the man.
The other thief was a native. I fired a long shot at a drake; the bird
flew a considerable distance and towered, falling about a quarter of a
mile distant. A Latooka was hoeing close to where it fell, and we
distinctly saw him pick up the bird and run to a bush, in which he hid
it: upon our arrival he continued his work as though nothing had
happened, and denied all knowledge of it: he was accordingly led by the
ear to the bush, where we found the duck carefully secreted.
June 14. - -The natives lost one man killed in the fight yesterday,
therefore the night was passed in singing and dancing.
The country is drying up; although the stream is full there is no rain
in Latooka, the water in the river being the eastern drainage of the
Obbo mountains, where it rains daily.
Ibrahimawa, the Bornu man, alias "Sinbad the Sailor," the great
traveller, amuses and bores me daily with his long and wonderful stories
of his travels. The style of his narratives may be conjectured from the
following extracts: "There was a country adjoining Bornu, where the king
was so fat and heavy that he could not walk, until the doctors OPENED
HIS BELLY AND CUT THE FAT OUT, which operation was repeated annually."
He described another country as a perfect Paradise, where no one ever
drank anything so inferior as water. This country was so wealthy that
the poorest man could drink merissa (beer). He illustrated the general
intoxication by saying, that "after 3 P.M. no one was sober, throughout
the country, and from that hour the cows, goats, and fowls WERE ALL
DRUNK, as they drank the merissa left in the jars by their owners, who
were all asleep."
He knew all about England, having been a servant, on a Turkish frigate
that was sent to Gravesend.
