Every Man Carries His
Weapons, Pipe, And Stool, The Whole (Except The Stool) Being Held
Between His Legs When Standing.
These natives of Gondokoro are the Bari:
the men are well grown, the women are not prepossessing, but the
negro-type of thick lips and flat nose is wanting; their features are
good, and the woolly hair alone denotes the trace of negro blood.
They
are tattooed upon the stomach, sides, and back, so closely, that it has
the appearance of a broad belt of fish-scales, especially when they are
rubbed with red ochre, which is the prevailing fashion. This pigment is
made of a peculiar clay, rich in oxide of iron, which, when burnt, is
reduced to powder, and then formed into lumps like pieces of soap; both
sexes anoint themselves with this ochre, formed into a paste by the
admixture of grease, giving themselves the appearance of new red bricks.
The only hair upon their persons is a small tuft upon the crown of the
head, in which they stick one or more feathers. The women are generally
free from hair, their heads being shaved. They wear a neat little
lappet, about six inches long, of beads, or of small iron rings, worked
like a coat of mail, in lieu of a fig-leaf, and the usual tail of fine
shreds of leather or twine, spun from indigenous cotton, pendant behind.
Both the lappet and tail are fastened on a belt which is worn round the
loins, like those in the Shir tribe; thus the toilette is completed at
once. It would be highly useful, could they only wag their tails to
whisk off the flies which are torments in this country.
The cattle are very small; the goats and sheep are quite Lilliputian,
but they generally give three at a birth, and thus multiply quickly. The
people of the country were formerly friendly, but the Khartoumers
pillage and murder them at discretion in all directions; thus, in
revenge, they will shoot a poisoned arrow at a stranger unless he is
powerfully escorted. The effect of the poison used for the arrow-heads
is very extraordinary. A man came to me for medical aid; five months ago
he bad been wounded by a poisoned arrow in the leg, below the calf, and
the entire foot had been eaten away by the action of the poison. The
bone rotted through just above the ankle, and the foot dropped off. The
most violent poison is the produce of the root of a tree, whose milky
juice yields a resin that is smeared upon the arrow. It is brought from
a great distance, from some country far west of Gondokoro. The juice of
the species of euphorbia, common in these countries, is also used for
poisoning arrows. Boiled to the consistence of tar, it is then smeared
upon the blade. The action of the poison is to corrode the flesh, which
loses its fiber, and drops away like jelly, after severe inflammation
and swelling. The arrows are barbed with diabolical ingenuity; some are
arranged with poisoned heads that fit into sockets; these detach from
the arrow on an attempt to withdraw them; thus the barbed blade, thickly
smeared with poison, remains in the wound, and before it can be cut out
the poison is absorbed by the system. Fortunately the natives are bad
archers. The bows are invariably made of the male bamboo, and are kept
perpetually strung; they are exceedingly stiff, but not very elastic,
and the arrows are devoid of feathers, being simple reeds or other light
wood, about three feet long, and slightly knobbed at the base as a hold
for the finger and thumb; the string is never drawn with the two
forefingers, as in most countries, but is simply pulled by holding the
arrow between the middle joint of the forefinger and the thumb. A stiff
bow drawn in this manner has very little power; accordingly the extreme
range seldom exceeds a hundred and ten yards.
The Bari tribe are very hostile, and are considered to be about the
worst of the White Nile. They have been so often defeated by the
traders' parties in the immediate neighborhood of Gondokoro, that they
are on their best behavior, while within half a mile of the station; but
it is not at all uncommon to be asked for beads as a tax for the right
of sitting under a shady tree, or for passing through the country. The
traders' people, in order to terrify them into submission, were in the
habit of binding them, hands and feet, and carrying them to the edge of
a cliff about thirty feet high, a little beyond the ruins of the old
mission-house: beneath this cliff the river boils in a deep eddy; into
this watery grave the victims were remorselessly hurled as food for
crocodiles. It appeared that this punishment was dreaded by the natives
more than the bullet or rope, and it was accordingly adopted by the
trading parties.
Upon my arrival at Gondokoro I was looked upon by all these parties as a
spy sent by the British Government. Whenever I approached the
encampments of the various traders, I heard the clanking of fetters
before I reached the station, as the slaves were being quickly driven
into hiding-places to avoid inspection. They were chained by two rings
secured round the ankles, and connected by three or four links. One of
these traders was a Copt, the father of the American Consul at Khartoum;
and, to my surprise, I saw the vessels full of brigands arrive at
Gondokoro, with the American flag flying at the mast-head.
Gondokoro was a perfect hell. It is utterly ignored by the Egyptian
authorities, although well known to be a colony of cut-throats. Nothing
would be easier than to send a few officers and two hundred men from
Khartoum to form a military government, and thus impede the slave-trade;
but a bribe from the traders to the authorities is sufficient to insure
an uninterrupted asylum for any amount of villany.
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