Whenever
I Shot An Animal The Shooa Natives Would Invariably Cut Its Throat, And
Drink The Hot Blood As It Gushed From The Artery.
In this neighbourhood
there was a great scarcity of game the natives of Lira described their
country as teeming with elephants and rhinoceros; a fine horn of the
latter they brought with them to Shooa.
There is only one variety of
rhinoceros that I have met with in the portions of Africa that I have
visited: this is the two-horned, a very exact sketch of which I made of
the head of one that I cut off after I had shot it. This two-horned
black rhinoceros is extremely vicious. I have remarked that they almost
invariably charge any enemy that they smell, but do not see; they
generally retreat if they observe the object before obtaining the wind.
In my rambles in search of game, I found two varieties of cotton growing
indigenous to the country: one with a yellow blossom was so short in the
staple as to be worthless, but the other (a red blossom) produced a fine
quality that was detached with extreme ease from the seeds. A sample of
this variety I brought to England, and deposited the seed at the Royal
Botanical Gardens at Kew. A large quantity was reported to be grown at
Lira, some of which was brought me by the chief; this was the inferior
kind. I sketched the old chief of Lira, who when in full dress wore a
curious ornament of cowrie shells upon his felt wig that gave him a most
comical appearance, as he looked like the caricature of an English
judge. The Turks had extended their excursions in their search for
ivory, and they returned from an expedition sixty miles east of Shooa,
bringing with them two donkeys that they had obtained from the natives.
This was an interesting event, as for nearly two years I had heard from
the natives of Latooka, and from those of Unyoro, that donkeys existed
in a country to the east. These animals were the same in appearance as
those of the Soudan; the natives never rode, but simply used them to
transport wood from the forest to their villages; the people were
reported as the same in language and appearance as the Lira tribe.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NATIVES IN MOURNING.
The hour of deliverance from our long sojourn in Central Africa was at
hand; it was the month of February, and the boats would be at Gondokoro.
The Turks had packed their ivory; the large tusks were fastened to poles
to be carried by two men, and the camp was a perfect mass of this
valuable material. I counted 609 loads of upwards of 50 lbs. each;
thirty-one loads were lying at an outstation: therefore the total
results of the ivory campaign during the last twelve months were about
32,000 lbs., equal to about 9,630 pounds when delivered in Egypt. This
was a perfect fortune for Koorshid.
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