The Spearing Of Fish Is A Mere Hazard, As
They Cast The Harpoon At Random Among The Reeds; Thus, Out Of Three Or
Four Hundred Casts, They May, By Good Luck, Strike A Fish.
The harpoon
is neatly made, and is attached to a pliable reed about twenty feet
long, secured by a long line.
Occasionally they strike a monster, as
there are varieties of fish which attain a weight of two hundred pounds.
In the event of harpooning such a fish, a long and exciting chase is the
result, as he carries away the harpoon, and runs out the entire length
of line; they then swim after him, holding their end of the line, and
playing him until exhausted. The chief of this tribe (the Kytch) wore a
leopard-skin across his shoulders, and a skull-cap of white beads, with
a crest of white ostrich-feathers; but the mantle was merely slung over
his shoulders, and all other parts of his person were naked. His
daughter was the best-looking girl that I have seen among the blacks;
she was about sixteen. Her clothing consisted of a little piece of
dressed hide about a foot wide slung across her shoulders, all other
parts being exposed. All the girls of this country wear merely a circlet
of little iron jingling ornaments round their waists. They came in
numbers, bringing small bundles of wood to exchange for a few handfuls
of corn. Most of the men are tall, but wretchedly thin; the children are
mere skeletons, and the entire tribe appears thoroughly starved. The
language is that of the Dinka. The chief carried a curious tobacco-box,
an iron spike about two feet long, with a hollow socket, bound with
iguana-skin; this served for either tobacco-box, club, or dagger.
Throughout the whole of this marshy country it is curious to observe the
number of white ant-hills standing above the water in the marshes: these
Babel towers save their inmates from the deluge; working during the dry
season, the white ants carry their hills to so great a height (about ten
feet), that they can live securely in the upper stories during the
floods. The whole day we are beset by crowds of starving people,
bringing small gourd-shells to receive the expected corn. The people of
this tribe are mere apes, trusting entirely to the productions of nature
for their subsistence; they will spend hours in digging out field-mice
from their burrows, as we should for rabbits. They are the most pitiable
set of savages that can be imagined; so emaciated, that they have no
visible posteriors; they look as though they had been planed off, and
their long thin legs and arms give them a peculiar gnat-like appearance.
At night they crouch close to the fires, lying in the smoke to escape
the clouds of mosquitoes. At this season the country is a vast swamp,
the only dry spots being the white ant-hills; in such places the natives
herd like wild animals, simply rubbing themselves with wood-ashes to
keep out the cold.
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