The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, Samuel White Baker [inspirational novels .TXT] 📗

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three pounds of various beads, to be divided among them. He appeared

highly delighted, and declared his intention of sending all his wives to

pay Mrs. Baker a visit. This was an awful visitation, as each wife would

expect a present for herself, and would assuredly have either a child or

a friend for whom she would beg an addition. I therefore told him that

the heat was so great that we could not bear too many in the tent, but

that if Bokke, his favourite, would appear, we should be glad to see

her.

 

Accordingly he departed, and shortly we were honoured by a visit. Bokke

and her daughter were announced, and a prettier pair of savages I never

saw. They were very clean;—their hair was worn short, like all the

women of the country, and plastered with red ochre and fat, so as to

look like vermilion; their faces were slightly tattooed on the cheeks

and temples; and they sat down on the many-coloured carpet with great

surprise, and stared at the first white man and woman they had ever

seen. We gave them both a number of necklaces of red and blue beads, and

I secured Bokke’s portrait in my sketch book, obtaining a very correct

likeness. She told us that Mahommed Her’s men were very bad people; that

they had burnt and plundered one of her villages; and that one of the

Latookas who had been wounded in the fight by a bullet had just died,

and they were to dance for him tomorrow, if we would like to attend.

She asked many questions; how many wives I had? and was astonished to

hear that I was contented with one. This seemed to amuse her immensely,

and she laughed heartily with her daughter at the idea. She said that my

wife would be much improved if she would extract her four front teeth

from the lower jaw, and wear the red ointment on her hair, according to

the fashion of the country; she also proposed that she should pierce her

under lip, and wear the long pointed polished crystal, about the size of

a drawing pencil, that is the “thing” in the Latooka country. No woman

among the tribe who has any pretensions to be a “swell” would be without

this highly-prized ornament, and one of my thermometers having come to

an end I broke the tube into three pieces, and they were considered as

presents of the highest value, to be worn through the perforated under

lip. Lest the piece should slip through the hole in the lip, a kind of

rivet is formed by twine bound round the inner extremity, and this

protruding into the space left by the extraction of the four front teeth

of the lower jaw, entices the tongue to act upon the extremity, which

gives it a wriggling motion, indescribably ludicrous during

conversation.

 

I cannot understand for what reason all the White Nile tribes extract

the four front teeth of the lower jaw. Were the meat of the country

tender, the loss of teeth might be a trifle; but I have usually found

that even a good set of grinders are sometimes puzzled to go through the

operation needful to a Latooka beefsteak. It is difficult to explain

real beauty; a defect in one country is a desideratum in another; scars

upon the face are, in Europe, a blemish; but here and in the Arab

countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks or temples have been

gashed.

 

The Arabs make three gashes upon each cheek, and rub the wounds with

salt and a kind of porridge (asida) to produce proud flesh; thus every

female slave, captured by the slave-hunters, is marked to prove her

identity, and to improve her charms. Each tribe has its peculiar fashion

as to the position and form of the cicatrix.

 

The Latookas gash the temples and cheeks of their women, but do not

raise the scar above the surface, as is the custom of the Arabs.

 

Polygamy is, of course, the general custom; the number of a man’s wives

depending entirely upon his wealth, precisely as would the number of his

horses in England. There is no such thing as love in these countries:

the feeling is not understood, nor does it exist in the shape in which

we understand it. Everything is practical, without a particle of

romance. Women are so far appreciated as they are valuable animals. They

grind the corn, fetch the water, gather firewood, cement the floors,

cook the food, and propagate the race; but they are mere servants, and

as such are valuable. The price of a good-looking, strong young wife,

who could carry a heavy jar of water, would be ten cows; thus a man,

rich in cattle, would be rich in domestic bliss, as he could command a

multiplicity of wives. However delightful may be a family of daughters

in England, they nevertheless are costly treasures; but in Latooka, and

throughout savage lands, they are exceedingly profitable. The simple

rule of proportion will suggest that if one daughter is worth ten cows,

ten daughters must be worth a hundred, therefore a large family is the

source of wealth; the girls produce the cows, and the boys milk them.

All being perfectly naked (I mean the girls and the boys), there is no

expense, and the children act as herdsmen to the flocks as in the

patriarchal times. A multiplicity of wives thus increases wealth by the

increase of family. I am afraid this practical state of affairs will be

a strong barrier to missionary enterprise.

 

A savage holds to his cows, and his women, but especially to his COWS.

In a razzia fight he will seldom stand for the sake of his wives, but

when he does fight it is to save his cattle. I had now a vivid

exemplification of this theory.

 

One day, at about 3 P.M., the men of Ibrahim started upon some

mysterious errand, but returned equally mysterious at about midnight. On

the following morning I heard that they had intended to attack some

place upon the mountains, but they had heard that it was too powerful;

and as “discretion is the better part of valour,” they had returned.

 

On the day following I heard that there had been some disaster, and that

the whole of Mahommed Her’s party had been massacred. The natives seemed

very excited, and messenger succeeded messenger, all confirming the

account that Mahommed Her had attacked a village on the mountains, the

same that Ibrahim had intended to attack, and that the natives had

exterminated their whole party.

 

On the following morning I sent ten of my men with a party of Ibrahim’s

to Latome to make inquiries. They returned on the following afternoon,

bringing with them two wounded men.

 

It appeared that Mahommed Her had ordered his party of 110 armed men, in

addition to 300 natives, to make a razzia upon a certain village among

the mountains for slaves and cattle. They had succeeded in burning a

village, and in capturing a great number of slaves. Having descended the

pass, a native gave them the route that would lead to the capture of a

large herd of cattle that they had not yet discovered. They once more

ascended the mountain by a different path, and arriving at the kraal,

they commenced driving off the vast herd of cattle. The Latookas, who

had not fought while their wives and children were being carried into

slavery, now fronted bravely against the muskets to defend their herds,

and charging the Turks, they drove them down the pass.

 

It was in vain that they fought; every bullet aimed at a Latooka struck

a rock, behind which the enemy was hidden. Rocks, stones, and lances

were hurled at them from all sides and from above; they were forced to

retreat.

 

The retreat ended in a panic and precipitate flight. Hemmed in on all

sides, amidst a shower of lances and stones thrown from the mountain

above, the Turks fled pele-mele down the rocky and precipitous ravines.

Mistaking their route, they came to a precipice from which there was no

retreat. The screaming and yelling savages closed round them. Fighting

was useless; the natives, under cover of the numerous detached rocks,

offered no mark for an aim; while the crowd of armed savages thrust them

forward with wild yells to the very verge of the great precipice about

five hundred feet below. Down they fell! hurled to utter destruction by

the mass of Latookas pressing onward! A few fought to the last; but one

and all were at length forced, by sheer pressure, over the edge of the

cliff, and met a just reward for their atrocities.

 

My men looked utterly cast down, and a feeling of horror pervaded the

entire party. No quarter had been given by the Latookas; and upwards of

200 natives who had joined the slave-hunters in the attack, had also

perished with their allies. Mahommed Her had not him self accompanied

his people, both he and Bellaal, my late ringleader, having remained in

camp; the latter having, fortunately for him, been disabled, and placed

hors de combat by the example I had made during the mutiny.

 

My men were almost green with awe, when I asked them solemnly, “Where

were the men who had deserted from me?” Without answering a word they

brought two of my guns and laid them at my feet. They were covered with

clotted blood mixed with sand, which had hardened like cement over the

locks and various portions of the barrels. My guns were all marked. As I

looked at the numbers upon the stocks, I repeated aloud the names of the

owners. “Are they all dead?” I asked. “All dead,” the men replied. “FOOD

FOR THE VULTURES?” I asked. “None of the bodies can be recovered,”

faltered my vakeel. “The two guns were brought from the spot by some

natives who escaped, and who saw the men fall. They are all killed.”

“Better for them had they remained with me and done their duty. The hand

of God is heavy,” I replied. My men slunk away abashed, leaving the gory

witnesses of defeat and death upon the ground. I called Saat and ordered

him to give the two guns to Richarn to clean.

 

Not only my own men but the whole of Ibrahim’s party were of opinion

that I had some mysterious connexion with the disaster that had befallen

my mutineers. All remembered the bitterness of my prophecy, “The

vultures will pick their bones,” and this terrible mishap having

occurred so immediately afterwards took a strong hold upon their

superstitious minds. As I passed through the camp, the men would quietly

exclaim, “Wah Illahi Hawaga!” (My God! Master.) To which I simply

replied, “Robinee fe!” (There is a God.) From that moment I observed an

extraordinary change in the manner of both my people and those of

Ibrahim, all of whom now paid us the greatest respect.

 

Unfortunately a great change had likewise taken place in the manner of

the Latookas. The whole town was greatly excited, drums were beating and

horns blowing in all quarters, every one rejoicing at the annihilation

of Mahommed Her’s party. The natives no longer respected the superior

power of guns; in a hand-to-hand fight they had proved their own

superiority, and they had not the sense to distinguish the difference

between a struggle in a steep mountain pass and a battle on the open

plain. Ibrahim was apprehensive of a general attack on his party by the

Latookas.

 

This was rather awkward, as it was necessary for him to return to

Gondokoro for a large supply of ammunition which had been left there for

want of porters to convey it, when he had started for the interior.