were able to walk about with, comfort. A coat was
then bearable, and during the night we wore sheets
of serge to keep us warm. Eain was noted in my
journal on the 12th of January from the N.E., and
another note mentions at this time, wind “ all day
N.N.W., blowing with great freshness.”
Provisions—namely, koonde, murwa, and jowari—
were scarce and dear in the villages opposite Jubl Koo-
koo during the month of January, which was their winter
season. Large figs, called M’kooyoo, though thick-
skinned and full of seeds, were now sweet and palatable.
No crops were seen growing — all looked desolate
wastes and covers. Even the stream which flowed
past Apuddo, for three miles up its tortuous course had
not a thicket to mark its windings through the plain.
The banks dropped straight down fifteen feet to its
sandy bed, which was sometimes broken by grass-
topped and fissured rocks, and in places by ridges of
rock, making a cataract or waterfall. Above this, in
one reach two hundred yards long, the water lay deep
and almost still, teeming with fish two and three feet
in length. We had no means of catching them, and
the natives did not use nets, but most likely they had
basket-traps.
The people dwelt in villages surrounded by palisades.
Some of these villages contained two hundred
souls, young and old. It would not be considered
safe to have a much smaller settlement, as their neighbours
to the east, the Kidi, would come down to
plunder them of their herds of cattle. We observed
a leper with white hands and limbs. Whether he had
succeeded by right to his position of “M’koongoo,”
or head of a district, or whether from being looked
upon as a favoured man he was elected president, we
could not say, but the latter is not unlikely ; for the
natives of Africa have a respect for men with spotted
skins. The Turks generally applied to us for medical
advice. One day a tooth had to be drawn; a rag
was tied round each half of a pair of scissors, and I
had to make these answer all the purpose of a forceps.
Again, a disease which very much resembles diphtheria,
and which was said to be fatal unless cut, was
treated in an odd way. The patient had a white
abscess in the throat, and it required to be cut. They
had no instrument for the purpose, and we had only
a penknife, and there was further the difficulty of
reaching the seat of the disease. The natives, however,
are ingenious; they pulled out the tongue so far
that a hair noose could be put round the abscess, and
it was then cut, much to the poor man’s relief, who
speedily recovered.
It has been mentioned that the people of Madi
wear the teeth of crocodiles as neck ornaments. The
natives of Bari do the same, and the pearly white
colour of the teeth is most becoming to their deep
bronze complexions. Another ornament seen here
was new to u s : the thigh-bones of sheep and rats
were pierced at one end, and slung from the neck.
I had seen nothing like this since leaving Delagoa
Bay, where the Zulu Kaffirs, called in Central Africa
“Watuta,” wear bones, bird’s-feet, &c., as charms
round the neck.
On the 1st of February 1863, we marched in a
caravan or troop of no less than three hundred souls
from our camp at Apuddo to some villages fifteen
miles distant on the route to Gondokoro. Having to