CHAPTER XXVII.

"We had scarcely set foot in the land of the Monbuttoos before, thanks to their perfect candour, we knew all about their tastes, for, when we proposed to do a little bartering, they brought us a quantity of bones, hands, jaws, and pieces of heads which must certainly have been the remains of their repasts. From that moment we quite agreed with Schweinfurth in his assertion that 'the cannibalism of the Monbuttoo is unsurpassed by any nation in the world. But,' continues that authority, 'with it all, the Monbuttoos are a noble race of men; men who display a certain national pride, and are endowed with an intellect and judgment such as few natives of the African wilderness can boast; men to whom one may put a reasonable question, and who will return a reasonable answer. The Nubians can never say enough in praise of their faithfulness in friendly intercourse, or of the order and stability of their national life.'"

I have given the opinion of the famous German traveller _verbatim_; now let us see for ourselves what conclusion should be come to as regards this tribe. It covers an area of four thousand square miles, situated between 8° and 4° north latitude, 26° and 27° longitude east from Paris. This country, which boasts about a million inhabitants, is still, as it was two years ago, when Schweinfurth visited it, under the absolute sway of one single ruler. King Munza, a most despotic sovereign, who reigns in the western division, and who has delegated a portion of his power to his brother Degberra, Viceroy of the Eastern Provinces. But Munza alone is known, and science, we repeat, comes to a dead halt at the country of the Monbuttoos.

The journey we are about to undertake, if, indeed, what we hear about M. de Guéran leads us southwards, will land us in a blank space, about which, as far as we have gone, no one has been able to give us the slightest information. What news shall we gather about the stay of our fellow-countryman in the midst of this people, or about the route he took on quitting them? Is he, perchance, still here, kept prisoner by Munza? We are under one continual apprehension—a perpetual anxiety. If we put a question to a native, we at once think that he is sure to say something in reply about the white man whom he saw before we arrived on the scene, and who could not fail to have been an object of curiosity. But we can only hope to get reliable information from Munza himself, in the midst of his court and in the full splendour of his surroundings, and, in order to reach the royal residence as quickly as possible, we never cease to stimulate the zeal of our escort and bearers.

Madame de Guéran has now taken up her position at the head of the caravan, by the side of the guide, Nassar, to impart, as she says, courage to those behind her. And, indeed, the sight of this brave, young, and perfectly lovely woman, always wearing the strikingly original costume, we have already described, produces a very great impression on our soldiers. To them she is no longer a being of this earth; she gives these infidels an idea of a very different world from the one they inhabit. They have always respected her, but now they revere and love her. She has succeeded in winning the sympathies, as well as in captivating the imaginations of all these Orientals.

All sorts of tales, and even legends, which we have more than once had the opportunity of hearing, are in circulation about her. "She is," say some, "the daughter of a mighty Northern Prince, and her father has sent her to us to travel and instruct herself." According to the Nubians, she is a powerful Sultana, whose husband had been made prisoner by the people of Khartoum; she is now in pursuit of them, and we shall all have to fight for her very soon. Then, with the exaggeration habitual amongst negroes, they relate how she, in the desert, set free two thousand slaves, whom she sent away to her father's kingdom, where they are well-fed and wear beautiful clothes like hers.

We take very good care not to interfere with all this romancing, nor to keep the narrators within the region of fact; on the contrary, we ourselves invent numerous anecdotes calculated to enhance the reputation of our escort, and augment the _prestige_ of our beloved leader. But will she be able to conquer, at first sight, this redoubtable King Munza, on whom our fate depends, in the same way that she has charmed these men, who have known her for six months?

Meanwhile, we do everything in our power to ingratiate ourselves with the monarch, whom we are overwhelming in advance by a series of presents conveyed to him by means of the couriers sent to meet us. These presents consist of ten pieces of calico, ten rolls of cloth, several carpets and coverings of various kinds, a lantern, a pair of scissors, a sabre, a sword, a guitar, five boxes of lucifer matches, and three pairs of socks filled with beads of all sorts. If Munza is not satisfied with this miscellaneous collection, he must be very hard to please. We have adhered strictly to the usages common in such cases, and no travellers have ever displayed more generosity than we have. We, nevertheless, hold in reserve some other presents destined to complete the conquest of the monarch, to unloose his tongue on the subject of M. de Guéran, and to secure his permission for our continuing on our way southwards, should we deem it necessary.

Whilst waiting for the opportunity of making the acquaintance of Munza, let us say a few words about the subjects. And, first of all, one important remark; as regards their features, the Monbuttoos differ essentially from other black tribes, and bear on their countenances the impress of their Semitic origin. The tint of their complexion is much lighter than we have yet seen in Africa, being almost the colour of ground coffee. The features have a certain amount of delicacy about them; and occasionally an aquiline nose maybe seen. But what distinguishes them chiefly from other tribes, their special characteristic is, that at least one out of every twenty of the population has greyish light hair, approaching the colour of hemp.

Their costume, which never varies, is quite original. It is composed of the bark of a tree called the _rokko_ (a species of fig-tree), prepared with great care and stained red-brown, which, fastened round the waist by a girdle, covers the body from the chest to the knees. Their hair, dressed like that of the Niam-Niam, is surmounted by a sort of straw hat or cap.

If the men are almost entirely clothed, the women are not. They simply tattoo their bodies in elaborate patterns, representing flowers, stars, bees, the spots of a leopard, or the stripes of a zebra. When they go out they carry with them a strip of cloth which they lay across their laps as they sit down.

We are traversing the populous district of the Maogoos, governed by one of Munza's brothers, and we come to the banks of the Welle. Thanks to a number of canoes, thirty feet long by four broad, and hollowed out of enormous trunks of trees, which were placed at our disposal by the natives, we crossed the deep, dark waters of this river, to which travellers in search of the sources of the Nile have attached great importance.

On the western bank of the river, some emissaries of the King assumed the direction of the caravan and guided us towards the royal residence, situated in the midst of a region where an earthly paradise might well find a place. At each step we came across sparkling streamlets, ferns without number, plantations of bananas, manioc, and sugar cane, and immense fig-trees, whose leafy density the sun even could not penetrate. It is a superb garden, with marvellous vegetation, full of flowers and fruit, and enlivened by the songs of a thousand birds.

My brother Parisians, when I think that, at the most moderate computation, nine-tenths of you picture Africa to yourselves as a vast desert, destitute of water and shade—wretched creatures that you are—there is not a country, perhaps, in the wide world that is watered by so many, and such great torrents and rivers, that is shaded by such gigantic trees, that is beautified by nature to such a luxuriant extent, as certain parts of central Africa. But I have no time to devote to refuting the errors of my fellow-countrymen, errors into which I formerly fell like the rest of them. Here we are, at last, within the private domain of Munza, and the only thing we have now to do is to obtain from that powerful despot the key to the enigma which is of such vital interest to us.