The heart of Africa, Vol. 1 (of 2)Schweinfurth, Georg August
Science
The heart of Africa, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Schweinfurth, Georg August
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Schweinfurth, Georg August, 1836-1925 -- Travel -- Africa, Central
The milking is performed in the morning hours. Truly miserable is the
yield, and the most prolific of the cows does not give as much as one
of our ordinary goats. This deficiency of milk is another witness of
the deterioration of the breed, and no one would believe the quantity
of milk it takes to produce a single pound of butter. The dew hardly
goes off before ten o’clock, and it is not until that hour that the
herds are driven out. It is quite rare for a murah to hold less than
2000 beasts, and some, as I have mentioned, are capable of holding
10,000. Upon an average I should reckon that for every head of the
population there would be found at least three of cattle; of course,
there is no lack of the poor and the destitute, and these obviously
are the slaves and dependents of the rich. So large are the numbers of
the Dinka, and so extensive their territory, that it must be expected
that they will long perpetuate their existence amongst the promiscuous
inhabitants of Africa. So far as regards their race, their line of
life, and their customs, they have all the material of national unity;
but where they fail is that their tribes not only make war upon each
other, but submit to be enlisted as the instruments of treachery by
intruders from outside. That the Khartoomers have not been able
hitherto to make good their footing upon Dinka soil is due more to a
general resistance to external control than to any internal condition
of concord. Every attempt to bring this people into subjection has
been quite a failure, and not at all the easy matter it proved with
the Bongo and some other communities. The southern people are
emphatically agricultural, for the most part devoted to peaceful
pursuits, and so they are wanting in that kind of organisation which
could unite them into a formidable body for mutual resistance. The
marked peculiarity of the Dinka, as well as their adherence to all
their wonted habits, renders them thoroughly useless as far as regards
the slave traffic. Although the people of Khartoom for fifteen years
or more have traversed their country, they have never been able in any
way to make use of the material which might be afforded by a regulated
commercial intercourse.
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