The present country of the Bongo lies between lat. 6° and 8° N. on the south-western boundary of the depression of the Bahr-el-Ghazal basin, and on the lowest of the terraces where the southern slopes appear to make a transition from the elevated ferruginous crust to the unfathomed alluvial flats which are traversed by all the affluents of the river. In the extent of its area the land covers about the same surface as Belgium, but with regard to population, it might be more aptly compared to the plains of Siberia or the northern parts of Norway and Sweden; it is a deserted wilderness, averaging only 11 or 12 people to the square mile. The country extends from the Roah to the Pango, and embraces the middle course of nearly all the affluents of the Gazelle; it is 175 miles long by 50 miles broad, but towards the north-west the breadth diminishes to about 40 miles. On the north it is only divided by the small Dyoor country from that of the Dinka, which, however, it directly joins upon the north-east. The south-east boundary is the Mittoo territory on the Roah; and that on the west is the country of the Golo and Sehre on the Pango. The eastern branch of the extensive Niam-niam lands joins the Bongo on the south; whilst, wedged between and straitly pressed, the Bellanda and the Babuckur have their settlements. When, eighteen years ago, the Khartoomers first set foot in Bongoland, they found the entire country divided into a number of independent districts, all in the usual anarchy of petty African communities; there was nothing anywhere like an organised commonwealth such as may be found amongst the Dinka, where entire districts unite and form an imposing warlike tribe. Every village simply had its chief, who, in virtue of superior wealth, exercised a certain authority over the rest of the inhabitants, and who, in some cases, had an additional _prestige_ from his skill in the art of magic. The Nubians, consequently, never had to contend against the unanimous hostility of a powerful or well-disciplined people, and only in a few isolated places had to encounter much resolute opposition. Their soldiers, not merely by the tenor of their religion, conceived themselves justified in perpetrating every sort of outrage upon heathen unbelievers, but they were taught to consider their acts of violence as meritorious in the sight of God: it was, therefore, an easy matter for them to fall upon the weak authorities of the country, and in the space of a few years to apportion the entire territory amongst the few ivory merchants in Khartoom, whose spirit of enterprise, suddenly kindled by the exaggerated reports of the profits secured on the Upper Nile by Europeans, the first explorers, had developed itself into a remarkable activity. [Sidenote: VASSALAGE.]