Tobacco is indispensable to the Bongo, and is universally cultivated. The species known as Mashirr (_Nicotiana rustica_) is very pungent; its small thick leaves are pounded in a mortar, and are subsequently pressed and dried in moulds. From the cakes thus formed, the natives break off fragments as they require them, grind them into powder by means of stones, and smoke the preparation in long pipes that have very pretty clay bowls. They are addicted to smoking quite as inveterately as many of the nations that live in the polar regions, and are not content until they are utterly stupefied by its effects. I had a circumstance brought under my notice which exhibited to me the extreme to which they can carry their abuse of the narcotic: upon one of our marches a Bongo man had indulged to such excess, and had inhaled the pungent fume so long, that he fell senseless into a campfire, and was taken up so severely burnt that he had to be carried by his comrades on a litter for the remainder of the journey. The Bongo fashion of smoking is even more disgusting than that which has been already described as prevalent amongst the Dinka. In the same manner as with them, the pipe is passed from hand to hand, but the lump of bast that intercepts the pungent oil is not placed in the receptacle of the stem, but is put in the mouth of the smoker, and together with the pipe is passed from one person to another. The habit of chewing tobacco is adopted as much by the Bongo as by the Mohammedan inhabitants of Nubia; but the custom is so universal that there would seem to be ample justification for the belief that it is indigenous rather than what has been acquired from foreigners. The practice in which the Bongo indulges of placing his tobacco quid behind his ear is very repulsive. [Illustration: Bongo Goat.] [Sidenote: BONGO GOATS.]