Go where I might, I found nothing but lamentation over the impoverishment and desolation of the land, yet those who complained were themselves responsible for its comfortless aspect. Whilst, through the migration of the people, the country towards the north during the last three years had been changed into a wilderness, the Bongo, who clung to their homes and remained on their settlements, had not only lost their former wealth in sheep, goats, and poultry, but had even been too much driven to extremities to continue their cultivation of corn, and were sufferers from what was little short of famine. The Bongo asserted that in the first year that the Khartoomers committed their depredations amongst them, they were so terrified lest all their sheep, and goats, and poultry should be carried off, that, without delay, they had them all killed, cooked, and eaten. Eye-witnesses were not wanting who told me what had been the astonishing quantities of poultry that once had teamed in every village; but when there ceased to be any security for any one to retain what he had, of course there ceased to be any interest in making a store. If the harvest were prolific so that the granaries were full, the settlers would revel in indulgence as long as their resources held out; but for the greater portion of the year they had to depend upon the produce of the woods and upon the proceeds of the chase, which had often no better game to yield than cats, lizards, and field-rats. Not that there was any actual fear of starvation, because the supply of edible tubers and of wild fruits from the extensive woods was inexhaustible and not ill-adapted to a negro’s digestion, and because there was an abundance of the seed of wild grasses to be collected, which replaced the scarcity of corn.