Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798Browne, William George
History
Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798
Browne, William George
Egypt -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel; Syria -- Description and travel
The people of Kulla are strangers to venereal complaints, but
are subject to the small-pox. In that part of the country which is
visited by the Jelabs there is a king; the rest is occupied by small
tribes, each of which is ruled by the chief who happens to have most
influence at the time. The _Kumba_, or Pimento tree, is found there
in such plenty, that a _rotal_ or pound of salt will purchase four
or five _mid_, each _mid_ about a peck.
The trees are so large, from the quantity of water and deep clay,
that canoes are hollowed out of them sufficiently capacious to
contain ten persons.
It was related to me by Jelabs who have visited that country,
that the inhabitants of Dar Bergoo make war by sudden incursions,
traversing and laying waste a large space in a short time. They
leave their women behind, and are thus better adapted to military
operations than the Fûrians, who follow an opposite practice,
never marching without a host of attendant females. The people of
Bergoo seldom make _Selatéa_.
Some of the idolatrous nations, dependent on Bergoo, are represented
as making war in a very formidable manner. The combatants never
retreat; and the women behind light a fire, in which they heat the
heads of the spears, and exchange them for such as are cooled in
the combat. They also use poisoned weapons.
There is a remote part of the pagan country, from which slaves
are brought, which the Arabs distinguish by the term _Gnum Gnum_,
(a sobriquet,) whose inhabitants eat the flesh of the prisoners
they take in war. I have conversed with slaves who came thence,
and they admit the fact. These people are also in the habit of
stripping off the skin of the hands and faces of their slaughtered
foes, which afterwards undergo some preparation, and are worn as
a mark of triumph. Their arms, a spear or javelin, are of iron,
wrought by themselves. After having heated them to redness, they
stick the point into the trunk of a particular tree, and there leave
the weapon till the juice has dried on. In this manner it acquires,
as is reported, a most deadly poison.
A few of the more common vocabula in the language of _Dar-Run̄ga_.
Water Tta.
As eide (a pudding) Gnung.
Come and eat Gagra.
Quickly Undelak nonnerâ.
Bring the bowl Kiddeki, Kiddeki.
A mat Kubbenâng.
Cloths Lemba.
Shoes Bŏrŏ.
Sun Agn̄ing.
It is hot Agn̄ing betrân.
Moon Medding.
A wooden mortar Bedding.
Ass Gussendĕ.
Horse Filah.
Dog Ming.
House Ttong.
Kingdom Kussé.
Wood of any kind Unjŭm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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