What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Horn of Africa -- Description and travel; Nile River; Tanganyika, Lake
inspecting the various habitations.
Animals were more abundant, in consequence of the greater extent of
water; and I shot gazelles, little saltiana antelopes, hares, Egyptian
geese, rock-pigeons, ducks and teal, and snipe and partridge, besides
a choice collection of small birds. In one place I found a small stone
hut, occupied by an old man who had once been on a pilgrimage to
Mecca, and had seen the art of cultivating ground. He was now turning
his experience to account by growing jowari (a species of millet), and
effected it with some success; for he had two small enclosures, which
he irrigated by cuts from the nullah, that produced grain, which grew
from eight to nine feet high. He was loud in praise of the advantages
which he derived from his farm, saying it saved his flocks, and
assisted him in the means of food when his ewes were pregnant, or
giving lamb. I patronised this farmer, and offered to lend him some
tools for digging with, when he said he did not want that so much as
some hints about sowing, and wished I would send a man to instruct
him. Farhan, who was with me, delighted at the prospect of showing his
skill in any manner--for he styled himself professor of all things--at
once took the hint, and bargained to do a day's work, and furnish him
with some wrinkles for his future guidance, for the payment of a goat,
which was readily agreed to.
The people here were highly superstitious, and, like all ignorant
races, very punctilious in their ceremonies of worship. As _true_
Mussulmans, they were constant in their time of prayer, and abused my
interpreter for never saying his. When I made him cut the deer's
throats a little lower down the throat than their canons permit, to
save the specimen, they spat on the ground to show their contempt, and
abused him heartily. If I threw date-stones in the fire (the seed of
paradisiacal food), they looked upon it as a sacrilege. They were also
very suspicious. If I walked up and down the same place to stretch my
legs, they formed councils of war on my motives, considering I must
have some secret designs upon their country, or I would not do it, as
no man in his senses could be guilty of working his legs
unnecessarily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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