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FROM THE OUTPOSTS.

UP JEBEL MURRA: A TRIP IN WESTERN DARFUR.

SOME 250 miles south-west of Khartoum as the orow flies, but over 420 miles by railway, lies El Obeid, the capital of the province of Kordofan and the southern terminus of the Sudan Government railway system.

A further 450 miles west of El Obeid, and nearly 1000 miles, by road and rail, from Khartoum, lies El Fasher, the capital of Darfur, the largest and most recently acquired province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

El Obeid and El Fasher are connected by a road which runs through an almost waterless desert country,-an enormous waste of rooky jebels and broad sandy plains sparsely covered with small bushes and stunted trees. In Kordofan itself the gum trade supports numbers of people, but, past Nahud, the native villages, or hillas, are few and far between, and, with the exception of small flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, the only animals to be seen are gazelle, and here and there a solitary ostrich.

For most of this distance the few inhabitants are entirely dependent for water on that stored in the hollow trunks of groves of tebeldi trees.

These trees, which by a wise dispensation of Providence are generally found in waterless places, are of great girth, and in many cases hold over a

thousand gallons each. During the khareef, or or rainy season, which here lasts about two months in the year, the natives dam up the water round the trees and fill them from the shallow pools thus formed, dipping up the water by means of goat-skin dilwers and pouring it in from the top. These natural tanks, besides providing water for the villagers themselves and their cattle, are also a great source of profit to them, in that, during the dry season, they sell the water to wayfarers at high rates.

The wayfarers along this road are mostly Fellata pilgrims tramping from Nigeria and the West Coast right across Africa to Mecca, and are themselves worthy of note. Men, women, and children start on this long journey, and taking their few goods and chattels on their heads march thousands of miles through unknown lands, braving all kinds of dangers in order to make their pilgrimage. They work their way, stopping here and there until they have accumulated suffi. oient funds to carry them on to the next plaee, often taking two or three years on the journey. Many of them settle and never reach their goal, others die; some, having reached Mecca, are seized by the Arabs and sold as slaves

though cases of this sort are

less frequent now; still more stop and settle on the way back, and never see their homes again. Yet, year in and year out, they can be seen tramping through this hot desert belt with their families, often going two or more days without water, looked down upon by all with whom they come in contact, yet in their zeal, misplaced though it may be, showing themselves better men than most of their oereligionists in this part of the world, and an example to people of other religions in other parts.

Accustomed as one is to regard the camel as a wonderful animal because it goes for a few days without water, it comes as a surprise to find that the herds and flocks in these dry wastes are only watered every two or three days, that a native donkey will plod along with his load for a similar time without water, and that the gazelle here do not drink from khareef to khareef, a period of very nearly ten months.

The only means of transport along this road from El Obeid to Fasher is by camel, and the three weeks' journey it entails, plodding along for four or five hours each night and morning, and lying up under tree or tent during the heat of the day, is a very tiring one, and one which is absolutely devoid of interest for long stretches.

Once arrived in Fasher, which is a large native town prettily situated among trees on both sides of a khor, the country shows signs of im

provement, and some hundred miles or so south-west entirely changes its character. It is in this area that Jebel Murra, the highest range in this part of Africa, raises its treble peaks to about 7000 feet above sealevel; while, on the mountain, but some 2000 feet below its highest point, nestle the mysterious Deriba Lakes.

The country round, full of interest as it is, is by ne means the Africa which the name of Rider Haggard would bring to mind.

For

It is a vast expanse of rolling bush-country, out by great wadis which flow swiftly in the khareef, but are dry! for the rest of the year. Their tree-covered banks are inhabited by chattering monkeys and vivid green parrots. the rest, away from the wadis, the native tracks wind through stunted bush, leafless except in the rains, while in every direction rise bare rocky jebels. A certain amount of game is to be found-lion, elephant, and buffalo, herds of hartebeeste and tiang, the much- soughtafter kudo, as well as many kinds of smaller game; but, compared with other parts of Africa, they are not numerous.

The dwarfs and naked savages of Rider Haggard fame are here replaced by a comparatively mild, meek, and well-mannered race-the Furs, who, one is surprised to find, are not only all fully olethed

the men in flowing garments of native-made damanour, and the women in a blue material,-but they also have a system of government ameng

His work inoludes everything from deciding the ownership of a donkey to dealing with murder cases, and from building the weird mud and grass houses used in this part to making roads and despatching many tons of grain along them to help feed Fasher. Generally speaking, he maintains law and order, and develops the country.

themselves which approximates shartais, and keeps his small to our feudal system. Each garrison of black troops in hilla, or village, has its sheik, training. each group of hillas is under a melik, and these again are grouped into a dar under a shartai; while, in this particular district, these dars are grouped under a chief shartai, by name Boohe Abdel Gabbar, who is responsible to the government. Each of these men is responsible for the wellbeing and general government of the people under him, and all disputes are brought to him; but, if dissatisfied with his decision, the people are free to appeal to higher authorities. Taxes are also collected by him, and he can also be called upon to provide so many men for labour or, in the old days, for fighting.

It was only in 1916 that El Fasher and Darfur, then under an absolute monarch, Sultan Ali Dinar, was taken by a small feree of British and Egyptian troops operating aoross the desert country from the railhead. At the present moment there is still an independent, though friendly, monarch, Sultan Bahr el Din, or Andoka, of Dar Messalite, sandwiched in between the Wardai and the Sudan.

Zalingie, an outstation some 200 miles south-west of El Fasher, and about 70 miles west of the nearest point of Jebel Murra, is the centre of administration of this Western Darfur. Here a solitary British officer dispenses justice to all and sundry, rules a country of the approximate size of Sootland through the native

VOL. CCVIII.—NO. MCCLXI,

It is a lonely job, four days' journey from the next solitary white, and so remete from home and beauty that it takes nearly two and a half months to get there; but it has its compensations.

The country is good, mostly unexplored, and full of interest to a student of nature, while within a short distance of the post there are a dezen kinds of game to be shot.

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the event by giving us a “fantasia" as a send-off.

The native of these parts has very little idea of time. His only way of expressing it is by saying "shams kida" (the sun so), while pointing to that part of the sky which the sun should be in at the time he refers to. So, though we had expressed our intention of starting at four in the afternoon, we were by no means surprised to hear a loud beating of delukkas (the native drums) and squealing of pipes coming from the village about half-past one. This as it came nearer was supported by a few hundred voices chanting in unison and the clapping of many hands.

They apparently stopped some distance away, and so we proceeded with lunch.

Four o'clock came, and with it the groaning of camels, which sent us outside to superintend the shidding (loading).

This was the signal for the start of the fantasia.

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Imagine a blazing sun and burnt up landscape, its shades of brown relieved away to the left by the green foliage of trees along the banks of a wadi, and the skyline out to the right by a line of low jebels.

To the front is a cleared sandy space several hundred yards in extent, set in the middle of which is the post, a collection of mud- and grassbuilt huts, surrounded by a thick thorn zareba and flaunting a Union Jack and the white stars and orescents of Egypt on separate poles.

On the farther edge of this oleared space stands a great crowd of natives, mounted and on feet, the horsemen dressed in garments of all the colours of the rainbow, the men on foot in the soberer hues of native damanour. The delukkas throb and the pipes squeal. Suddenly two horsemen detach themselves and come tearing up at full gallop waving swords high in the air. Just a few yards away they pull their horses up on their haunches and with a friendly grin and more waving of swords make way for three others whe, riding leg to leg as hard as their sturdy ponies ean gallop, tear up to us with spear-points lowered and antediluvian rifles slung across their backs. They, too, rein their ponies back on their haunches just as they appear to be about to crash into us, and, with the ponies' mouths bleeding from the effects of the cruel native bit, draw aside to make room for others. And so they come, singly or in threes, fours, or sixes, every man armed with sword, spear, or old blunderbus-some with all threeand all in glaring colours. One may be clad in a yellow gallabiya with a red sash and white orossbelt, another in blue, green, and yellow, and so on, until the eye positively aches in the kaleidoscope of shifting colour.

At last a solitary horseman in a glaring red robe decorated with gold tassels comes full split, methodically aiming spear after spear at us. This is Atim Ahmed, the Neumaton,

or Chief Shartai of Dar Kerne, in the north; he is a veritable arsenal of old-time weapons, and wears a sort of orown of orochet werk. He makes way for three rather more richly dressed sharati, the centre one of whom is Boche Abdel Gabbar, the Chief Shartai of Dar Abu Dirna, or, to give him his title, the Dumangawi. They, too, rein in their horses when within an ace of dashing into us, and, turning, dash off to rejoin the rest, who have now formed a line about three hundred yards away. Boche and Atim take their places in the centre of the line, and with squeals of the pipes and redoubled whackings of the delukkas, the whole party comes forward at a slow march, each of the seventy or or eighty mounted men with twenty or thirty unmounted retainers behind him. The musicians break into a sort of triumphant march, through which runs a weird rhythm, and as they come forward many of the ponies prance in unison."

The scene is weird in the extreme, and one is convinced of the unreality of it all; it is a mediæval pageant at which one is assisting, not a native show in the heart of Africa,

Fifty yards away the line halts, and the musicians push their way to the front. They are about thirty in number, half vigorously blowing pipes made of reeds or horn, and the others thrumming delukkas, which in most cases are skincovered gourds.

Every man dances to the rhythm as he plays, and the leader, a short, squat, and intensely ugly man thrumming a barrel-shaped delukka, goes into the most weird contortions and yet keeps perfect time to the "musie.

'Panch,' that most reliable of newspapers, had told us of the most recent innovation at home, connected with a dance called the Jazz. We looked at each other, and the same thought flashed into our minds. Here was a jazz band!

The horsemen halt, and with the band still in full ory our many-coloured friends dismount. The most important gentry, led by Boche and Atim, slip off their markubs (slippers) and form a half-oirole round us. After many muttered "Tayebines," "Shedeeds?" and other expressions indicating their deep concern in the matter of our healths, accompanied by repeated handshakes, they mount again and draw off a little distance, prepared to accompany us for a part of the way.

The camels are ready, the signal is given to start, and we ride towards the hilla, a motley crowd several hundred strong, with the baggagecamels marching sedately in the rear. Through the hilla the women turn out and add their shrill "Lu la lus" to the efforts of the band, which is still going in full blast.

Down to and across the wadi we go, a pandemonium of sound and a glare of colour, and, a mile or so the other side, halt to take leave of our escort.

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