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90 visits
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75 visits
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94 visits
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82 visits
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88 visits
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70 visits
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80 visits
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88 visits
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82 visits
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66 visits
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109 visits
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83 visits
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80 visits
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83 visits
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74 visits
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91 visits
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108 visits
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78 visits
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92 visits
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In some of the hilly districts of India we may see little grain-huts, the shape of bee-hives, which are raised upon posts. The natives of the Madi country, near the head of the Albert Nyanza, in Central Africa, make similar granaries of plastered wicker-work, which are supported upon four posts and have a thatched roof.
334 visits
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A Clay Grain Storehouse
In the tropical parts of Africa it is almost impossible to keep the grain from the harvest for more than a few months, and the natives save nothing from harvest to harvest, but eat it all up, rather than let it be consumed by the ants or spoiled by the rains. And thus, when the harvest fails, they are quickly reduced to starvation.
337 visits
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When Speke, a traveller who discovered one of the sources of the Nile, was returning homeward, and passing through the country of the Madi, near the head of the Albert Nyanza, he saw similar huts to those which I have just described. In one of his books there is an amusing picture of a Madi village removing. The greatest burden is a conical roof, which four men are carrying on their heads. Other men and women are carrying a few sticks or baskets, but the all-important thing is the roof. These roofs are easily lifted from their posts, and Speke once saw a number of Turkish traders take off the roofs of a village without permission, and carry them off to make a camp for themselves.
349 visits
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Image 5359
219 visits
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Woman of the Bosjes Race
231 visits
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Image 5120
299 visits
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Henry Morton Stanley - Age 31
814 visits
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Henry Stanley - Age 26
664 visits
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Henry Stanley - 1891
501 visits
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It requires from twenty-five to thirty years for an Ishogo woman to be able to build upon her head one of their grotesque head-dresses. The accompanying picture will show you how they look. But you will ask how they can arrange hair in such a manner. I will tell you : A frame is made, and the hair is worked upon it ; but if there is no frame, then they usd grass-cloth, or any other stuffing, and give the shape they wish to the head-dress. A well-known hair-dresser, who, by the way, is always a female, is a great person in an Ishogo village, and is kept pretty busy from morning till after-noon. It takes much time to work up the long wool on these negroes' heads, but, when one of these heads of hair, or chignons, is made, it lasts for a long time—sometimes for two or three months—without requiring repair. I need not tell you that after a few weeks the head gets filled with specimens of natural history.
A great quantity of palm oil is used in dressing the hair, and, as the natives never wash their heads, the odor is not pleasant. When a woman comes out with a newly-made chignon, the little Ishogo girls exclaim, "When shall I be old enough to wear one of these? How beau-tiful they are!"
Every morning, instead of taking a bath, the Ishogos rub themselves with oil, mixed with a red dye made from the wood of a forest tree.
769 visits
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It requires from twenty-five to thirty years for an Ishogo woman to be able to build upon her head one of their grotesque head-dresses. The accompanying picture will show you how they look. But you will ask how they can arrange hair in such a manner. I will tell you : A frame is made, and the hair is worked upon it ; but if there is no frame, then they usd grass-cloth, or any other stuffing, and give the shape they wish to the head-dress. A well-known hair-dresser, who, by the way, is always a female, is a great person in an Ishogo village, and is kept pretty busy from morning till after-noon. It takes much time to work up the long wool on these negroes' heads, but, when one of these heads of hair, or chignons, is made, it lasts for a long time—sometimes for two or three months—without requiring repair. I need not tell you that after a few weeks the head gets filled with specimens of natural history.
A great quantity of palm oil is used in dressing the hair, and, as the natives never wash their heads, the odor is not pleasant. When a woman comes out with a newly-made chignon, the little Ishogo girls exclaim, "When shall I be old enough to wear one of these? How beau-tiful they are!"
Every morning, instead of taking a bath, the Ishogos rub themselves with oil, mixed with a red dye made from the wood of a forest tree.
793 visits
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It requires from twenty-five to thirty years for an Ishogo woman to be able to build upon her head one of their grotesque head-dresses. The accompanying picture will show you how they look. But you will ask how they can arrange hair in such a manner. I will tell you : A frame is made, and the hair is worked upon it ; but if there is no frame, then they usd grass-cloth, or any other stuffing, and give the shape they wish to the head-dress. A well-known hair-dresser, who, by the way, is always a female, is a great person in an Ishogo village, and is kept pretty busy from morning till after-noon. It takes much time to work up the long wool on these negroes' heads, but, when one of these heads of hair, or chignons, is made, it lasts for a long time—sometimes for two or three months—without requiring repair. I need not tell you that after a few weeks the head gets filled with specimens of natural history.
A great quantity of palm oil is used in dressing the hair, and, as the natives never wash their heads, the odor is not pleasant. When a woman comes out with a newly-made chignon, the little Ishogo girls exclaim, "When shall I be old enough to wear one of these? How beau-tiful they are!"
Every morning, instead of taking a bath, the Ishogos rub themselves with oil, mixed with a red dye made from the wood of a forest tree.
810 visits
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Ishogo Male Head-dress
694 visits
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Prisoner in Nchogo
513 visits
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Toward noon Mayombo gave a cluck, and pointed out to me a dead tree lying on the ground, and a strange-looking track leading up to it, and whispered into my ears the word "Ipi!"
That dead tree had been lying there, I suppose, for hundreds of years; nothing remained of it but the trunk, which was hollow throughout, and looked like a tube fifty or sixty feet long.
I examined the ground carefully at one end of the trunk, and saw no footprint there, so the animal had not gone out; at the other end the tracks were fresh, and it was evident that the animal had hidden inside the night before. I said to Mayombo," Perhaps the ipi has gone away." "Oh no," said he ; "don't you see there is only one track! Besides, it could not turn on itself, and, in order to get out, it has to go straight on to the other end." Immediately he took the axe and cut down some branches of a tree, of which he made a trap to catch the animal if it should come out. The branch was put firmly in the ground, and the top was bent over with a creeper attached to it, at the end of which was a ring, through which the animal would have to pass before he could get out; a little forked stick held the ring, which the animal would shake as it passed through; the limb would fly up instantly, and high in the air would the ipi dangle. When all this had been done, Mayombo, who had collected wood at the other end, set fire to it, to smoke the animal out. He was not mistaken ; the ipi was inside, and it made for the opposite extremity and was caught. There was a short struggle, but we ran up and ended it by knocking the ipi with all our might on the head. I saw at once that the ipi belonged to the pangolin genus (Manis of the zoologists), which is a very singular kind of animaL They are ant-eaters, like the Myrmeco-phaga of South America; but, while the South American anteater is covered with hair like other mammalia, the pangolins have an armor of large scales implanted in the skin of the upper surface of the body, from the head to the tip of the tail, each scale overlapping the other like the slates on the roof of a house.
Like the ant-eater of South America, the pangolins have no teeth, but they have a long extensile tongue, the extremity of which is covered with a glutinous secretion so sticky that their prey, after having been touched, adheres to the tongue and can not get away. The tongue of an ipi may be extended out several inches. The ipi feeds on ants.
During the day the ipi bides itself in its burrow in the earth, or sometimes in the large hollows of colossal trunks of trees which have fallen to the ground, like the tree just described to you ; but they generally prefer to burrow in the soil, and these burrows are usually found in light soil on the slope of a hill. By the singular structure of the ipi, it can nut turn to the right or to the left at once ; in fact, it is quite incapable of bending its body sideways, so it can not "right about face" in its burrow. Accordingly, there are two holes in each bur-row, one for entrance and one for exit.
281 visits
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All this time the Otando people were busy making otaitais, or porters' baskets. The otaitai is a very ingenious contrivance for carrying loads in safety on the backs
of men. I have brought one of these baskets home, and preserve it as a keepsake.
It is long and narrow; the wicker-work is made of strips of a very tough climbing plant; the length is about two and a half feet, and the width nine inches ; the sides are made of open cane-work, capable of being expanded or drawn in, so as to admit of a larger or smaller load. Cords of are attached to the sides, for the purpose of securing the contents. Straps
made of strong plaited rushes secure the basket to the head and arms of the carrier, as shown in the picture.
863 visits
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Of the order of toothless animals, the aardvark (Orycteropus aethiopicus), which occurs from the lowlands to the Woina-Deka, should be mentioned. The shy animal, with its smell and hearing, dwells in self-dug caves, characterized by lively leaps and a kangaroo-like position, supported by the powerful tail. It often goes only on the hind feet and nd sniffs the earth with the long, constantly moving nose, which resembles a pig's trunk, in order to look for ants. When it has discovered such a place, it begins to dig very skillfully and vigorously with the forefeet and push back the agitated Earth with the hind feet.
For urine and dung, the aardvark digs a small pit, which is then carefully covered up again. In the building itself, it sleeps curled up lying on its side. Pursued, it hurries away in rapid bursts and burrows quickly, closing the tube behind it.
845 visits
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Painted dog ( Lycaon pictus )
A hyena-like predator, the "painted dog“( Lycaon pictus ) in groups; he attacks the flocks and wreaks havoc among them. The steppe landscapes are the real home of this sociable, up-and-out and murderous creature that never hunts alone. It gets its name from the large, dark spots on the light skins, where it is easy to distinguish.
675 visits
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Messrs. Forest and Son received a design and order for the construction of a steel boat 28 ft. long, 6 ft. beam, and 2 ft. 6 in. deep. It was to be built of Siemens steel galvanized, and divided into twelve sections, each weighing about 75 lbs. The fore and aft sections were to be decked and watertight, to give buoyancy in case of accident.
613 visits
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Among others whom Gordon employed as Governors of
these various provinces under his Vice-regal Government was one Edward Schnitzler, a German born in Oppeln, Prussia, 28th March, 1840, of Jewish parents, who had seen service in Turkey, Armenia, Syria, and Arabia, in the suite of Ismail Hakki Pasha, once Governor-General of Scutari, and a Mushir of the Empire. On the death of his patron he had departed to Niesse, where his mother, sister, and cousins lived, and where he stayed for several months, and thence left for Egypt. He, in
1875, thence travelled to Khartoum, and a medical doctor, was employed by Gordon Pasha in that capacity. He assumed the name and title of Emin Effendi Hakim —the faithhful physician.
Finally, in 1878, was promoted to Bey, and appointed Governor of the Equatorial Province of Ha-tal-astiva, which, rendered into English, Bey, and appointed Governor of the Equatorial Pro-
vince of na-tal-ustiva, which, rendered into English,
means Equatoria, at a salary of 50 pound per month.
731 visits
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Henry Morton Stanley
436 visits
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The social position of the Niam-niam women differ materially from what is found amongst other negroes in Africa. The Bongo and Mittoo women are on the same familiar terms with the foreigner as the men, and the Monbuttoo ladies are as forward , inquisitive and prying as can be imagined; but the women of the Niam-niam treat every stranger with marked reserve. Whenever I met any women coming along a narrow pathway in the woods or on the steppe, I noticed that they always made a wide circuit to avoid me, and returned into the path further on; and many a time I saw them waiting at a distance with averted face until I had passed by.
847 visits
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The portrait represents what might be styled a Dinka dandy, distinguished for unusually long hair.
By continual combing and stroking with hair-pins, the hair of the negro loses much of its close curliness. Such was the case here: the hair, six inches long, was trained up into points like tongues of flame, and these, standing stiffly up all round his head, gave the man a fiendish look, which was still further increased by its being dyed a foxy red.
This tint is the result of continual washing with cow-urine; a similar effect can be produced by the application for a fortnight of a mixture of dung and ashes.
769 visits
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The Dinka dwellings consist of small groups of huts clustered in farmsteads over the cultivated plains. Villages in a proper sense there are none, but the cattle of separate districts are united in a large part, which the Khartoomers call a "murah".
The drawing represents a Dinka farm surrounded by sorghum fields. Of the three huts, the one in the centre, with a double porchway, is set apart for the head of the family; that on the left is for the women; whilst the largest and most imposing hut on the right is a hospital for sick cows, which require to be separated from the throngs in the murah that they may receive proper attention.
553 visits
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Shol
One of the most influential personages of the neighbouring race of the Lao was a woman, already advanced in years, of the name of Shol. She played an important part as a sort of chief of the Meshera, her riches, according to the old patriarchal fashion, consisting of cattle. As wealthy as cattle copuld make her, she would long since have been a prey to the Nubians, who carry on their ravages principally in those regions, if it had not chanced that the intruders needed her for a friend. They required a convenient and secure landing-place, and the paramount necessity of having this induced them to consider plunder a secondary matter.
Shol, on her part, uses all her influence to retain her tribe on friendly terms with the strangers. The smallest conflict might involve the entire loss of her property.
640 visits
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A Niam-niam minstrel
As the darkness came on. our camp was enlivened by the appearance of the grotesque figure of a singer, who came with a huge bunch of feathers in his hat, and these, as he wagged his head to the time of his music, became all entangled with the braids of his hair. Altogether the head was like the head of Medusa. These "minne-singers" among the Niam-niam as known as "nzangah." They are as sparing of their voices as a worn-out prima donna; except for those close by, it is impossible to hear what they are singing. Their instrument is the local guitar, the thin jingling of which accords perfectly well with the nasal humming of the minstrel's recitative.
The occupation of these nzangah, however, notwithstanding the general love of the people for music, would not appear to be held in very high esteem, as the same designation is applied to those unfortunate women, friendless and fallen, who are never absent from any community.
1006 visits
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Dredges at work in the Suez Canal
861 visits
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Ferdinand de Lesseps
940 visits
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Map of Europe, Asia, Africa 15,000 Years Ago
1340 visits
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Bushwoman
431 visits
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Mount Kesa
Just beyond, the travellers suddenly found themselves opposite a remarkable rock, two hundred and eighty feet high, called Mount Kesa, which rises perpendicularly from the centre of the stream. This rock is greatly venerated by the natives, who believe it to be the favourite home of a beneficent genius.
444 visits
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The caravan soon reached the gates of Kouka, where, after a journey extending over two months and a half, they were received by a body of cavalry 4000 strong, under perfect discipline. Amongst these troops was a corps of blacks forming the body-guard of the sheikh, whose equipments resembled those of ancient chivalry.
700 visits
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Lancer of the army of the Sultan of Begharmi
843 visits
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In 1807, not far from the scene of Clapperton's landing a few years later, a brave but fierce people appeared on the Gold Coast. The Ashantees, coming none knew exactly whence, flung themselves upon the Fantees, and, after horrible massacres, in 1811 and 1816, established themselves in the whole of the country between the Kong mountains and the sea.
527 visits
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A kafila (caravan) of slaves
855 visits
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View of part of Timbuctoo.
Timbuctoo, which is neither so large nor so well populated as Caillié expected, is altogether wanting in animation. There are no large caravans constantly arriving in it, as at Jenneh; nor are there so many strangers there as in the latter town; whilst the market, held at three o'clock in the morning on account of the heat, appears deserted.
Timbuctoo is inhabited by Kissour negroes, who seem of mild dispositions, and are employed in trade. There is no government, and strictly speaking no central authority; each town and village has its own chief. The mode of life is patriarchal. A great many Moorish merchants are settled in the town, and rapidly make fortunes there. They receive consignments of merchandise from Adrar, Tafilet, Ghât, Ghâdames, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.
536 visits
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Réné Caillié.
(Fac-simile of early engraving.)
Caillié, who was born in 1800, in the department of the Seine et Oise, had only an elementary education; but reading Robinson Crusoe had fired his youthful imagination with a zeal for adventure, and he never rested until, in spite of his scanty resources, he had obtained maps and books of travel. In 1816, when only sixteen years old, he embarked for Senegal, in the transport-ship La Loire.
582 visits
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Although John Lewis Burckhardt was not English, for he was a native of Lausanne, he must none the less be classed among the travellers of Great Britain. It was owing to his relations with Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist who had accompanied Cook, and Hamilton, the secretary of the African Association, who gave him ready and valuable support, that Burckhardt was enabled to accomplish what he did.
1395 visits
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Then the sentence is passed by the compound manager—ten, fifteen, or twenty strokes, according to the crime. The coolie, with a Chinese policeman on either side of him, is taken away about ten paces. Then he stops, and at the word of a policeman drops his pantaloons, and falls flat on his face and at full length on the floor. One policeman holds his feet together; another, with both hands pressed firmly on the back of his head, looks after that end of his body. Then the flagellator, with a strip of thick leather on the end of a three-foot wooden handle, lays on the punishment, severely or lightly, as instructed. Should the prisoner struggle after the first few strokes, another policeman plants a foot in the middle of his back until the full dose has been administered.
1147 visits
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A more refined form of torture was to bind a coolie's left wrist with a piece of fine rope, which was then put through a ring in a beam about nine feet from the ground. This rope was then made taut, so that the unhappy coolie, with his left arm pulled up perpendicularly, had to stand on his tip-toes. In this position he was kept, as a rule, for two hours, during which time, if he tried to get down on his heels, he must dangle in the air, hanging from the left wrist.
1154 visits
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In another form of flogging practised, a short bamboo was used. The coolie would strip to the waist and go down on his knees with his head on the floor. His castigator would then squat beside him, and strike him across the shoulders with lightning rapidity. The blows, though apparently light, always fell on the one spot, and raised a large red weal before cutting the flesh. During the first quarter of this year no fewer than fifty-six coolies were whipped, after 8 p.m. one evening, at the Witwatersrand Mine, the dose varying from five to fifteen strokes.
1375 visits
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Every mine has its lock-up for malingerers, deserters, and others. At the Witwatersrand the coolies are handcuffed over a horizontal beam.
The floor is of concrete, and they may sit down, but the beam is so far from the floor that it is impossible for any but exceptionally tall men to sit while handcuffed. They must therefore squat, and for a change raise themselves in a semi-standing posture.
1155 visits
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All the measures taken by the Government and the mine owners to prevent desertion have proved ineffective. The country around the Witwatersrand Mines has taken upon itself the aspect of the whole of the colony during the late war. Mounted constables with loaded revolvers organize drives. The whole district is patrolled, and every effort is made to bring back the deserters to the compounds. But as soon as one lot has returned another escapes. Every day you may see a mounted policeman riding down towards the law courts, followed by a string of Chinese deserters.
1287 visits
