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Updated: June 8, 2025
Old Katchiba came to meet us, but brought nothing, as he said the Turks had eaten up the country. An extract from my journal, dated July 1, explains the misery of our position. "This Obbo country is now a land of starvation. The natives refuse to supply provision for beads; nor will they barter anything unless in exchange for flesh.
The character of the country had entirely changed; instead of the rank and superabundant vegetation of Obbo, we were in a beautiful open country, naturally drained by its undulating character, and abounding in most beautiful low pasturage.
Saat feels the ennui of Obbo, and finds it difficult to amuse himself; he has accordingly become so far scientific, that he has investigated the machinery of two of my watches, both of which he has destroyed. I am now reduced to one watch, the solitary survivor of four that formed my original family of timekeepers.
I have had great difficulty in breaking my cowkeeper of his disgusting custom of washing the milk bowl with cow's urine, and even mixing some with the milk; he declares that unless he washes his hands with such water before milking, the cow will lose her milk. This filthy custom is unaccountable. The Obbo natives wash out their mouths with their own urine.
He had a very long tail, for which I obtained A COW IN EXCHANGE. Nothing was prized so highly as horses' tails, the hairs being used for stringing beads and also for making tufts as ornaments, to be suspended from the elbows. It was highly fashionable in Obbo for the men to wear such tufts formed of the bushy ends of cows' tails.
June 14. -The natives lost one man killed in the fight yesterday, therefore the night was passed in singing and dancing. The country is drying up; although the stream is full there is no rain in Latooka, the water in the river being the eastern drainage of the Obbo mountains, where it rains daily.
I determined to make a reconnaissance south towards the dreaded Asua, or, as the Obbo people pronounced it, the Achua river, and to return to my fixed camp. Accordingly I arranged to leave Mrs. Baker at Obbo with a guard of eight men, while I should proceed south without baggage, excepting a change of clothes and a cooking pot.
I once, and only once, had an opportunity of seeing elephants that were either migrating, or had just arrived from a migration. This was between 3 degrees and 4 degrees N. latitude in Africa, between Obbo and Farajok. We were marching through an uninhabited country for about 30 miles, and in the midst of beautiful park-like scenery we came upon the magnificent sight of vast herds of elephants.
On the 4th of June, Ibrahim and eighty-five men started for Obbo in charge of about 400 cows and 1,000 goats. Shortly after their departure, a violent thunder-storm, attended with a deluge of rain, swept over the country, and flooded the Latooka river and the various pools that formed my game-preserves.
On the 16th of July my last horse, Mouse, died; he had a very long tail, for which I obtained A COW IN EXCHANGE. Nothing was prized so highly as horse's tails, the hairs being used for stringing beads, and also for making tufts as ornaments, to be suspended from the elbows. It was highly fashionable in Obbo for the men to wear such tufts, formed of the bushy ends of cow's-tails.
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