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Updated: June 8, 2025
The Obbo people were delighted, as it was their favourite game, but none of my people would touch the unclean animal. The wild pigs of this country live underground; they take possession of the holes made by the Manis: these they enlarge and form cool and secure retreats. A bad attack of fever laid me up until the 31st of December.
I requested the leader to point out the exact position of Obbo, which I found to be S.W. That was precisely the direction that I had wished to take; thus an unexpected opportunity presented itself, and I determined to start without delay. On the 2d of May, 1863, at 9 A.M. we left Latooka, delighted to change the scene of inaction.
Two days after our arrival at Shooa, the whole of our Obbo porters absconded: they had heard that we were bound for Kamrasi's country, and having received exaggerated accounts of his power from the Shooa people, they had determined upon retreat: thus we were at once unable to proceed, unless we could procure porters from Shooa.
These people, although far superior to the tribes on the north of the Nile in general intelligence, had no idea of a Supreme Being, nor any object of worship, their faith resting upon a simple belief in magic like that of the natives of Madi and Obbo.
They allowed five days' march for the distance to Obbo by the intended route. This was not an alluring programme for the week's entertainment, with my wife almost in a dying state! However, I set to work and fitted an angarep with arched hoops from end to end, so as to form a frame like the cap of a wagon.
Although the ascent had occupied about two hours, the descent on the west side was a mere trifle, and was effected in about fifteen minutes we were on an elevated plateau that formed the watershed between the east and west. After a march of about twelve miles from the top of the pass, we arrived at the chief village of Obbo.
He told me that all my effects that I had left at Obbo had been returned to Gondokoro, and that my two men, whom I had left in charge, had returned with them to Khartoum, on board the vessel that had been sent for me from that place, but which had joined the traders' boats on their return voyage. Ibrahim had assured the captain that it was impossible that we could arrive during that year.
Although at Obbo the grass was not sufficiently dry to burn, in this country it was reduced to a crisp straw, and I immediately set fire to the prairies; the wind was strong, and we had a grand blaze, the flames crackling and leaping about thirty feet high, and sweeping along with so mad a fury that within an hour the entire country was a continuous line of fire.
This I covered with two waterproof Abyssinian tanned hides securely strapped, and lashing two long poles parallel to the sides of the angarep, I formed an excellent palanquin. In this she was assisted, and we started on June 23d. On our arrival at Obbo both my wife and I were excessively ill with bilious fever, and neither could assist the other.
About sixty natives of Obbo accompanied the men sent by Ibrahim to carry the effects; I require at least fifty, as so many of my transport animals are dead." Nothing can exceed the laziness and dogged indolence of my men; I have only four who are worth having, -Richarn, Hamed, Sali, and Taher.
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