‘fowo’ is the Kanuri word, ‘marea’ the Budduma word, and ‘ambach’ the
Arabic word. When dry the density of the wood is ten times less than
that of water, and two and a half less than that of cork. It attains in
two years a height of from 8 to 9 yards, with a diameter of from 12 to
15 inches. Cf. Tilho, _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, Sept.
1910. Barth states that canoes are made from ‘fowo’ wood, but this is
not so. Cf. Benton, _Notes on Some Languages_, p. 51.]]
[Footnote 186: Barth, iv. 67 (German edition).]
[Footnote 187: Even in the lagoons and canals between the islands in the
north-east of Lake Chad the vegetation has the same appearance. On the
other hand the higher islands have bushes of the acacia species,
_Crucifera_, _Balanites_, and _Calotropis_. Cf. M. Audoin, _La
Géographie_, xii. 306.]
[Footnote 188: The _Nelumbium_ species, the true lotus plant, does not
appear to have been yet found in Bornu.]
[Footnote 189: Passarge, p. 546.]
[Footnote 190: The _Ceiba_, moreover, extends pretty far north in
favourable localities. Barth found trees of this species at Surrikulo in
the most fruitful district of Northern Bornu. Barth, iv. 39.]
[Footnote 191: Nachtigal, ii. 628.]
[Footnote 192: According to Barth it is found even at Gadabuni. Barth,
iv. 71.]
[Footnote 193: Foureau, however, met with this tree at Zinder, where in
Barth’s time it was not to be found. _D’Alger au Congo_, p. 514.]
[Footnote 194: Barth, iii. 187; Stieber, _Kolonialblatt_, xvi. Jahrg.,
p. 83; Kund, _Mitteil. a. d. deutsch. Schutzgeb._, xix, p. 7.]
[Footnote 195: But Kund speaks of patches of dense forest, which he met
with at Budugar on the Logone; _loc. cit._, p. 3.]
[Footnote 196: Whilst the name of one variety mentioned by Foureau,
_Sarcocephalus esculentus_, allows one to conclude that its fruit is
edible (_Doc. sc._, i. 406), other plants of this species are repeatedly
referred to as being those from whose roots arrow poison is prepared. A
confirmation of this is that one regularly finds on them the
caterpillars of the _Daphnis Nerii_, which almost everywhere live only
on strongly poisonous plants such as _Nerium_.]
[Footnote 197: _La Géographie_, ix, p. 354.]
[Footnote 198: The fruit of the _kola acuminata_, the ‘goro’ nut, is an
indispensable luxury throughout the Sudan.]
[Footnote 199: Barth, ii. 411.]
[Footnote 200: Barth, ii. 458 (German edition); Nachtigal, i. 653. Cf.
also Passarge, p. 463, where the view is expressed that in Mohammedan
districts _Pennisetum_ is the commonest, while among the pagan tribes
both _Andropogon_ and _Pennisetum_ are found.]
[Footnote 201: Nachtigal, i. 654.]
[Footnote 202: Passarge gives ‘Tchibe’ as the Kanuri term, p. 654.
[‘Tchibe’, or ‘Chibe’, simply means ‘of the mouth’. ‘Sabadu’ is chewed
by the natives like sugar-cane.]]
[Footnote 203: Cf. Barth, ii. 241; Rohlfs, ii. 69.]
[Footnote 204: Barth, iii. 161 ff.]
[Footnote 205: According to Nachtigal (ii. 374) it is next to ‘durrha’
the chief grain grown on the Chad Islands.]
[Footnote 206: Nachtigal, i. 654.]
[Footnote 207: According to Barth they were introduced into Bornu at the
same time as the onion, about 100 years prior to his (Barth’s) visit.
Barth, ii. 314.]
[Footnote 208: Barth, ii. 638 (German edition).]
[Footnote 209: [or benniseed.]]
[Footnote 210: Barth also mentions the existence of the _Vicia faba_ in
Bornu, and even says that it is an important article of food. Barth, ii.
314. But this is a mistake.]
[Footnote 211: [Kanuri name ‘Lapsur’.]]
[Footnote 212: It is interesting that this plant, though only lately
introduced—as one must assume—has a name of its own. If the paw-paw
originates from America, as is now commonly assumed, it remains the more
remarkable that it has already been long naturalized in Bornu, whilst
the sand-flea or ‘jigger’ (_Pulex penetrans_)—which we know by
experience has spread over Africa the most quickly of all American
products—is nowhere yet to be met with in Bornu, and in Barth’s time
appears not to have penetrated farther from the coast than Bagirmi.
Barth, iii. 45.]
[Footnote 213: The pomegranate trees in Kukawa, of which Rohlfs speaks
(i. 314), were apparently destroyed when the town was sacked.]
[Footnote 214: In considering the question of whether some plant or
other is indigenous to the interior of the continent, much too little
consideration is paid to the fact that—in spite of the presence of the
Niger—the Central African countries were completely secluded from
communication with the Atlantic up to the middle of the nineteenth
century. It would be interesting to learn whether the adherents of the
theory that such useful African plants as the ground-nut and the oil-
palm were introduced from America, are aware of the fact that species of
fauna, which are characteristic of South America, such as the
neotropical _Eunica_ species which approximates very closely to the
_Crenis_, an African species of _Lepidopiera_, and the _Urania_ species
peculiar to both regions, are found in Africa.]
[Footnote 215: Barth, iii. 229; Stieber, _loc. cit._, p. 84; Kund, _loc.
cit._, p. 29.]
[Footnote 216: Barth mentions that a stuff called ‘gabaga’ was
manufactured from papyrus. Barth, iii. 298. [‘Gabaga’ is the ordinary
Kanuri word for strips of cotton cloth.]]
[Footnote 217: Rohlfs, ii. 10.]
[Footnote 218: Barth, ii. 655. Denham even mentions cotton as growing
wild; ii. 140.]
[Footnote 219: p. 463.]
[Footnote 220: Cf. Barth, ii. 539 and iv. 50; Kund, _loc. cit._, p. 29.]
VI
FAUNA
What holds good of the flora of Bornu, as regards its geographical
distribution and composition, holds good also, but in a higher degree,
of its animal world. The fauna of the country is a mixture of purely
Ethiopian varieties and of such as are peculiar to the Mediterranean,
i.e. the Sahara region, still the boundaries of the fauna overlap each
other far more than is the case with the flora, owing to the easier
possibility of distribution amongst animals. This holds good especially
of the birds and of the winged insects; in fact the appearance of the
fauna is temporarily strongly influenced by the European birds of
passage who make a winter sojourn in Bornu. Again, the Ethiopian animals
are a mixture of the fauna of East and West Africa. Whilst among the
vertebrates the West African species prevail, it appears that the East
African predominate among the invertebrates, in fact varieties appear
here whose nearest known haunt lies thousands of miles distant in East
or even in South-East Africa. In general the richest animal life is
always displayed in the vicinity of water, firstly because the larger
animals can come here to drink at all times of the year, and secondly
because at the same time the richest vegetation is found here, on the
existence of which the life of the smaller animals more or less depends.
According to Nachtigal, the Chad islands alone must harbour a
comparatively rich fauna, even as regards mammals.[221] The rocky
country also, which almost always possesses a water-supply of one kind
or another, and consequently a fresher and more varied vegetation, thus
affording lurking-places of all sorts, is always preferred by the wild
animals of the adjoining plain. The ‘Terminalia’ steppe of South Bornu
appears at its poorest as regards animal life during the dry weather,
under which circumstances an attentive observer may travel all day
without seeing a single living creature save a few insects.
Of the mammals, the various kinds of monkeys in Bornu next deserve our
particular attention: their numbers are exceedingly large and in spite
of the most impudent raids on the cornfields they are scarcely
interfered with at all; they venture into the closest proximity to man,
and often display a boldness of behaviour that one hardly finds in any
other mammal. Thus they enter even the towns themselves, climbing the
walls with the utmost unconcern, bent on deliberate mischief.[222]
The _Cercopithecus_ species, or long-tailed monkeys, are very widely
distributed over Bornu. For they do not belong especially to the hiding-
places among the rocks as the baboons do. They are present wherever a
fairly large and dense growth of trees affords them sufficient shelter,
and so they are to be found right within the Sahara, in the hill country
of Aïr, the most northernly place for Ethiopian fauna, where they are
even represented by two different species.[223] They live always in
troops and especially frequent the ‘bush’ in the neighbourhood of human
habitations, where the millet and guinea-corn fields are their
objective, in which in a short time they can cause incredible damage, in
spite of all precautions by the owners. The best known long-tailed
monkeys of Bornu are the _Cercopithecus viridis_, and the hussar monkey,
_Cercopithecus ruber_,[224] the former belonging more to the flat
regions of the north, and the latter inhabiting rather the ‘bush’ and
the granite rocks of South Bornu.
The dog-faced apes, the baboons, appear to be distributed still farther
to the north than the long-tailed monkeys; but they rather prefer rocky
localities and for this reason are principally to be met with in the
most northernly and the most southernly districts of Bornu, though they
also frequent the plain, as Nachtigal was able to observe near the town
of Affade. Where, however, one finds only a fairly considerable granite
formation, there one may reckon with the greatest certainty on the
presence of baboons. Considering the slight protection afforded by their
surroundings, which often consists only in the similarity of colouring
between their skins and the rocks they inhabit, the baboons (relying on
their formidable teeth) display still greater boldness than the long-
tailed monkeys, and only retire from the cornfields selected for plunder
if energetically pursued, barking furiously, and with their cheek-
pouches filled to bursting.[225] The only living thing that they fear is
the leopard, their bitterest enemy. The commonest dog-faced monkey found
in Bornu belongs to the species _Cynocephalus babuin_,[226] but there is
another somewhat larger species in the higher mountains—whose males have
a lion-like appearance owing to their thick manes—but this species is
not yet definitely classified.
Analogous to the monkey tribe, one meets at Ulugo near Lake Chad and
also in other places in the open acacia ‘bush’ a purely night-prowling
beast, the ‘galago’, _Otolicnus galago_,[227] which is about the size of
a squirrel. Among the numerous bats is included a very large light-
yellow species, which one occasionally disturbs out of the trees during
the daytime, also a flying dog, _Cynonycteris stramineus_,[228] of
considerable size, which always appears in large numbers and flits round
the fruit-bearing fig-trees or kuka-trees at sundown, but makes itself
especially noticeable by its noisiness at the beginning of the rainy
season.
Bornu is extraordinarily rich in beasts of prey, whose presence is
explained by the abundance of game and the considerable flocks and herds
owned by the natives. All the big feline species of Africa are found in
Bornu. At the head of these stands the lion, which, owing to the
smallness of the mane in the male, approaches the Senegal variety. In
Bornu proper he is always rare[229] or perhaps often overlooked, though
he is certainly distributed all over the country; but he naturally
prefers to frequent the thick ‘bush’ of the river banks, where the game
come to water, and he is always sure of a rich and certain prey. It is
here also that he is most in evidence. He is most frequently met with on
the north shore of Chad[230] and in the riverain district of the Shari
and the Logone, where also other game is found in the greatest
abundance. Dominik, who was able to certify to the presence of eight
lions at a single spot on the Shari at the same time, relates that
according to Arab reports the lions here hold regular ‘drives’ for
game.[231] According to Kund, the quantity of lions in these parts has
temporarily become so great, that some smaller hamlets have been
compelled to shift their quarters.[232] The presence of the lions is so
serious, that they not only endanger the herds, but even repeatedly
attack human beings. Denham, for instance, relates that during his stay
in Kukawa, a woman slave was seized by a lioness,[233] and in quite
recent times men have been repeatedly carried off by lions in the
districts near the Shari.[234]
The natives declare that the leopard, _Felis leopardus_, the second
largest of the feline tribe found in the country, occasionally attacks
human beings, and in view of the fact that similar depredations are
reported from other parts of Africa, it can scarcely be doubted that
they occur in Bornu. Whilst the Bornu lion prefers the plains, the
leopard is rather a mountain animal, for the clefts in the rocks and the
ravines thickly overgrown with vegetation furnish him with numerous
lurking-places and also harbour large quantities of baboons, which form
his principal prey.
Of the other feline animals the cheetah, _Cynailurus guttatus_, is the
third largest; this is something like a dog and is often tamed, but it
is distinctly rare. It seems to prefer very dry localities, whilst
another species, the serval, _Felis serval_, with longer legs and larger
ears, especially common near Lake Chad, has a predilection for swampy
thickets, where it is very destructive to the wild-fowl. The last of the
known species is the Summoli, _Felis caracal_, a true lynx with long
prick ears; this appears to show all the characteristics of its European
relative,[235] and like it too is only found very sporadically.
The wild dog tribe are likewise well represented in Bornu. At night-time
may be heard everywhere the howl of the jackal, by far the commonest of
the smaller beasts of prey. The jackal, _Canis mesomelas_, on the one
hand, is useful by exterminating mice and removing carrion left lying
about, but on the other hand is a nuisance, owing to the depredations
which he commits in the poultry-yard, and by often dragging into the
light of day corpses which have been only carelessly buried; in the
latter respect he is a worse offender even than the hyena.
Remarkable for the similarity which the climate of Bornu has in many
respects with that of the Southern Sahara, is the presence of so
pronounced a desert animal as is the ‘Fenek’, _Canis cerdo_.[236] This
was met with by Barth, not only in the northern districts round Munio,
where its appearance would not cause especial astonishment, but also on
the Shari.[237] Here also Dominik confirms the presence of that most
interesting of the dog species of this region, the Hyena-dog, _Lycaon
pictus_, which hunts in packs and forms the link between the dog proper
and the hyena.[238]
As in all the ‘bush’ regions of Africa, so also in Bornu, there is no
lack of hyenas; they have hitherto been classified under two
species,[239] the smaller and very common striped hyena, _Hyaena
striata_, and the larger and somewhat rarer spotted variety, _Hyaena
crocuta_; they make themselves useful, like the vultures and the
jackals, by the removal of carrion, but like the latter they leave no
buried corpse undisturbed, unless prevented from doing so by every
possible means. Although primarily a carrion-eater, the hyena by no
means despises a living prey, and the countless bold seizures and
attacks on cattle, of which the herdsmen of Bornu have to complain, more
often fall to the guilty account of the hyena—who indeed draws the
greater quantity of his carrion from the neighbourhood of the
shambles—than to that of the lion or the leopard.[240] Whether they also
attack sleeping men, as the natives assert, may be left undecided.
To what may be called the slinking variety of the cat tribe belongs the
civet-cat, _Viverra civetta_, which is found all over Bornu, and is
often kept as a domestic animal by the natives for the production of the
civet, which is extracted in a pure state from the cuticle of the
strong-smelling posterior gland of the _Viverra_.[241] Three other
smaller beasts of prey, relatives of the civet-cat, which live in Bornu,
are also here and there kept in captivity by the natives, apparently for
the extirpation of mice; these are the furze-cat, _Genetta
dongolana_;[242] the Ichneumon, _Herpestes ichneumon_; and the striped
mongoose, _Herpestes taeniotus_; they are extraordinarily tame
there.[243]
The animals of the marten tribe are less numerous in Bornu. Worthy of
notice also is the existence of an otter, ‘Lutra’, with very handsome
jet black fur, which is caught now and then in Chad by the Kanembu, and
of the African skunk, _Putorius zorilla_. In Bornu as elsewhere the
rodents are numerously represented. Rats and mice are a regular plague
in the low-lying districts, especially where ‘firki’ soil alternates
with sand-dunes; the rats, however, are caught by the Kotokos and
brought to the markets to be sold as food.[244] A kind of burrowing
mouse together with a species of hare[245] undermine the surface of the
sand-dunes studded with ‘Calotropis’ and ‘Zizyphus’ trees, thus
rendering it difficult for pedestrians as well as mounted men to cross
such places. Of the porcupine tribe at any rate the _Hystrix cristata_
is found in Bornu; the fallen quills of this large rodent, whose
colouring makes them unmistakable, are often found in the ‘bush’.
It is natural that in a land like Bornu, where ants and termites play so
important a part, ant-eaters are not wanting.[246] Clear traces of this
animal’s formidable digging-claws are to be found at practically every
ant-hill, provided it is situated in the open ‘bush’. The ground-pig,
_Orycteropus senegalensis_,[247] is certainly found, and very probably
also one of the armadillos (‘Manis’) peculiar to the African ‘bush’
districts, though up to the present certain information of this has not
been forthcoming. By far the most characteristic of the wild mammals
whose tracks one meets in Bornu—one might almost say one is dogged by
them—belong to the antelope family so rich in different species. The
astonishing abundance of antelope in most districts of Bornu, not only
of species, but also of individuals, is explained by Nachtigal on the
ground that the great profusion of domestic animals suitable for the
butcher renders it unnecessary to trap wild ones.[248] The most striking
of all the antelopes, if one may reckon it among that tribe, is the
giraffe, _Camelopardalis girafa_,[249] which is found, though somewhat
rarely, in the great stretches of uninhabited ‘bush’, sheltered by the
tall acacias, and which also wanders from here into the more settled
districts. It belongs also to the tree-covered steppes to the north of
Chad,[250] from whence its distribution extends far into the Southern
Sahara, as well as all over Bornu.[251] The high granite hills to the
south of Bornu form its first natural boundary.[252] The antelopes
proper are found in Bornu at the present day partly sporadically and
partly in regular herds, separated according to species, but similar in
their habits. The great majority of the species belong equally to Bornu
and to the Southern Sahara.[253] The best known or the most striking
are: the widely-distributed Dorcas Gazelle, _Antilope dorcas_, often
tamed as a pet—the Soemmering’s gazelle, _Antilope Soemmeringii_—the
_Antilope arabica_—the Mpala, _Antilope melampus_—the Bubal Hartebeest,
_Bubalis bubalis_—the red Hartebeest, _Bubalis caama_—the reed-buck,
_Redunca eleotragus_—the water-buck, _Cobus ellipsiprymnus_—the
beautiful horse antelope, _Hippotragus niger_—the sable antelope, _Oryx
leucoryx_—the addax antelope, _Addax nasomaculata_—the Kudu,
_Strepsiceros Kudu_—and the harnessed antelope, _Tragelaphus scriptus_,
as well as a diminutive tufted duiker, _Cephalolophus spec._ As a rule
only the addax antelope and the ‘mpala’ form themselves into largish
herds, often a hundred strong. The former prefer dry localities; the
latter, often in company with the water-buck, are especially fond of the
swampy southern shore of Chad.[254]
Of other ruminants there is finally also found in Bornu the buffalo or
bush cow, _Bos caffer_. Its favourite haunts are little-frequented
places on the Chad shore and the swampy lowlands between the Logone and
the Shari.[255]
The many-toed animals are represented in Bornu by all the giant species
of Africa, as well as by the very small animals belonging to this
family. Of those general in Bornu the elephant deserves by far the
largest share of attention, owing not least to the tragic fate to which
he is destined as a result of the ruthless pursuit to which he is
subjected. Even if one always reckons that the number of these beasts is
larger than it is in reality, one must add to this the fact that even
travellers such as Barth were deceived as to their numbers owing to
ignorance of the elephant’s habits of life. Dominik rightly emphasizes
the point[256] that the activity of three elephants is enough to leave
traces that easily lead one to the false assumption that they have been
made by a larger herd of these pachyderms. Only thus is it to be
explained that Barth speaks of thousands of elephants,[257] while the
number of the largest herd which he himself observed only reached 96
head.[258] If one takes into consideration the elephants which Barth
actually saw, it constitutes a diminution already considerable in the
number of these giant beasts since Denham’s time, for the latter
observed herds still numbering 150 or even 400.[259] Since then the
number of elephants has steadily diminished, so that even the numbers of
a herd alleged to contain 50 head, observed by the English members of
the Anglo-German Boundary Commission in the winter of 1903-4, must
certainly be taken as an over rather than an underestimate. Although
Kund mentions at the same period the appearance of a herd 200 strong on
the Shari,[260] his statement must certainly be grounded on greatly
exaggerated reports from natives.
The favourite haunts of the elephant are the larger stretches of
uninhabited ‘bush’ with suitable watering-places, which are to be found
on the northern shore of Chad and along the rivers, especially the Shari
and Logone, whose banks Barth reckons to be the places in Africa which
are richest in elephants.[261] Starting from here the animals wander
farther afield even into inhabited localities—making the paths in the
soft soil impassable for pedestrians owing to their deeply-trampled
footprints. So there is scarcely a district in Bornu where it has not
been observed, except in the extreme north-west. Where the elephant is
not hunted, it does not appear to be timid,[262] but this supposition
becomes less and less tenable as the number of fire-arms increases.[263]
The second largest many-toed animal of Africa, the rhinoceros,
_Rhinoceros bicornis_, belongs likewise to the fauna of Bornu, but is
much rarer and has only a restricted area of distribution. Indeed, it is
only indigenous in the low-lying country on the Shari and Logone,
especially in the Kung ‘bush’, south of about 10° north latitude, where
it would appear to be more numerous and to be dreaded on account of its
malicious character.[264]