File:Evening in a Bagirmi village. Water-colour by E. M. Heims.jpg

Identifier: fromcongotonige01adol (find matches)
Title: From the Congo to the Niger and the Nile : an account of The German Central African expedition of 1910-1911
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1873-1969 Deutsche Zentral-Afrika-expedition, 1910-1911
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Duckworth
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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r camels,this being about their most southerly limit. I triedto charter their animals for the rest of our journeyto Tchekna, as they are quicker, and carry ten timesas much as the oxen. But although they agreed, bothArabs and camels suddenly vanished. In the littlevillage of Derredja, we met Bagirmi natives for thefirst time, inplace of the usual Arab population.Here, too, we found some deep wells containing clearwater. At midnight, after a short three hours rest, we setoff by moonlight on the last stage of the journey toTchekna, and the twenty-five miles were accomplishedwithout a halt. Haberer was tired out and remainedbehind, so that I reached Tchekna alone at 9 a.m.and was welcomed by Adjutant Roeuge, who rodeout to meet me. In these latitudes the almost entire absence of mois-ture is very pleasant, the humidity of the air beingextremely low during the dry season. Whilst we werein the Tchad district the hygrometer registered S3per cent., whereas here it indicated only 18 to 20 per
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CO n * S E c2> IN BAGIRMI 81 cent., and later on it even fell to 15 per cent. Thisdryness of the atmosphere has many advantages : itprevents, for example, any formation of rust, so thatinstruments and rifles require no oiling, a rub witha duster sufficing to keep them in good condition.Blotting-paper, too, is a luxury, for the ink dries as fastas it is used. The heat is very exhausting, and thereis little relief even at night, for the radiation from thewalls of the mud and straw huts in which Europeanslive, is so great that it is impossible to sleep indoors.We were obliged to set up our beds in the open air,and we became so accustomed to sleeping out of doors,that when the rainy season began again in May, wewere quite reluctant to seek shelter in our tents. The water supply of Tchekna is excellent. Thedrinking water is obtained from the Ba Mbassa, atributary of the Shari; during the rainy season it isa wide lake, but just now it was only a small stream,half choked with grass and we

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