Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/288

 224 NORTn-EAST AFRICA. zealous Mohammedan missionaries are making such great progress that in a few years all the Legas will probably have embraced Islam. In the midst of the Legas live a few thousand Denkas, who have sought protection amongst them and work as their slaves. Having no other means of escaping the slave-dealers in the wasted plains of the Sobat and Zal, which they formerly inhabited, they have been obliged to seek refuge in the moimtains, offering themselves to the tribes as porters and mercenaries. These Denkas are distinguished from the other tribes by two or three horizontal marks, which they have made on the forehead by means of stalks of cereal plants, bound tightly round the head for several weeks. They do not marry the women of the country, and hence are obliged to practise polyandry, which has become an institution regulated by ceremonies. The capital of the Lega country is the town of Gumbali, situated at a height of 6,600 feet on one of the upper affluents of the Jabus. Goho, the residence of their high priest, lies farther south at an elevation of 7,530 feet. The Bertas. The advanced chains west of the Damot Mountains are occupied by numerous Sbangalla peoples ; but the most powerful nation is that inhabiting the two valleys of the Jabus and Tumat, tributaries of the Blue Nile, and the parting ranges between the two watersheds of the Bahr-el-Azraq and Bahr-el-Abiad. These Bertas, of Negro stock, who are said to number about 80,000, and whom the Arabs usually term Jebalain, or "mountaineers," a name also applied to other peoples, have kinky hair, pouting lips, and the face flat, although less so than that of their West African congeners. However, the figure is well-proportioned, the limbs supple and strong ; and the Berta warrior, armed with lance and shield, presents a commanding appearance. The women adorn the face by passing a silver or copper ring through the nostrils, and an iron one through the upper lobe of the left ear. The yoimg men fasten the tusks of boars to their temples or necks, and on grand occasions both men and women paint the body red, like the Bslri warriors. The women of some tribes tattoo the face in such a fashion as to produce numerous little pustules like those of small-pox. The warriors of other tribes expose the epidermis so as to produce very elegant arabesque designs ; but their customs allow those warriors alone who have cut off one or more heads to tattoo themselves in this way. The Bertas, like all the other Negro peoples of the Blue Nile, consist exclusively of agriculturists, which is the principal cause of their contrast with the Negroes of the White Nile, who are all cattle-breeders. The language of the Bertas belongs to the same family as that of the Shiluks, NAers, and Denkas ; but since their country has been brought within the Mohammedan, circle of attraction, first by the Egyptian conquest and then by the general development of the Nilotic populations, Arabic has become the cultivated Janguage. The villages are administered, and the chief of the tribe chosen, by the Arabs. In each independent village resides an Arab merchant acting as a consul for the protection of his fellow-countrymen, and thanks to hira the stranger is received