Gondwana

“ According to our assumption, the east coast of India directly adjoined the west coast of Australia. The former also displays an abrupt fracture of the plateau of gneiss, which only suffers an interruption in the narrow trough-like Godavari coalfield, composed of Lower Gondwana strata. Along the coast the Upper Gondwana beds lie unconformably on their edges. A platform of gneiss, with a rolling surface similar to that of India and Africa, is also found in West Australia. Along the coast it dips towards the sea with a long precipitous slope—the Darling range and its northern extension. ”

“ In each country the same succession of the rocks is met with; over both the same specialized orders of reptiles roamed and were entombed.
The interior of the African portion of Gondwana Land was occupied by several large lakes in which an immense thickness—amounting to over 18,000 ft. in South Africa—of sandstones and marls, forming the Karroo system, was laid down. This is par excellence the African formation, and covers immense areas in South Africa and the Congo basin, with detached portions in East Africa. ”

“ We learned after much trouble that there was a tribe of Gonds who resided in the hills of Amarkantak and to the south-east in the Gondwāna country, who held very little intercourse with the villagers and never went among them except to barter or purchase provisions. This race live in detached parties and seldom have more than eight or ten huts in one place. They are cannibals in the real sense of the word, but never eat the flesh of any person not belonging to their own family or tribe ”

“ But the Gond states had no strength for defence, as was shown when in the eighteenth century Marātha chiefs, having acquired some knowledge of the art of war and military training by their long fighting against the Mughals, cast covetous eyes on Gondwāna. The loose tribal system, so easy in time of peace, entirely failed to knit together the strength of the people when united action was most required, and the plain country fell before the Marātha armies almost without a struggle. ”

“ One of the most interesting facts in the history of the Gondwana series is the occurrence near the base (in the Talchir group) of large striated boulders in a fine mud or silt, the boulders in one place resting upon rock (of Vindhyan age) which is also striated. These beds are the result of ice-action, and it is interesting to note that a similar boulder bed is associated with the Glossopteris-bearing deposits of Australia, South Africa and probably South America. ”

“ The valley of the Keyn and that of the Tonsa here run across the Vindhyas, which are known to the eastward of this as the Kyrmores, and afford communication between Northern and Southern India. It is along the depression of the latter stream that the railway has been built from Jabalpúr to Allahabad.
The eight hundred thousand Gónds of the Góndwana are supposed to be members of the great autochthonal family of ancient India. ”

“ The Gonds were once dominant over the greater part of the Central Provinces, which was called Gondwana [71] after them. The above three names have in each case been given to the tribes by the Hindus. The following tribes are found in the Province:
Gond, Oraon or Kurukh, Khond, Kolām, Parja, Kamār. Tribal Castes: Bhatra, Halba, Dhoba. Doubtful: Kawar, Dhanwār.
The Gonds and Khonds call themselves Koi or Koitur, a word which seems to mean man or hillman. The Oraon tribe call themselves Kurukh, which has also been supposed to be connected with the Kolarian horo, man. ”

“ He is accompanied by a man who bears a bamboo. The hare, attracted and fascinated by the light, comes close and watches it stupidly till the bamboo descends on the animal’s head, and the Gonds have hare for [143] supper.” Sometimes a bell is rung as well, and this is said to attract the animals. They also catch fish by holding a lamp over the water on a dark night and spearing them with a trident.
1 The country of Gondwāna properly included the Satpūra plateau and a section of the Nāgpur plain and Nerbudda valley to the south and west. ”

“ It is derived from the aboriginal tribe of Gonds, who still form the largest element in the population and who were at one time the ruling power. From the 12th to as late as the 18th century three or four Gond dynasties reigned over this region with a degree of civilization that seems surprising when compared with the existing condition of the people. They built large walled cities, and accumulated immense treasures of gold and silver and jewels. ”

“ The higher class among them, called Raj Gonds, have been definitely admitted into Hinduism as a pure cultivating caste; but the great majority still retain the animistic beliefs, ceremonial observances and impure customs of food which are common to most of the aboriginal tribes of India. ”

“ Each man carries with him, wherever he goes, his weapons, pipe, and stool, the whole (except the stool) being held between his legs when he is standing. The Gondokoro natives belong to the Bari tribe: the men are well grown; the women are not prepossessing, with good features, and no sign of negro blood, except the woolly hair. They tattoo themselves on stomach, sides, and back, and anoint their persons with a peculiar red clay, abounding in oxide of iron. ”

“ South of the Congo are the drainage basins of the Zambezi and Orange rivers, which extend nearly across the lower limb of the continent, and have an eastward and westward slope respectively. The great land-mass composing the western limb of the continent is poorly watered, the Niger being the only river of first importance lying wholly within the area. This river drains the northern slopes of the coastal highlands of Guinea, through which it breaks after being joined by an important tributary from the east, the Benue, and enters the Gulf of Guinea. ”

“ In contemplating a human being so formed, we are involuntarily reminded of the structure of the ape, and we feel almost inclined to admit that the tribes of Western Africa are descended from a stock which bears but a slight and general resemblance to that of the Mongolian family.
But there are some groups, whose aspect is even less flattering to the self-love of humanity than that of the Congo. It is the peculiar distinction of Oceanica to furnish about the most degraded and repulsive of those wretched beings, who seem to occupy a sort of intermediate station between man and the mere brute. ”

“ Leaving Gondar on the 26th of December, 1771, with a numerous suite of attendants, he proceeded through the northern provinces of Abyssinia, the country of the Shangalla, and crossing the rivers Rabad, Dender, and Nile, arrived on the 29th of April, 1772, at Sennaar, the capital of Nubia. The next morning after his arrival he was summoned into the presence of the king, whom he found in a small apartment in his vast clay-built palace, dressed very meanly, and reposing on a mattress covered with a Persian carpet. ”

“ Arabs. While still a youth, as a reward for his distinguished conduct and pluck on raiding expeditions, he was given his freedom. Starting with one gun at eighteen years of age, he gradually collected a band of brigands round him, whom he ruled with a rod of iron, and before long became Tippo Tip’s chief slave and ivory hunter. At the time of his adhesion to the State, Gongo was perhaps thirty years of age. ”

“ Gondokoro is in the country of the Baris, a race of negroes somewhat resembling the other tribes of the Nile, but differing from them in language and customs. They have large herds of cattle, like their neighbors the Dinkas, and, like them, they till the soil to some extent, though the raising of cattle is their chief occupation. Doctor Bronson says they raise a good deal of mischief as well as cattle, and have given no end of trouble to travellers and to the military expeditions that have been sent among them. ”

“ Before long he returned with two mound-builder’s eggs, which he presented to me. This liberality surprised me, for it is rare among the blacks, except among themselves. I suppose he wanted to show me that I was welcome. My experience is, on the whole, that uncivilised blacks are much more friendly and unpretentious than those who have been in contact with the white men. Gongola’s friendliness was all the more praiseworthy, since my gift was of no value to him; for he did not like tobacco. It is rare to meet natives who are not fond of tobacco ”

“ It is by no means a Rhine journey, with gay steamers, flush with food and wine. The Congo is one-and-a-half times larger than the Mississippi, and with a width which is majestic in comparison with the “Father of Waters.” It shows a dozen varieties of palm. Its herds of hippopotami, flocks of gleeful monkeys, troops of elephants standing sentry at forest entrances, bevies of buffaloes grazing on its grassy slopes, swarms of ibis, parrots and guinea-fowl fluttering everywhere—these create a life for the Congo, surpassing in variety that of the Mississippi. ”

“ The Baris are a most warlike tribe, and would make excellent troops; thus they were valuable allies of the slave-hunters, as the geographical position of Gondokoro rendered it the only spot that was adapted for an important station. The traders now possessed of the monopoly of the ivory trade, found no necessity for a permanent station at Gondokoro, as their interests were watched during their absence in the interior by their ally Allorron; they accordingly only visited Gondokoro when they returned periodically from the interior with their ivory and slaves to meet the vessels from Khartoum. ”

“ Maxwell, there are other testimonies to the magnitude of the Congo, shewing it to be a river of the first class, and larger probably than the Nile. In a journal (which the editor has seen) of an intelligent and respectable naval officer, Captain Scobell, who visited the coast of Africa in the year 1813, in H.M. sloop of war the Thais, the Congo is described as "an immense river from which issues a continued stream at the rate of four or five knots in the dry, and six or seven in the rainy season." ”

“ You will see on your map that the great northern bend of the Congo is like a bent bow, and far below it is the string of the bow—the Sankuru—pieced out at one end by the Kassai River, which unites it with the Congo, while the other end stretches far across, almost to the other end of the bow. Dr. Wolf's discovery added almost 800 miles of navigable waters to the Congo basin, stretching almost due east to central Africa. ”

“ Gondokoro is not a town, but merely a station of the ivory traders, and for ten months of the year is almost a solitude. Its climate is hot and unhealthy. Sir Samuel Baker did not meet with a friendly reception. The men who profited by the slave-trade regarded him with suspicion; they believed he had come to watch their doings, and report them to the world. Their hostility, however, did not disturb his composure, and he amused himself in riding about the neighbourhood, and studying the place and its inhabitants. ”

“ They form the principal watershed not only of the province of Bauchi, but of the protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The Gongola, flowing east and south to the Benue, rises in the Sura district, and from the Kibyen plateau streams flow north to Lake Chad, west to the Kaduna, and south to the Benue. The soil is generally fertile between the hills, and in the volcanic districts the slopes are cultivated half-way up the extinct craters. The climate in the western parts is temperate and healthy. ”

“ The Kasdhonia Dhīmars wash the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins which pious pilgrims frequently drop or throw into the river as an offering when they bathe in it. The Gondia subcaste is clearly an offshoot from the Gond tribe, but a large proportion of the whole caste in the Central Provinces is probably derived from the Gonds or Kols, members of this latter tribe being especially proficient as palanquin-bearers. The Suvarha subcaste is named after the suar or pig, because members of this subcaste breed and eat the unclean animal; they are looked down on by the others. ”

“ It is to the Wangwana that Livingstone, Burton, Speke, and Grant owe, in great part, the accomplishment of their objects, and while in the employ of those explorers, this race rendered great services to geography. From a considerable distance north of the equator down to the Zambezi and across Africa to Benguella and the mouth of the Congo, or Livingstone, they have made their names familiar to tribes who, but for the Wangwana, would have remained ignorant to this day of all things outside their own settlements. They possess, with many weaknesses, many fine qualities. ”

“ Equally remarkable is the mushroom growth of Elizabethville, the one wonder town of the Congo. In 1910, when the railway arrived, it was a geographical expression,—a spot in the jungle dominated by the huge ant-hills that you find throughout Central Africa, some of them forty feet high. The white population [Pg 148] numbered thirty. I found it a thriving place with over 2,000 whites and 12,000 blacks. There are one third as many white people in the Katanga Province as in all the rest of the Congo combined, and its area is scarcely a fourth of that of the colony. ”

“ The slave markets were immediately closed as a result of British occupation, and any slave-trading which is still done is smuggled. In 1903 an exploring expedition was sent up the Gongola, one of the principal rivers of the Yola province, and as a result the navigability of the river for steam launches as far as Gombe at high water was demonstrated. An important means of communication with the province of Bornu was thus established, and a rich agricultural district opened to development. ”