Abessinia and the neighbouring Countries. 273 



Respecting the Gvvinza and Garao, I am not able to say any- 

 thing. But the others may be thus classed : — 



The Suro and Doko are two dark-coloured if not absolutely 

 negro people, dwelling in the vicinity of Kaifa.* Of the 

 country of Suro, I have already said, in another place, t that 

 it " is two days' journey to the west of Bonga, and is subject 

 to Kaffa. The country is both highland and valley, but the 

 people are all Shdnkqlas or negroes. The men go naked, and 

 the women wear only a small apron. The king of the country 

 alone is clothed. They are pagans. They take out two of 

 the lower front teeth, and cut a hole in the lower lip, into 

 which they insert a wooden plug. They also pierce the gristle 

 of the ear for the insertion of grass." J It can scarcely be 



* Journ. Roy. Qeogr. Soc, vol. xiii. pp. 264, 265. t Ibid. 



J. The country of these Suro negroes was, at the same time, described by 

 Omar ibn Nedjat, the intelligent Abessinian merchant from whom I obtained 

 the above information respecting them, as lying in the valley of the river Godjeb, 

 at a short distance to the west of Kaffa. (See his map, in Journ. Roy. Geof/r. 

 Soc, vol. xvii. part i.). 



M. Ferdinand Werne, who accompanied the second Egyptian expedition up 

 the AVhite River, has recently published an account of his voyage (Mtpedition 

 :ur Entdechung der Quellen des Weissen Nil, Berlin, 1848), in various parts of 

 which similar customs are described as prevailing among the black inhabitants 

 of the valley of that river. The traveller states, that, as far south as Bari, a 

 country in the fourth parallel of north latitude, all the natives are in the habit 

 of extracting several of the incisors, both of the upper and of the lower jaw, " in 

 I'lJer that they may not resemble beasts of prey" (p. 188) ; and that they also 

 " pierce the cartilage of the ear all round, and, in the absence of beads or other 

 ornaments, they insert in the orifices small pieces of wood" (p. 428). The 

 natives of Bari alone form an exception, being " distinguished" (says M. Werne) 

 " from all the people we have hitherto seen, by the circumstance, that they do 

 not pierce the ears for the insertion of ornaments ; and also, that they are not 

 tattooed" (p. 293) ; and higher up the river than Bari, which country was the 

 extreme point reached by the expedition, the natives are said to " keejJ in all 

 their teeth" (p. 325). 



From a comparison of these particulars, the conclusion may fairly be drawn, 

 that the Suro negroes are of the same race as the inhabitants of the valley of 

 the Wliite River below Bari, but not as those above that country; and as they 

 occupy the valley of the Godjeb, which is now known to be an affluent of the 

 Nile ; and as there is no important stream joining the White River from the 

 east below liari, except the Sobat, Telfi, or River of Uabesh ; it results that this 

 latter river is the lower course of the Godjeb. This conclusion is, of course, 

 quite independent of all other arguments already adduced by me in support of 

 the same position. Sec Journal of the Royal Geograjiliical Society of London, 



