280 
TEAVELS IN CENTEAL AFEICA. 
mission from their chief Dari_, to present his salutations and to beg 
of me to pay him a visit. 
These men are good-lookings well made^ of ordinary stature, 
bright eyes, teeth clean and complete, their hair long and arranged 
in broad plaits reachiug to the small of the back, their skin of a 
copper shade. They envelope their loins in a cloth of their own 
make from the fibres of bark, and their ornaments consist of iron 
rings worn round the neck, wrists, and ankles. Their arms are 
beautifully-worked matted shields, bows and arrows, a peculiar, 
curved double-edged sword, also various curious, nearly circular 
iron missiles, with several awkward, sharp projections, and a knife, 
suspended handle downwards to the waist-belt. 
They are much dreaded by their neighbours, both for their 
courage in warfare and their habits of cannibalism. The country 
inhabited by them, though hilly, is fertile, and well supplied by 
numerous brooks with water. It is about thirty miles in length 
and half as broad, lying, as well as I could ascertain, south-east 
and north-west, and occupied by the father of the present chief. 
It is not more than three marches to the S.W. of Neangara. 
Dari, with his party, are descended from the Neam Neams, for- 
merly visited by me from the Bahar il Gazal in 1858. Makraka, 
situated south-west of Dari, numbers probably a population of ten 
thousand souls, divided under nine chiefs, the whole of whom are 
subject to the chief Dari. The surrounding countries, Bago and 
Fegalo, to the south, lying east of Mundo, conquered by this war- 
like tribe, are still tributary and pay annually in grain. 
On the return to Khartoum from England with my wife, my 
agent from the Neam Neam via the Bahar il Gazal, it will be 
remembered, had brought a grey and red tailed parrot (Psittacus 
Ttmneh) with him, and on my shooting excursions in the close 
