50 
STARVATION IN THE KYTCH COUNTRY. [chap. i. 
entirely to the productions of nature for their subsist¬ 
ence ; they will spend hours in digging out field-mice 
from their burrows, as we should for rabbits. They 
are the most pitiable set of savages that can be 
imagined; so emaciated, that they have no visible 
posteriors ; they look as though they had been planed 
off, and their long thin legs and arms give them a 
peculiar gnat-like appearance. At night they crouch 
close to the fires, lying in the smoke to escape the 
clouds of mosquitoes. At this season the country is a 
vast swamp, the only dry spots being the white ant¬ 
hills ; in such places the natives herd like wild animals, 
simply rubbing themselves with wood-ashes to keep 
out the cold. 
Jan. 20 th .—The river from this spot turns sharp 
to the east, but an arm equally broad comes from. 
S. 20 E. to this point. There is no stream from this 
arm. The main stream runs round the angle with a 
rapid current of about two and a half miles per hour. 
The natives say that this arm of dead water extends 
for three or four days’ sailing, and is then lost in the 
high reeds. My reis Diabb declares this to be a mere 
backwater, and that it is not connected with the main 
river by any positive channel. 
So miserable are the natives of the Kytch tribe, that 
they devour both skins and bones of all dead animals ; 
the bones are pounded between stones, and when re¬ 
duced to powder they are boiled to a kind of porridge; 
nothing is left even for a fly to feed upon, when an 
animal either dies a natural death, or is killed. I 
never pitied poor creatures more than these utterly 
destitute savages ; their method of returning thanks 
is by holding your hand and affecting to spit upon it; 
which operation they do not actually perform, as I have 
seen stated in works upon the White Nile. Their 
domestic arrangements are peculiar. Polygamy is of 
course allowed, as in all other hot climates and savage 
countries; but when a man becomes too old to pay suf¬ 
ficient attention to his numerous young wives, the 
