CHAP. VIII.] 
POTTERY AND UTENSILS. 
211 
Obbo, but having suffered much from fever, and the 
country being excessively damp, I commenced with 
Obbo pipes and tobacco. 
Every tribe has a distinct pattern of pipe; those 
of the Bari have wide trumpet-shaped mouths; the 
Latookas are long and narrow; and the Obbo smaller 
and the neatest. All their pottery is badly burned, 
and excessively fragile if wet. The water jars are 
well formed, although the potter s wheel is quite un¬ 
known, and the circular form is obtained entirely by 
the hand. Throughout the tribes of the White Nile, 
the articles of pottery are limited to the tobacco-pipe 
and the water-jar : all other utensils are formed either 
of wood, or of gourd shells. 
By observation, I determined the latitude of my camp 
at Obbo to be 4°‘02 / N., Ion. E. 32° 31', and the general 
elevation of the country, 3,674 feet above the sea, the 
temperature about 76° Fahr. The altitude of Latooka 
was 2,236 feet above the sea level : thus we were, at 
Obbo, upon an elevated plateau, 1,438 feet above the 
general le vel of the country on the east of the mountain 
range. The climate would be healthy were the country 
sufficiently populated to war successfully against nature; 
but the rainfall continuing during ten months of the 
year, from February to the end of November, and the 
soil being extremely fertile, the increase of vegetation 
is too rapid, and the scanty population are hemmed in 
and overpowered by superabundant herbage. This 
mass of foliage, and grasses of ten feet in height inter¬ 
woven with creeping plants and wild grape-vines, is 
perfectly impenetrable to man, and forms avast jungle, 
inhabited by elephants, rhinoceros, and buffaloes, whose 
ponderous strength alone can overcome it. There are 
few antelopes, as those animals dislike the grass jungles, 
in which they have no protection against the lion or 
the leopard, as such beasts of prey can approach them 
unseen. In the month of January the grass is suf¬ 
ficiently dry to burn, but even at that period there is 
a quantity of fresh green grass growing between the 
p 2 
