Bongo; Dinka. 119 There are two kinds, the Virginian and the common, and the natives are much addicted to smoking. A great abundance of fruit is afforded by the common trees of the country.

There is a great want of common salt throughout the Salt, district of the Bahr el Ghazal : alkali is used as a substitute, obtained by soaking ashes of burnt wood.

The domestic animals of the Bongo are poultry, dogs, Animals, and goats ; sheep and cattle are rare. The wild animals are buffalo, antelopes, ichneumons, civets, genets, wild cats.

Elephants appear to have become scarce. Lions, leopards, baboons, hyenas, &c, exist in the forest.

In Bongo Land, the hlierif or rainy season opens as early Climate. as March with occasional showers ; up to August the showers increase in number, but are never continuous, and at the most only take place every third or fourth day ; up to June they are accompanied by tempests and thunderstorms, but after that their violence abates. After July there is a change of temperature, which only occasionally reaches the extreme point again, and does not exceed about 35° Cent. — 95° Fahrenheit.

The climate is exceedingly uniform, attributable to the absence of mountain ranges. The trade winds exert their influence without hindrance over the whole country.

The loggoh kullutty is the circulating coin. It is a flat iron coin 10 to 12 inches in diameter, with a handle on one edge, and serves, equally with spear-heads and spades, for cash and exchanges.

Dinka. The Dinka (or Jangeh) country in the Bahr el Ghazal Country, includes nearly the whole of the low ground extending from the Jur and Bongo countries as far as the Bahr el Ghazal and Bahr el Arab. It is a vast plain of dark alluvial clay, unbroken by a single hill or mass of rock, and the tracts of forest are limited in extent. This district has already been described under the general topography of the Bahr el Ghazal province.

The clayey swamps become in the dry season as hard as stone, the brooks and streams all dry up, and their beds are scarcely perceptible, being covered up by the rapidly growing herbage.