Chapter VIII: Part 8

An hour's walk into the valley of death brought us to a cluster of villages with a large population, which was in a state of utter destitution. The people, who were very nervous at first, eventually gathered round in numbers with the same tale of rapine and murder, and the chief gave me a guide to take me to the foot of the hills. Another hour brought us to Nsabe, which, though generally depicted on maps in large letters, consists of about five dirty little muck-heaps, only recognizable as human habitations by the filthy smell that emanated from them. All the inhabitants fled, leaving their spears, bows, and beer in their hurry, and no amount of shouting and yelling would induce them to return. Our guide promptly made a bundle of the spears and other movables, with a view to appropriation, which when complete I placed against a tree, accompanying the movement by a vigorous application of my boot to the toughest portion of his anatomy. Incorrigible, bullying, thieving curs, one is often tempted to think that the Boer method of treating natives is, after all, the only one they deserve. Their Mark Tapleyism is their sole redeeming feature, and that is attributable to the incapacity of their intellect to hold anything but the impression of the moment. Although of the same tribe and close neighbours, I expect he would have thoroughly enjoyed seeing me burn and loot the place; it is the same everywhere--a guide amongst his own people is a worse thief even than a Manyema porter. He then took us by a devious route to the shore of the lake, and seemed greatly astonished to find that the village he had mentioned did not exist; nor had it left any trace behind. I could see by the way he was behaving that he intended to bolt, and knowing that without a native of the country there was very little chance of inducing the people, in their frightened state, to remain in their villages, I kept a close eye on him. As I expected, when I sat down on the shore to wait for the boys to close up, he began edging off towards the jungle; but when he looked round to see if it was all clear, he found himself covered by my .303. I had him brought back, and explained to him that his chief had sent him to show the way to the foot of the hills, that he had led me into the wilderness and could now lead me out, the two alternatives being villages, another guide, and a present, or a race with a .303 bullet. He chose the former, and seeing that fooling was a glut in the market, promptly took us to a village of the Wakoba called Kahoma, and in Kahuma's country. Here all the people fled, but he followed, and persuaded them to bring food to trade. They, too, had been raided, and had lost two women and two children captured. They could not tell me how many white men or Askaris there were, as they had not waited to see. The majority of them are fine, well-made men, and intensely black. One in particular took my fancy. He was a tremendous swell, with anything from 15 to 20 lbs. of red clay on his head, an enormous ivory bracelet, and multitudes of iron rings. The Wakoba live all along the lake-shore and in the fringe of the hills, and, curiously enough, their villages are mixed indiscriminately with those of the Balegga, with whom they seem to be on the best of terms, although the two peoples are quite distinct, the Balegga being real out-and-out bestial little savages, while the Wakoba are much above the Central African average of intelligence, with quite a wide knowledge of local affairs. They are both in a state of parallel expansion, the Balegga working to the north into the Lendu country, and the Wakoba in the opposite direction encroaching on the Wanyabuga.

Two miles north of Kahoma the hills come down to the water's edge, leaving only a narrow shingly beach, and thenceforward our progress became painfully slow; at intervals the headlands jut out into the water, and the work of transporting the loads round these obstructions with only two or three small and very unstable canoes was one of considerable difficulty, even the latitude of Doctor Johnson's dictionary proving insufficient on occasions; scores of little streams come tumbling down into the lake, each one forming a small delta, on many of which there are Wakoba villages with a few banana palms, and signs of scratching on the hillside, where I presume something was intended to grow, but had turned dizzy and given up the attempt. After Kahanama's, which is in Kahuma's sphere, Mpigwa is the big man, and I passed through many of his villages, some of the largest being Kabora, Zingi (?), Bordo, Nsessi, and Kiboko. Most of the scenery is very fine, the little white cascades gleaming in the shadow of immense trees, many of which are covered with scarlet and yellow blossoms, and in the midst of luxuriant tangles of vegetation the great gaunt slabs of slimy rock deep-set in their snow-white bed of sand, over which the little waves come tumbling in, gurgling and splashing round their feet and moaning and sobbing into a thousand miniature caves; while great apes and little brown-eyed monkeys drop from branch to branch and sit leering and gibbering at us as we paddle past.

The continual wetting and rock-climbing had the most disastrous effect on my already attenuated wardrobe, and for two or three days I was compelled to disport myself clad in a simple shirt, which, thanks to a classical education and consequent ignorance of the art of washing, had contracted to the modest and insufficient dimensions of a chest-preserver, while assuming the durable but inappropriate consistency of a piece of oil-cloth. The roseate hues of early dawn "weren't in it" with my nether limbs after the first day's exposure to a pitiless sun, and I became a sort of perambulating three-tiered Neapolitan ice, coffee, vanilla and raspberry, a phenomenon that greatly astonished a savage who surprised me in my bath, and who immediately fetched all his kith and kin to see; on the second day, however, the alarming desertion of a third of my epidermis so pained me mentally and physically, that after a great effort I produced a double-barrelled garment that in the absence of Poole-bred critics served its turn.

Of the various arts and crafts that one is called upon to undertake in Africa, such as cooking, shoe-mending, washer-womaning, doctoring, butchering, taxiderming, armoury work, carpentering, etc., _ad infinitum_, I think perhaps tailoring is the most trying; the cotton will _not_ go into the eye of the needle, and the needle _will_ go into one's fingers, and then when you think it is all over, you find you have sewn the back of your shirt to the front, or accomplished something equally unexpected and equally difficult to undo.

At Nsessi, two miles south of Kiboko, there is a superb waterfall; it has a drop of about 500 ft., and is divided into three stages, all at a different angle to one another, falling 100 ft., then swirling round at an angle, plunging into the next pool, and then a last long slide to the level of the lake. Stupendous silver-trunked trees, with foliage the colour of the ilex and brilliant splashes of scarlet bloom, crowd round on either side of the gorge wherever the wild rocks afford a footing; above towers a pointed peak showing bright above the dense gloom of the gorge, and a white stripe of sand fringes the little village, nestling in its banana grove, at the base.

These natives lead a curious existence, shut in between precipitous hills and the lake, their sole means of communication with one another being their leaky little 10 ft. dug-outs. They are wonderfully clever at handling them, and perform the extraordinary feat of crossing the lake, dodging in and out between the waves in the most marvellous manner. As a means of transport they are not to be recommended; the shape of a cross-section being that of an egg with its top off, one slides in with comparative ease like a pickle into a pickle-jar: once in, as with the pickle, extrication is a matter of time and patience. It needs one of Lear's Jumblies to feel thoroughly at home, as they leak like a sieve, and only perpetual bailing will keep them afloat.

The first day, in the sweet innocence of youth, I set off to round a headland with my guns and a tin box containing my indispensables on board, fearing to trust them to a native. All went smoothly at first, till I had arrived well off the rocks with a slight swell on and no landing-place near, and then she began slowly to heel over, while water seemed to be rushing in through the wood itself. After prodigious efforts I succeeded in running into the rocks, the water being then within an inch of the gunwale. I saved my guns and box, but smashed the canoe, and after that turned passenger. It looks so easy when they come dancing along, each with a native kneeling in the stern and plying a huge curved-bladed paddle; but it is a very different thing when one is wedged in oneself; physically incapable of squatting in a kneeling posture, as a native does, one finds bailing out an impossibility; the whole of the bottom of the canoe seems to be covered with boots, and the incurved edges catch the wooden bailing-dish and jerk the contents into one's lap.

Although the lake teems with fish, many of large size, the Wakoba make no attempt to catch them, trusting to the occasional chance of purchasing from the natives on the other shore or from Kasenyi.

One day I shot a baboon at the natives' request, a performance, by the way, that I shall not repeat, nor would I recommend it to any one but the most hardened villain. A frantic scramble took place for the flesh, and when I asked them what it tasted like, they "smole a smile." Amongst the countless troops of monkeys that are for ever coughing and dancing amongst the rocks and trees, I saw a small family of very beautiful little fellows with bright fox-red fringes down their sides, but I could not bring myself to shoot at them after seeing that unfortunate baboon, although I have never seen them described, or elsewhere in Africa.

At Viboko I was compelled to wait, the shore in front being impracticable and the heights behind unscaleable, till Mswa sent down the canoes, which I had requested by numerous envoys. My boys were badly in need of a rest, the work having been very trying since Kahanama's, and the fever from which I was suffering made it equally acceptable to me. In the afternoon two natives arrived, saying that a muzungu[#] was coming down to meet me with ten canoes. After inquiries as to what kind of Askaris he had, etc., etc., I gathered that it must be a Belgian official, so killed the fatted calf in the guise of a skinny sheep and sundry osseous frames masquerading as dorkings, and then plunged for the second time into the turgid flow of Zola's _Rome_, to cleanse my French of probable Swahili trespassers. I even exhumed a tie, and having produced a menu that exhausted all the possible combinations and permutations of an African larder, awaited anxiously his arrival, picturing to myself the joys of a little talkee-talkee once more. A stiff southerly breeze evidently was delaying them, and it was not till after dark that we heard the wild canoe-song of the flotilla, which had rounded the point and caught sight of our camp-fires. Giving a last twirl to my moustache and a nautical hitch to the Poolesque garment aforesaid, and composing my features to the iron-clad smirk indispensable to such occasions, I advanced to do the honours, and grasped the hand of a dirty, greasy little negro clad in, or rather smeared over with, a prehistoric piece of cloth! Here was my muzungu! here my gallant Belgian staggering under the gold braid of a hat of that peculiarly unbecoming shape affected by French guards and German tourists, and majestically trailing the orthodox 30-franc sword! Inquiries elicited the fact that the parasitic relic of Manchester above mentioned established a valid claim to the title of muzungu in these parts. However, he had brought the canoes, so I readily forgave him, and next day we arrived at the old Soudanese station, Mswa. Mswa is the name of the chief, who is a vassal of Tukenda, and Mahagi is the name of the country itself. He is an intelligent old native, and remembered seeing that ubiquitous officer, Bt.-Major Vandeleur, D.S.O., when he crossed from Kibero, and was delighted at the photograph which forms the frontispiece to his book entitled _Campaigns on the Nile and Niger_. Here let me recommend travellers to take out photographs of men who have gone before them; the effect is wonderful on those natives who can grasp the idea, though, of course, to many natives a picture is merely a piece of paper. It convinces those who can understand it that you are speaking the truth--a possibility so utterly foreign to the native mind. After exchanging presents he retired, promising to bring more boys in the morning to work the canoes; but in the morning none were forthcoming, and after waiting some time while Mswa rushed frantically round the country, shouting to his people, who walked off into the grass and laughed at him, I concluded that he was either incompetent or trying to make a fool of me, and, to his consternation, manned the canoes with my own men and started. As I expected, enough men were immediately forthcoming, but too late, and I held on my way.

[#] _Muzungu_: white man.

We did not reach Mahagi till after dark. Here the hills again recede from the lake-shore, leaving an alluvial plain from one to two miles wide, which is densely populated by Lures, while in the hills there are numerous villages of Balegga. Tukenda is the big man, whose influence reaches from south of Mswa to Boki; he has a small herd of cattle and large flocks of goats, and his people are evidently flourishing and very friendly. So dense is the population that the natives have been emigrating down the lake, and have started new villages on the unoccupied sand-spits. At Boki a grand old tusker came sailing by the camp, and after a stern chase and much expenditure of powder, condescended to strike his colours. He was a perfect specimen of the Toro type above described, standing 11 ft. 1 in. at the shoulder, with a forefoot of 62 in., and measuring 5 ft. 6 in. round the elbow, while his tusks were 6 ft. 10 in. and 7 ft 1 in. long, weighing respectively 72 lbs. and 76 lbs. A small patch of forest about two miles by one mile comes down from the hills to the lake-shore, and as my boys had heard elephant there when cutting wood, I went for a stroll after the midday heat of the sun. Never have I seen a more delightful or interesting scene; countless herds of elephant had trampled down the undergrowth, leaving vast shady chambers joined in all directions by galleries. Some of these chambers were fully an acre in extent, and every vestige of vegetation underfoot had been crushed into a level carpet, upon which it was a pleasure to walk. As one entered these delightful retreats, troops and troops of monkeys lined the branches and gazed on us with fearless curiosity; while two or three hundred of the beautiful black-and-white colobus monkey performed the most amazing acrobatic feats overhead. Emerging on the far side I saw a herd of ten elephant. They were standing in long grass, but fortunately there was a small ant-hill close by; climbing up this I found them all with ears widespread advancing in line towards me, and had it not been for the fortuitous existence of this point of vantage they would have walked right on top of us, the grass being about 8 ft. high. They presented a glorious spectacle as they came sailing along, all canvas set (I can find no other word to express the motion of an elephant in grass), ten old tuskers, their ivory now and again gleaming white above the grass; on they came till, when within thirty yards, one turned and gave me a chance. He dropped to the shot, but quickly recovered; succumbing, however, after two more. I damaged three more considerably before exhausting the magazine, and then dashed off in pursuit, passing one which had dropped about five hundred yards off, and reached an ant-hill from which I could see number three evidently very sick. I dropped him with a forehead shot, but he recovered, and eventually reached the forest carrying another ten bullets. Here I followed again, but it was impossible to keep his spoor owing to the perfect maze of tracks, and after wandering around for some time, I climbed up an ant-hill with a large funnel down the middle. From this elevation I saw him standing not more than fifteen yards away. I fired the 10-bore, which staggered him, and knocked me down the funnel, but I scrambled out again just in time to give him the second barrel, which brought him down at the same time that I once more retired into my Stygian retreat; a 3 in. ridge of crumbling earth 15 ft. from the ground is not the most advisable basis from which to fire a 10-bore paradox. All these elephant were of the same type, huge solid beasts with shortish, thick tusks; 6 ft. 10 in., 7 ft. 3 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 6 ft. 4 in., 6 ft. 5 in., and weighing 76 lbs., 78 lbs., 56 lbs., 56 lbs., 60 lbs., and 61 lbs. respectively.

The next day I found the fourth that I had hit very hard. He had fallen within two hundred yards of the other two, but owing to the long grass I had not seen him. His tusks weighed 49 lbs., and measured 6 ft. and 5 ft. 10 in., making a total of 633 lbs. for the day.

Between Boki and Munyagora there is a ten-mile stretch of inhospitable scrub covered with a species of acacia, with huge white thorns springing in pairs from hard bulbous excrescences. Formerly there was a settlement named Mjamori about half way, but the chief Akem has fled with his people to Munyagora; he told me that he had fled from the Belgians. I here made the discovery that "Billygee" is a generic term for the Congo officials, and not, as I had previously imagined, the name of an individual. From Munyagora to Igara, which lies at the bend of the river, the country is thickly populated. The Lures build very primitive shelters and surround each village with a scherm of thorn-tree; they do not appear to cultivate the soil, but breed large numbers of goats, which look very sleek and comely. The country, which is very barren and parched, is admirably adapted to that abominable quadruped, which is never so happy as when confined to a little sand and the rancid smell of its own kind.

I was an object of the greatest curiosity, especially to the ladies of these communities, who came in large numbers to inspect me (front seats at bath time being in great request), and who, whether from a ridiculous sense of modesty or a laudable desire to do honour to the occasion, donned over and above the national costume of a small piece of string tied round the waist, a hopelessly inadequate apron of dried grass: a garment that, from the simplicity of its cut and the small quantity of material employed in its composition, I should have no hesitation in classing with the species of female extravagance known, I believe, to the fair sex as tailor-made. The men, who seem to be of a hopeful disposition, spend much time in making wicker baskets resembling two lobster-pots fastened together like a cottage loaf; these they leave in the river tied to sticks and without bait. I saw many hundreds of these, and large numbers of natives visiting them, but only one fish, though my olfactory sense warned me of the vicinity of at least one more. They have a pretty little myth about buying food from the Balegga for fish, and as they do not kill their goats and certainly had not been buying lately, I cannot imagine what they live on; but I do know that in six hours they removed every scrap of five large bull elephant, hides, bones, and all; a small trifle of about twenty tons; so conclude they live a kind of boa-constrictor's existence. Many of the young men aggravate the natural ugliness of their faces by inserting pieces of glass about 5 in. long in their under-lip. One and all carry small bows, with reed arrows tipped with long thin spikes of iron neither barbed nor feathered. Most of the chiefs and elders are obviously of different race, some having the Galla features more or less pronounced. Here at the north end of the lake one emerges quite suddenly from the "Bantu" peoples to the Nilotic, and the line of division is wonderfully sharply defined. There are numbers of reedbuck and nsunu, and in the bush a small very red oribi of which I failed to procure a specimen. I also saw a herd of hartebeeste, and shot a cow; they closely resembled the Lichtenstein, though the rump was not so white, and the horns lie closer together and stand more erect than those of Lichtenstein. Mr. Cape tells me that Jackson's hartebeeste, which it appears to resemble in other respects, is a considerably larger beast; so that it is to be hoped that he will be able to take a skull and hide home for identification.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*WADELAI TO KERO.*

I arrived at Wadelai on October 1st, and found Lieut. Cape, R.A., in command; the boma is built on a small hill overlooking the miniature lake, and is slightly south of Emin's old site. Here, as elsewhere, the drought had been very serious, and the country consequently looked bare and uninviting. After Rhodesia, B.C.A., and Northern Rhodesia, it was difficult to believe that this land of administrative chaos had been occupied for six years. The mail arrived three weeks overdue, and some loads which had or ought to have been already a month on the road, were three weeks afterwards still untraceable, although the whole distance is only a fortnight's march, while station loads sent off yet three weeks earlier were still unheard of. Nowhere has the Government made any effort to introduce even bananas, much less fruit-trees, vegetables, wheat, or rice; no system of mail service has been organized, and no regulations as to import, duties, etc., had been issued. At Toro I asked for information about the transit dues, naturally objecting to pay the ordinary export duty of 15 per cent. on ivory which I had obtained outside the Protectorate. My request was ignored, and at Wadelai I was met by a demand for duties based on regulations apparently issued for our benefit, but by an error of judgment bearing a date subsequent to our crossing the frontier. From this I can only gather, either that the possibility of the country becoming a trade-route (one of the _raisons d'etre_, I presume, of the railway) had never been entertained, or that it was part of the penny-wise, pound-foolish policy that robs officials of their hunting trophies, and maintains, at the preposterous figure of 14 rupees 8 annas a month, a large number of Waganda boatmen on the Nile, where they die like flies of dysentery brought on by unsuitable food. The country is quite unsuited to these Waganda, who are all banana-eaters, millet being the staple food; and this, coupled with the great difference in altitude, is killing them by dozens, while the banks of the Nile itself are lined with capable canoemen, who could be engaged at 3s. a month; 14 r. 8 a. a month to raw natives, many of whom are mere boys, is sufficient in itself to damn any country's future which will be dependent on its agriculture. Where would B.C.A. be with wages for raw labour at L1 a month? It is an uphill fight now at 3s. rate; 8 r. a load from Kampala to Fajao, a fourteen days' march, what produce will bear transport rates like this? Similarly the pay of the Soudanese is absurd; they actually do not know what to do with their money; and the only result of the late rise in their pay is that they no longer cultivate on their own account, but buy everything at exorbitant rates from the natives. They would have been equally contented and equally well off with half the sum, the effect of the other half being increased drunkenness and a general rise in the price of native produce. The Government should have its own plantations or make allotments to the station natives, instead of the present system of money rations, as it will be very difficult to induce the natives to work while they can sell enough produce at exorbitant rates to obtain their few luxuries, and in the near future to pay their hut-tax. Another gross piece of folly was the introduction of the rupee instead of the English currency.

It was very pleasant to find some one to talk to again; in six weeks one finds out what a terribly uninteresting fellow one is. After a rest of three or four days spent in waiting for the overdue mails and the arrival of the Waganda canoe fiasco, Lieutenant Cape took me out to see the Shuli country and for a general trot round, the _piece de resistance_ to be an old bull giraffe that Sheikh Ali, the local potentate, reported to be in his neighbourhood. My host was fortunate enough to be able to leave the station for a few days, though we were hampered in our movements by his having to keep within a day's march. This, I believe, was the second time he had succeeded in getting away for a day or two in his year's residence. The really important work of inspecting the country and winning the confidence of the natives had to give way to the soldierly occupation of sorting mails, and retailing beads and yards of cloth, which could be equally well done by an Indian at 10 or 15 r. a month. This playing at shop is, as far as I could judge, the sole _raison d'etre_ of these stations, and perhaps a desire on the part of the Government to show the unfortunate officer who has been inveigled into this Downing Street-warranted paradise what an insignificant thing he and his wants (at home we should say necessaries of life) are compared with a Dinka's boots or a Baluchi's ginger. The whole transport of the Protectorate has been paralyzed to supply a miserable mob of Baluchis with rations which their white officers would gladly have bought at their weight in gold, and who have been, are, and will be utterly useless in the country. Heaven knows what they have cost, and Heaven, I presume, knows why they were brought, for I am sure no one else does. There was not one single pound of flour in any station that I passed through, and no white man had been able to obtain a load of the common necessaries of life for months, because what little transport there was had been monopolized to hurry through the Soudanese belts, blankets, comic opera uniforms, and boots, which they take off and give to their boys to carry when they walk. One gallant officer amused me much by telling me that the one touch of civilization of the past year had been a ginger-pudding made from a surplus ounce of the Indians' rations.

We had a delightful trip, killing a good elephant, 71 lbs. and 61 lbs. (broken tusks); but the giraffe turned out to be an unsociable old gentleman and not on view; we were always nearly coming on him, but never quite came. The country was full of rhino, the difficulty being to avoid them. One day natives came in to report an elephant in the Shuli country, and we hurried off to the spot. Here we found that he had killed a woman who had met him unexpectedly on the path. Unfortunately we failed to avenge her, as, after following for some hours, we lost the spoor owing to the hardness of the ground. The following morning they brought us news of buffalo, which turned out to be three rhino lying under a tree. They started off, making a great variety of strange sounds, and after a stern chase we slew the old bull, which stood 5 ft. 5 in. at the shoulder, and measured 12 ft. in length. Unfortunately we had also wounded one of the cows during the bombardment, and so had a long tramp to finish her. On the morrow we again had news of buffalo, and this time found, but they escaped without a shot, Cape's .303 missing fire. For some reason or other they travelled hard, and just as we were coming close again, a confounded old cow rhino, which was evidently sleeping close to their track, charged Cape most viciously. Fortunately he turned her at three yards with a double barrel from the .303, and she rushed past me with a youngster, tail and nose in air and squealing like a steam-whistle, in hot pursuit. I dropped her with a spine-shot from my .303, but to our annoyance she recovered after dragging her hind quarters for fifty yards, and led us a long and exhausting dance in a desperate sun. She was a saucy old lady, but our battery was too much for her, and she never charged again, although after the first burst she made no frantic efforts to go away. A very long shot from Cape's 8-smoothbore glanced off her shoulder. Curiously enough, I had an exactly similar experience with my rhino on the Chambesi: the first shot from my 4-bore glanced off the shoulder, although a broadside shot at thirty yards and striking 18 in. below the ridge. Of course both these guns fired spherical balls. In Cape's case I distinctly heard the bullet strike, and then again strike the trees far away. I regret to say we never caught the calf; he stayed behind in the grass at an early stage of the fracas; he was the funniest-looking little chap imaginable, and reminded me of the mock turtle; if taught to follow, he would have made quite a sensation in the Park. The elephant, which measured 11 ft. 6 in. at the shoulder, 58 in. round the fore foot, 18 ft. round the edge of the ear, 4-1/2 ft. from the earhole to the outside edge, was chiefly remarkable for the complacent way in which he received a really extraordinary sequence of lead; we kept up a running bombardment over about half a mile; and it was not till Cape put an experimental shot into his leg that we could induce him to take any notice of us. This brought him round sharp, and I popped a shot in, in front of the eye, which knocked him down. Even then he made desperate efforts to get up again, and would have succeeded had it not been for the slope on which he was lying, and the fact that his legs were up-hill.

About this time life became rather a burden, owing to the terrific storms that broke over us nightly. The first one removed my tent as you would a candle-extinguisher, and left me exposed to a torrent of ice-cold water (one can hardly call it rain, as it comes in one solid mass, like an inverted bath). This experience--and a more awful one I cannot conceive--made us both rather nervous, and the greater portion of the succeeding three nights was spent in anxious wakefulness, desperate hammerings at pegs and holding of poles, to the accompaniment of a running and not too polite commentary on Nature and her ways, sustained in a high falsetto to keep up one another's courage. But this became rather wearying, and we consequently returned to Wadelai. The Shulis, whose country lies to the east of the Lures, and extends from the Somerset Nile to about 48 north, are similar in appearance to their Lure neighbours. They hunt game by means of nets and regularly organized battues, and seem to be fair shikaris compared to the other people in this part of Africa. They appear to be braver than the Lures, who are the most abject curs. Near Mahagi I have seen elephant's droppings on the roofs of the huts, and the fields trodden flat, and this in spite of there being a number of guns in the country, while we did succeed in inducing some Shulis to follow the spoor of the murderous elephant above-mentioned, but at the chatter of a monkey they hurriedly disappeared, and it needed ten minutes to collect them again. They build very neat villages, laid out on a definite plan, and very superior to the primitive hayricks of the Lures. An outer ring of huts, with the spaces between stoutly palisaded, encloses alternate rings of grain-stores and huts, while the centre is occupied by a dining and "jabbering" place, formed by piling stout poles in tiers; these, like most of their other possessions, being stained with a kind of red clay. In some central position a large pigeon-loft is built, in which all the small babies are stowed and shut up for the night; a very excellent idea, and one that might be introduced at home. Many of the young bloods wear neat head-dresses made of human hair, with an outer layer of beads and culminating in a peak in front, which is tipped with an old cartridge-case or other gaudy object. They paint their bodies in gruesome patterns with red-and-white clay, and do not distress themselves about the proprieties. They still own considerable herds of cattle and enormous flocks of goats and sheep, and their cultivations are very extensive. Numbers of chiefs came to pay their respects, glad of the opportunity of doing so without passing through Lure country, which they must do to visit Wadelai. One old gentleman arrived with a cane-bottomed chair, which he said had once belonged to Emin; he also distinctly remembered Sir Samuel Baker. His two chief wives came and called on us; they were pleasant-featured women, and scrupulously clean, but their appearance was much spoilt by the inevitable piece of glass and enormous earrings. This wearing of a piece of glass in the lower lip is very curious, and peculiar, I believe, to the Shulis and Lures.

On October 22nd, giving up all hopes of my loads, I sent back my Manyema _via_ Kampala, and embarking in my man-of-war with five trusty Watonga, my small boy from Ujiji, and my two Wa Ruanda, I started down stream once more, and profiting by a strong current, made considerable progress, and encamped on the left bank by one of the first villages of the Madi. The Madi are a fine race, closely allied to the Lures; they surround their villages with a dense thorn hedge, and the only means of ingress is through small holes 2 ft. high. They make beautiful arrows with barbs of a great variety of patterns.

Here the mosquitoes were terrible, and as they were small enough to penetrate the mesh of my net, sleep was out of the question, while my wretched natives spent the night in reminiscences of the happy lands flowing with milk and honey now left far behind. On the following day the river widened considerably, in some places resembling a lake rather than a river. In the vicinity of Bora, the old Egyptian station, it must be at least four miles broad, and the current is almost imperceptible, except where the sudd is so extensive as to leave only one or two small channels. There are enormous numbers of hippopotami in these reaches, and they constitute a very real danger to navigation. One of the Uganda canoes, in emerging from the Unyama, a river opposite Dufile, was attacked, and only escaped by running into the sudd. Captain Delme Radcliffe, the officer commanding this district, was attacked in the steel boat; and an infuriated old bull chased me for fully half a mile, at one time being within five yards of the stern, but a well-placed shot from my revolver eventually induced him to desist from the pursuit. The Madi attack them with a harpoon-head, fastened to the end of a shaft by a twist of the rope to which it is attached, and so arranged as to detach itself after the delivery of the stroke from the shaft, which remains in the hand of the hunter, while the rope is free to run out until the float, which is tied to the other end, can be thrown overboard. The ridge of hills that commences at Wadelai gradually increases in height, till at Bora the hills become quite imposing; then they rapidly diminish, and a few miles south of Dufile vanish completely, giving place after a few miles of level ground to some isolated kopjes. On the left bank a range of hills runs parallel to the Nile, opposite Wadelai, but at a distance of about twenty miles from the river; then they bend to the east and merge into the formidable peaks that dominate Dufile and the Karas rapids. On the bank of the river, and even in mid-stream, there are some picturesque kopjes black with cormorants. In the vast wastes of weed and water through which one passes it is easy to trace the formation of the formidable barriers which further north render navigation almost impossible. There is a small plant, similar in form to our well-known London Pride, which grows in the water, and is entirely independent of the soil, deriving its sustenance from the water by means of a tangle of roots resembling seaweed, and which descend to a depth of 1 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. This plant grows in enormous quantities at the mouth of the Semliki, and in the placid reaches of the Victoria Nile, and single plants and even large masses are carried by the wind and current, and eventually are caught by a snag, a bed of water-lilies, or a bank of sand; they are soon followed by others, and by degrees the mass becomes enormous. Then grass-seeds are dropped by birds or driven by the wind, and the mass is quickly matted by the grass; driftwood, plants, and refuse of all sorts soon accumulate, and the rotting remains and mud that settles from the stream form a solid bottom. Then come the papyrus and the dense reeds, and what was originally a stick or a water-lily has in a few months become a solid island. There are numbers of Uganda kob and hartebeeste on the banks, but remarkably few ducks or geese. The neighbourhood of old Dufile appears to be very densely populated, and at my camp, near the old site, I was visited by numbers of natives, who told me that the Belgian post was further down, below the commencement of the rapids, and that the Belgians had been recently fighting a tribe living in the hills.

The following morning, after narrowly escaping shooting the rapids, owing to a mistake in Bt.-Major Vandeleur's map, which transposes the river Unyama and the stream which flows in farther north, I reached Afuddu, a post built in the bottom of a crater several miles from anywhere, and surrounded by dense bush. A more concise summing up of Uganda methods than that afforded by the placing of Afuddu would be difficult to conceive. Subsequent inquiries elicited the monstrous fact that the site had been chosen because of a magnificent shady tree which serves as an open-air dining-room: in fine, two white men and a hundred odd Soudanese are condemned to live in a mosquito-bush situated in a hollow surrounded by hills, two hours from the river and off the main road to Fort Berkeley, for the shade afforded by a tree during meal-times. Naturally the site is now to be changed, which means the loss of a year's work. I was much distressed to find Lieut. Langton of the 21st Lancers, the O.C., in bed with black-water fever. Fortunately two days later Dr. Walker arrived from Lamogi, and when I left all danger was past. The Commandant of new Dufile sent over wine and other luxuries for the invalid, and sent me a most pressing invitation to go and shoot with him, which, owing to my anxiety to arrive at Fort Berkeley, and obtain the latest news, I was unable to accept.

After three days' wallowing in the unheard-of luxury of glass, china, silver, milk and butter galore, for which Afuddu is justly famous, I set off with thirty Madi porters provided by a neighbouring chief, and crossing the line of hills north of the Unyama, camped on the Asua, which in the rains is a very formidable river. On the road I saw my first herd of giraffe, but owing to the necessity of avoiding delay, the country being uninhabited, and consequently foodless, I had to rest content with a long look through my binoculars. I was much impressed with their immense height and extraordinary action. The road to Fort Berkeley crosses the plateau several miles east of the Nile, and passes through a stony, inhospitable country, the haunt of numerous rhinoceros, antelope, and elephant. Scores of rocky streams flow west to the Nile. In the neighbourhood of the large hills, four days from Afuddu, their banks are clothed with dense masses of bamboo. The third day out we passed through the deserted fields and villages of a chief, Krefi, who, owing to some difference as to the porterage of food with the authorities at Fort Berkeley, has moved with all his people from the road towards the interior. This has been a sad blow to the transport of the region, as formerly a relay of porters and food were to be obtained, whereas now the porters from Afuddu have to do the whole five days to Alimadi's villages, and that without being able to obtain food on the road, an innovation which they naturally resent. At Alimadi's I found a detachment of Soudanese from Fort Berkeley buying food. Alimadi himself is a decent old chief, and still owns a few head of cattle; I believe the only herd in the vicinity that has survived the depredations of the Dervishes. Between here and Fort Berkeley the road traverses the sites of numerous villages, the inhabitants of which have either fled or been slain. Fort Berkeley is quite in keeping with the other stations on the Nile, having been carefully placed under a brow which commands the interior of the zariba. A swamp to the west between the fort and the river, and an extensive swamp to the south, add to the general salubrity of the situation. The nearest food-centres are two days' march, with the consequent result that half the garrison is constantly away buying food. The Maxim has been mounted behind a large acacia tree, which effectively screens it from an imaginary enemy, but at the same time confines its firing area to the inside of the fort, and gives a general finish-off to the situation. The station has been provided with an Egyptian clerk, who can only write Arabic, which is not required, and whose duties are consequently limited to holding a tape-yard at the Stores issue, for which herculean task he receives the very respectable sum of a hundred rupees a month.

Captain Dugmore, D.S.O., the officer in command, received me with every kindness, and nearly broke my heart by assuring me that I should spend Christmas with him. I had counted on being home by Christmas; a vain hope, as it afterwards transpired, and his prediction came near being fulfilled. He was engaged in completing a magnificent water-wheel _a la Chinoise_, compounded of broken-up chop-boxes and empty tins. The extraordinary relics employed in its construction and the ingenuity displayed filled me with amazement. But, alas! its life was short, for after three days of service it collapsed in a high wind, which, considering that the only elements available for the construction of its axle were some green wood and a sardine-tin, was not remarkable. Here, as elsewhere, all the crops had failed, owing to the drought, and Captain Dugmore's wheat, though cherished with loving care, was gradually disappearing before the ubiquitous termite. As the launch was away, we were in the ignominious position of being dependent on the Belgians for a ferry across the river. Shabby! shabby! is the only word for our methods in Africa. At present on the Nile we have one steel boat refloated off Mahagi, and below the cataracts one steam-tub. Add to this a few useless Waganda canoes, one of which, after an initial cost of, say, L100, carries one load, and all of which are warranted to spoil half their contents owing to the enormous leakage inevitable in canoes consisting of planks sewn together by fibre, and you have our Upper Nile fleet; while the Belgians, whose transport difficulties are at least equal to ours, have a large steamer and a dozen fine steel whale-boats, with several more in construction and on the road. The majority of the Belgians (there are about twenty on the Nile) are well lodged in burnt-brick houses, while, with the exception of a weird construction in sun-dried brick at Fort Berkeley, all our officers are housed, like the natives, in grass and mud huts. The sum of the situation is this. The Belgians under Chaltin reached the Nile, drove out the Dervishes from Redjaf after some stiff fighting, followed them up, and eventually, by repeated activity and the effective occupation and fortification of Kero on the 5-1/2 deg. parallel, compelled them in self-defence to evacuate Bohr. They then put their steamer on the river, and by a reconnaissance towards the Bahr-el-Ghazal, ascertained that the Dervishes had left the country, presumably to join the Khalifa in Kordofan. In the meanwhile Colonel Martyr's expedition arrives on the scene, and after establishing four posts--Wadelai, Lamoji, Afuddu, and Fort Berkeley--in the most unsuitable positions, succeeds in launching a small steam-tub capable of holding about ten men, and in which it is impossible to put both wood and supplies at the same time. Everybody, the officers of the expedition included, imagined that an effort was to be made to effect a junction with the Egyptian forces--an excellent opportunity of acquiring a maximum of "kudos" at a minimum of cost, a chance that does not come to all men--and the chance slid by.

From Bohr to Gaba Shambeh there is an excellent waterway, and at the same time that we were bolting from the mosquitoes and imaginary difficulties, some Senegalese with a French officer were flying the tri-colour at Gaba Shambeh, and were advancing their interests _via_ Abu-kuka towards Bohr. After such dismal failures, and in view of the prevailing chaos, it is hardly to be wondered at that the Commissioner found it advisable to issue general orders to the effect that any officials writing home to their friends, and mentioning abuses in letters which should appear in the Press, would be held responsible. At Fort Berkeley I seemed to have come to a full stop. The steam-tub, with Dr. Milne and Capt. Gage, who had suddenly started with Commandant Henry and the Belgian steamer on a reconnaissance towards Khartoum, was still away, and though they had been absent more than two months there was no reliable news. But the arrival of Inspector Chaltin, the victor of the Dervishes at Redjaf, opened up new possibilities. In response to his cordial invitation Captain Dugmore and I repaired to Redjaf in a Belgian whale-boat, and in the intervals of an amazing sequence of various wines and spirituous liquors, Inspector Chaltin kindly invited me to join him at Kero, adding that he would make inquiries about the possibility of going from Bohr overland, and offering me every assistance in his power.

Accordingly, a few days later I found myself again at Redjaf, the guest of the charming commanding officer of the station, Commandant Colin. Here I learnt that I was to proceed slowly down river in the company of M. Beaupain, the judge, a most ardent sportsman, and to whom I am indebted for many kindnesses. The mushroom-stone mentioned by Baker in _Ismailia_ is still extant, though hardly of the dimensions depicted. The Dervishes had thrown up enormous earthworks, and the outline of the old station and the foundations of the houses are still visible; while, as at Bedden, lime-trees and oil-seed acacia imported by Emin are flourishing. A few hours' paddling brought us to Lado, which is a howling waste in a wilderness of swamps. Here the river is already of considerable breadth and a network of enormous islands, many of which were covered with crops of red millet, which looked very promising despite the drought. The agricultural possibilities of these thousands of isles and islets immediately after flood as a rule are very great; at highest river most are inundated, but sowings after the first fall give enormous crops, the soil, which is composed of alluvium and decaying vegetation, being of extraordinary richness. The formation of many is very curious, resembling nothing so much as a coral island, a solid bank of varying thickness enclosing a lagoon, with the stream flowing all round. Lieut. Engh received me with the greatest hospitality, and we spent several delightful days in this historic waste. There is here a fine herd of cattle looted from the Dervishes. The earthworks of the old station are enormous, and need a garrison of fully one thousand men. At present there is a small palisaded enclosure in one corner which contains the station, and the approaches are commanded by two Krupp guns and a Maxim posted on a brick tower. But Inspector Chaltin talks of removing the main station from Kero to Lado, owing to its greater agricultural possibilities, in which case the whole extent of the earthworks will be utilized. Between here and Redjaf are enormous swamps, which further north on the Kero road become still more extensive, in places opening out into vast lagoons. The lagoon immediately to the south of Kero is about fifteen miles in circumference, though not more than half a mile wide at the river neck. To the east lie the hills of Gondokoro, and beyond them other ranges of hills with a large population and many cattle. These are the last eminences till we reach the hills of Kordofan, and the country settles down into one vast dismal flat, a wilderness of water, weed, and scrub; the haunt of thousands of hippo, elephant, and dismal marabout storks; the paradise of malaria, misery, and mosquitoes.