My African Journey

to other lagoons and overflows of the river with the launch, an

naked and very dignified, with graceful athletic bodies, long tapering well-bred hands, and bright keen eyes. The local chief exhibited all these characteristics in a superior degree, and his natural preeminence was recognized with instantaneous obedience by his followers. We loaded them with gifts. First, quantities of meat and hides; then chocolate all round-they love sweet things-three pieces of sugar for each, at least one empty bottle per man, and tin pots and card-board boxes almost without limit. The chief showed a fine taste in all these t

been smooth and open-a broad, steady-flowing river everywhere navigable to vessels of not more than four feet draught. But at Nimule, after a reach of more than a hundred and seventy miles of unobstructed waterway, the river turns a sharp right angle and enters a long succession of granite gorges, through which it plunges in ceaseless cataract for a hundred and twenty miles. It is here at the head of these rapids that one of the great reservoirs of the Upper Nile must some

It was this stage which had always been painted to me as the most dangerous and unhealthy in our whole journey, and I had pictured to myself eight days of toil through swamp and forest amid miasma and mosquitoes. These anticipations were not

only with the greatest reluctance and difficulty, that I forced myself to continue my homeward journey without first turning back with the launch and circumnavigating Lake Albert. No exertion or inconvenience seemed too great to win a few more glimpses of these enchanted seas and gardens, on which I may perhaps

ng th

e Nile. Of these the Asua was the most important, and the picture of the long safari fording it and coming into camp among the palm-trees of the southern bank is one which lingers pleasantly in my memory. But this I must say-somehow after Nimule the charm was broken, and none of the regions through which the traveller p

lls are fierce and wary, and, taught by frequent contact with the white man, and protected by the sacred game laws, exercise a lawless and tyrannical power over the whole region. On every side their depredations are to be seen. Great trees pushed over in careless sport, native plantations trampled into ruin, the roads rendered precarious for the traveller, the mails often interrupted

y yards when suddenly the elephant, without even trumpeting rushed furiously upon him, and, paying no attention to the two heavy bullets which struck him in the head, chased the officer twice round an uncommonly small bush; and then, distracted by the spectacle of the native gun-bearer in flight, turned off after this new prey, and, overtaking

of a company of native police and King's African Rifles. Here the Nile again becomes navigable, and offers an unbroken waterway open to large vessels until the Shabluka cataract is reached, a hundred miles below Khartoum and fifteen hundred miles from Go

been utterly impossible. The Dervish empire, stretching from Wady Halfa or Abu Hamed to Wadelai, interposed a harsh barrier which nothing but a stricken field could sweep away; and these long reaches of the Nile which now bore a fleet of fift

t undefined joint authority which regulates the Soudan, which flies two flags side by side on e

n Official

dok

le to Wady Halfa, crossed the desert railway to the Atbara, marched thence two hundred miles to the battle of Omdurman, one feels one has seen something of the Nile. Yet now we had followed it the other way from its source for nearly five hundred miles,

lave present splendid and alluring panoramas. Even the march from Nimule to Gondokoro is through a fertile and inspiring region. But thereafter the beauty dies out of the landscape and the richness from the land. We leave the regions of abundant rainfall, of Equatorial luxuriance, of docile peoples, of gorgeous birds and butterflies and flowers. We enter stern realms of sinister and forbidding aspect,

at Kh

ernment St

night and day. For three days and three nights we were continuously in this horrible swamp into which the whole of the United Kingdom could be easily packed. By day from the roof of the high pilot-house a commanding view revealed hour after hour, in every direction, one uninterrupted ocean of floating vegetation spreading to far horizons. The papyrus-plant is in itself a beautiful, graceful, and venerable thing. To travel through the sudd, is to hate it for evermore. Rising fifteen fe

t would seem to be an art by itself. No effort is made by the Arab pilots, who alone are employed, to avoid collisions with the banks. On the contrary, they rely upon them as an essential feature of their management of the steamer. The vessel bumps regularly at almost every corner from one cushion of sudd to the other, or plunges its nose into the reeds and waits for the currents to carry its

s. At last the banks become firm and clear-cut walls of yellow sand, fringed in places with palms and shady trees, and everywhere bristling with undergrowth of thorns. We leave the wilderness of moisture, we approach the wilderness of drought. But first, in a middle region, vast areas of dusty scrub-covered plains, not wholly incapable of cultivation in the rainy season, supporting always flocks and herds, now flank both sides of the river. The camel caravans p

British officers, civil and military-the whole clear-cut under sun-blaze dry light, veiled only in dancing dust-devils piteously whipped by strong hot winds. All this was like a piece of the Omdurman campaign to me-t

AT KODOK

ks, and two of a beautiful herd of roan antelope, who walked slowly down to water past our ambuscade. And, be it remembered, that the pleasure and excitement of such sport are in these lands always heightened by the possibility that at any moment the hunters may come upon game of much more serious quality-lion or buffalo; so that no one cares to be more than a few yards from his heavy rifle or give his mind wholly to the buck he st

his long journey, and to exult in our complete immunity from serious accident or illness or even fever. How extravagant were the accounts of the dangers of African travel! How easy to avoid the evil chances of the ro

found shelter from the relentless sun-Gordon's tree-advertised us of the proximity of Khartoum. Soon on the one bank came into view the vast mud labyrinth of Omdurman, with forests of masts rising along the shore, and on the other, among palm-groves ever clustering thicker, sprang the blue and pink and crimson minarets of new Khartoum. Khartoum-the new Khartoum, risen from its ruins in wealth and beauty-a smiling city sitting like a queen throned at the confluence of the Niles, the heart and centre of a far-rea

ace, Kh

The railway has reached the Southern bank of the Blue Nile, connects Khartoum with Cairo and with the Red Sea, waits only for the construction of a bridge to cross the river and enter the fertile regions of the Ghezireh. A numerous fleet of steamers maintains swift and regular communication along the great waterways. The revenue has risen from a few thousands a year in 18

lined with excellent European shops, lead with geometrical precision through the city. A system of steam tramways in connection with ferry boats, patronized chiefly by the natives, renders communication easy throughout Khartoum, and between Khartoum, Omdurman, and Halfyah. A semi-circle

e Scr

of Khartoum. As our steamer approached the landing-stage I learned that my English servant, George Scrivings, had been taken suddenly ill, and found him in a condition of prostration with a strange blue colour under his skin. Good doctors were summoned. The hospital of Khartoum, with all its resources, wa

in the world. The day after the Battle of Omdurman it fell to my lot to bury those soldiers of the 21st Lancers, who had died of their wounds during the night. Now after nine years, in very different circumstances, from the other end of Africa, I

esert Railway, and the pleasant passenger steamers of the Wady Haifa and Assouan reach soon c

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