ls£.—On the 1st of February we went ahead again,
with Bhkhet and the first half of Mahamed’s establishment,
as a sufficient number of men could not be collected
at once to move all together. In a little while we struck
on the Nile, where it was running like a fine Highland
stream between the gneiss and mica-schist hills of Kuku,
and followed it down to near where the Asha river joined
it. For a while we sat here watching the water, which
was greatly discoloured, and floating down rushes. The
river was not as full as it was when we crossed it at the
Kariima Falls, yet, according to Dr Khoblecher’s* account,
it ought to have been flooding just at this time:
if so, we had beaten the stream. Here we left it again
as it arched round by the west, and forded the Asiia river,
a stiff rocky stream, deep enough to reach the breast when
waded, but not very broad. It did not appear to me as
if connected with the Victoria N’yanza, as the waters
were falling, and not much discoloured; whereas, judging
from the Nile’s condition, it ought to have been rising.
No vessel ever could have gone up it, and it bore no
comparison with the Nile itself. The exaggerated account
of its volume, however, given by the expeditionists
who were sent up the Nile by Mehemet Ali, did not surprise
us, since they had mistaken its position; for we
were now 3° 42' north, and therefore had passed their
“ farthest point” by twenty miles.
In two hours more we reached a settlement called
Madi, and found it deserted. Every man and woman
had run off into the jungles from fright, and would not
come back again. We wished ourselves at the end of the
journey; thought anything better than this kind of existence—
living entirely at the expense of others; even the
fleecings in Usiii felt less dispiriting; but it could not be
* Dr Khohlecher, the founder of the Austrian Chur oh Mission Establishment
of Gondokoro, ascertained that the Nile reached its lowest level there
in the middle of January.
helped, for it must always exist as long as these Turks
are allowed to ride rough-shod over the people. The
Turks, however, had their losses also; for on the way
four Bari men and one Bari slave-girl slipped off with a
hundred of their plundered cattle, and neither they nor
the cattle could be found again. Mijalwa was here convicted
of having stolen the cloth of a Turk whilst living
in his hut when he was away at the Paira plundering,
and got fifty lashes to teach him better behaviour for
the future.
A party of fifty men came from Labüré, a station on
ahead of this, to take Halt, service as porters, 3 d to 5 t h . . ’ r knowing that at this season the lurks
always come with a large herd of plundered cattle,
which they call government property, and give in payment
to the men who carry their tusks of ivory across
the Bari country.
We now marched over a rolling ground, covered in
Barwüdi, 6 some places with bush-iungle, in others with t h ; J and Labüré, 7th villages, where there were fine trees, resembling
oaks in their outward appearance ; and
stopping one night at the settlement of Barwiidi, arrived
at Labüré, where we had to halt a day for Mahamed to
collect some ivory from a dépôt he had formed near by.
We heard there was another ivory party collecting tusks
at Obbo, a settlement in the country of Panüquara,
twenty miles east of this.
Next we crossed a ntillah draining into the Nile, and,
ToMügi m travelling over more rolling ground, flanked
Halt, 10«* and on the right by a range of small hills, put up
at the Madi frontier station, Mügi, where we
had to halt two days to collect a full complement of porters
to traverse the Bari country, the people of which are
denounced as barbarians by the Turks, because they will
not submit to be bullied into carrying their tusks for
them. Here we felt an earthquake. The people would