not take beads, preferring, they said, to make necklaces
and belts out of ostrich-eggs, which they cut into the size
of small shirt-buttons, and then drill a hole through their
centre to string them together. A passenger told us that
three white men had just arrived in vessels at Gondokoro;
and the Bari people, hearing of our advance, instead of
trying to kill us with spears, had determined to poison
all the water in their country. Mahamed now disposed
of half of his herd of cows, giving them to the chiefs of
the villages in return for porters. These, he said, were
all that belonged to the government; for the half of all
captures of cows, as well as all slaves, all goats, and
sheep, were allowed to the men as part of their pay.
When all was settled we marched, one thousand strong,
To Wurflogi, to Wuriingi; and next day, by a double march,
mk arrived at Marsan, in the Bari country. I T o T V T n r«sv n 1 : J wished still to put up in the native villages,
but Mahamed so terrified all my men, by Saying these
Bari would kill us in the night if we did not all sleep
together in one large camp, that we were obliged to submit.
The country, still flanked on the right by hills, was
undulating and very prettily wooded. Villages were
numerous, but as we passed them the inhabitants all fled
from us, save a few men, who, bolder than the rest, would
stand and look on at us as we marched along. Both
night and morning the Turks beat their drums; and whenever
they stopped to eat they sacked the villages.
Pushing on by degrees, stopping at noon to eat, we
To Doro, 14th. ' came again in of tlie Nile, and put up
at a station called Doro, within a short distance
of the well-known hill Rijeb, where Nile voyagers
delight in cutting their names. The country continued
the same, but the grass was conspicuously becoming shorter
and finer every day—so much so, that my men all declared
it was a sign of our near approach to England. After
we had settled down for the night, and the Turks had
finished plundering the nearest villages, we heard two
guns fired, and immediately afterwards the whole place
was alive with Bari people. Their drums were beaten as
a sign that they would attack us, and the war-drums of
the villages around responded by beating also. The Turks
grew somewhat alarmed at this, and as darkness began
to set in, sent out patrols in addition to their nightly
watches. The savages next tried to steal in on us, but
were soon frightened off by the patrols cocking their
guns. Then, seeing themselves defeated in that tactic,
they collected in hundreds in front of us, set fire to the
grass, and marched up and down, brandishing ignited
grass in their hands, howling like demons, and swearing
they would annihilate us in the morning.
We slept the night out, nevertheless, and next morning
To Gondokoro, walked in to Gondokoro, N. lat. 4° 54' 5", and
E. long. 31° 46' 9", where Mahamed, after
firing a salute, took us in to see a Circassian merchant,
named Kurshid Agha. Our first inquiry was, of course,
for Petherick. A mysterious silence ensued; we were
informed that Mr Debono was the man we had to thank
for the assistance we had received in coming from Madi;
and then in hot haste, after warm exchanges of greeting
with Mahamed’s friend, who was Debono’s agent here, we
took leave, to hunt up Petherick. Walking down the
bank of the river—where a line of vessels was moored, and
on the right hand a few sheds, one-half broken down, with
a brick-built house representing the late Austrian Church
Mission establishment—we saw hurrying on towards us
the form of an Englishman, who, for one moment, we believed
was the Simon Pure; but the next moment my
old friend Baker, famed for his sports in Ceylon, seized
me by the hand. A little boy of his establishment had
reported our arrival, and he in an instant came out to
welcome us. What joy this was I can hardly tell. We
could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed were we both