24th Dec.—Sailed yesterday at 4.5 p.m., course
south. This morning we are off the Bagara country
on the west bank. Dead flats of mimosas, many of
the trees growing in the water; the river, generally
shallow, and many snags or dead stumps of trees. I
haive been fortunate with my men, only one being
drunk on leaving Wat Shely; him we carried forcibly
on board. Passed the island of Hassaniah at 2.20 p.m. ;
the usual flats covered with mimosas. The high-water
mark upon the stems of these trees is three feet above
the present level of the river; thus an immense extent
of country must be flooded during the wet season, as
there are no banks to the river. The water will retire
in about two months, when the neighbourhood of the
river will be thronged with natives and their flocks.
All the natives of these parts are Arabs ; the Bagara
tribe on the west bank. At Wat Shely some of the
latter came on board to offer their services as slave-
hunters, this open offer confirming the general custom
of all vessels trading upon the White Nile.
25 th Dec.—The Tokroori boy, Saat, is very amiable
in calling all the servants daily to eat together the
residue from our table; but he being so far civilized,
is aimed with a huge spoon, and having a mouth like
a crocodile, he obtains a fearful advantage over the
lest of the party, who eat the soup by dipping kisras
(pancakes) into it with their fingers. Meanwhile Saat
sits among his invited guests, and works away with
his spoon like a sageer (water-wheel), and gets an
unwarrantable start, the soup disappearing like water
in the desert. A dead calm the greater portion of the
day; the river fringed with mimosa forest. These
trees are the Soont (Acacia Arabica) which produce an
excellent tannin: the fruit, “ garra,” is used for that
purpose, and produces a rich brown dye : all my clothes
and the uniforms of my men I dyed at Khartoum with
this “ garra.” The trees are about eighteen inches in
diameter and thirty-five feet high; being in full foliage,
their appearance from a distance is good, but on a
closer approach the forest proves to be a desolate
swamp, completely overflowed ; a mass of fallen dead
trees protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary
crane perched here and there upon the rotten boughs;
floating water-plants massed together, and forming
green swimming islands, hitched generally among the
sunken trunks and branches; sometimes slowly descending
with the sluggish stream, bearing, spectre-like,
storks thus voyaging on nature’s rafts from lands
unknown. It is a fever-stricken wilderness—the current
not exceeding a quarter of a mile per hour—the water
coloured like an English horse-pond; a heaven for
mosquitoes and a damp hell for man ; fortunately,