A Bad Road. 39 



some of which during the rains are often impassable 

 torrents, whereas in the hot season they are merely 

 dry watercourses. Often we rode for miles along the 

 narrow strip of short grass which in places grows 

 by the river, but now and again this pleasant going 

 gave way to soft sand, which was trying for the 

 donkeys, and, if a heavy wind was blowing, dis- 

 agreeable for us. But more annoying still, and more 

 frequent, were the wide stretches of mud, which, covered 

 by the river during its flood, were now hard, caked and 

 cracked in every direction by the powerful sun. So 

 large and deep were these cracks, and so numerous, that 

 our donkeys continually got their legs into them, the 

 result often being a sudden collapse of the beast and the 

 discomfiture of the rider, while sometimes a donkey's 

 legs became so firmly fixed in a crack that it required 

 our united efforts to lift him out again. After due 

 experience of this method of travelling we avoided the 

 wider stretches of mud by turning off into the desert 

 track, which although hot and dusty, was at all events 

 firm. 



One does not need to travel far up the White Nile 

 in the dry season to be impressed by the fact 

 that the life of every man, beast and bird in the country 

 is entirely dependent upon the river. Beasts such as 



