AMONG THE MURLE. 299 
speared by the natives, who conceal themselves in the 
long grass. Except near the water, the country north 
of Lake Rudolf is very open and flat, as far as the Aro 
Mountains, which approach the river Nianam forty miles 
north of the lake. The plain on which we are camped 
has lately been flooded, and the mosquitoes are most 
annoying. 
“ Fuly 23. Ihave been suffering so from fever that I 
did not write in my journal since the roth. On July 
20 I journeyed farther towards the Murle, after having 
passed a very bad night. I did not feel well when I 
started, and before I got to camp I was so weak and fever- 
ish that I had to be held on the donkey. The first Murle 
villages we reached, after a march of five miles, were a 
considerable distance from the river. The Murle inhabi- 
tants fled on our approach, but soon a couple of them 
came to us, repeating their friendly words of greeting, 
‘Na, na, and conducted us to a camping-place in the 
thick forest by the river. I was so sick the whole after- 
noon that I could not rise from my cot. No other natives 
visited us, and the two that at first came to us soon 
departed. All night long the Murle kept up a loud 
noise in the bushes near the camp, and seemed on the 
point of attacking us, so that my boys had to keep 
a sharp lookout. In the morning, however, a deputa- 
tion of old men arrived with a sheep, and made their 
salutations. 
“ Many other natives, including both sexes, soon flocked 
into camp. The women were disgusting looking, as their 
lower lips were pierced, and distended by a piece of wood 
two inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick. You 
saw nothing of the lower lip except a thin piece of mucous 
membrane that encircled the wooden plug. To add still 
further to their ugliness, the two front upper teeth were 
