CH. XV] THE BAHR EL GHAZAL 451 



at less than two hundred yards, althouij^h I could still 

 only see his horns, I knew where his body was ; and 

 this time I killed liini. VVe gave most of the meat to 

 the Nuer. He ^vas an utterly wild savage, and when 

 Cuninghame suddenly lit a match he was so friglitened 

 that it was all we could do to keep him from bolting. 



Kermit went on to try for a doe, but had bad luck, 

 twice killing a spikebuck by mistake, and did not get 

 back to the boat until long after dark. 



The followinij day we were in the mouth of the Bahr 

 el Ghazal. It ran sluggishly through immense marshes, 

 which stretched back from the river for miles on either 

 hand, broken here and there by flats of slightly higher 

 land with thorn-trees. The whale-billed storks were 

 fairly common, and were very conspicuous as they stood 

 on the quaking siu'face of the marsh, supported by their 

 long-toed feet. After several fruitless stalks and much 

 following through the thick marsh grass, sometimes up 

 to our necks in water, I killed one with the Springfield 

 at a distance of one hundred and thirty yards, and 

 Kermit, after missing one standing, cut it down as it rose 

 with his Winchester IM) to '40. These whalebills had 

 in their gizzards, not only small fish, but quite a number 

 of the green blades of the marsh grass. Tlie Arabs call 

 them the " Fatlier of the Shoe," and Europeans call 

 them shoebills as well as whalebills. Tlie Bahr el 

 Ghazal was alive with water-fowl, saddle-bill storks, 

 sacred and purple ibis, many kinds of herons, cormorants, 

 plover, and pretty tree-ducks, which twittered instead 

 of quacking. There were sweet-scented lotus water- 

 lilies in the ponds. A party of waterbuck cows and 

 calves let the steamer pass within fifty yards without 

 running. 



We went back to Eake No. where we met another 



