400 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
sloping banks one sees the brilliant green of young tobacco planta- 
tions. This is the land of the Dinkas, who, on our first appearance, 
ran away, but later, gaining confidence, flocked down to the river and 
lined the banks in hundreds. All naked and with their bodies 
painted a ghastly white, they shouted and danced and threw their long 
spears into the air. So we made 60 miles, then trees, flocks, and 
men gradually disappeared, and the river wound alone through a 
vast empty plain. It widened and slackened, and the impression 
came over me that it was nearing its journey’s end. Eagerly we 
craned our necks for a sight of the Nile, but this reward was still 
withheld; nothing but marshland as far as the horizon met our gaze. 
We followed the river till it lost itself in a lake surrounded by dense 
reed and sudd. We crossed the lake with irresistible recollections of 
Chad, and then found ourselves stopped by the barrier of marsh and 
sudd which choked our passage to the Nile. I then trekked 38 miles 
with the boat sections to Gaba Shambi, on the Nile. Thus we had 
reached the goal that we had set ourselves, and here our journey was 
bronght to an end, which, in distance, had extended over some 5,000 
miles, and in time occupied just three years. 
