444 THROUGH AFRICA FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. 



contact with white men before. But afterwards I had a very anxious 

 time with the nativ^es, as in phiees they were in enormous numbers, 

 and, having never seen a white man, were quite ignorant of his ways, 

 and even of the use of a gun. For some distance on the edge of the 

 marsh there is a clearly detined stream, which loses itself in the vast 

 lagoons that form near the upper junction of the Bahr-el-Zaraf. Many 

 winding lagoons run for miles inland. When I passed thej^ were 

 stagnant, but 1 am inclined to think that they are really the outlets of 

 tri))utary streams. The number of elephant on the edge of the swamp 

 was prodigious, and they formed a serious impediment to our march, 

 as they refused to move out of the way. Nearly every morning we 

 wasted an hour or two shouting and throwing stones at solitary old 

 tuskers and herds of younger elephant. One old fellow resented our 

 terms of opprobrium and charged the caravan, ])ut was turned with a 

 shot from my double .303. Banks and banks of hippopotami la}' in 

 evci-y direction, but other game was scarce. The mos((uitoes were 

 a])palling. and rapidly killed off two of my boys who had been sick; 

 and the flies l)y day w(»re even worse. 



The Dinkas have enormous drov^es of cattle, which they valu(> very 

 highly; they never kill them for food, but from time to time tap the 

 blood, which they drink greedily. They are of colossal stature; some 

 of the herdmen I saw nuist have been very nearly T feet, and in every 

 settlement the majority of the men towered above me, while my boys 

 seemed the merest pygmies by their side. They smear themselves with 

 a })aste made of wood ash to protect themselves from th(> bites of the 

 mosquitoes, and the long lines of warriors threading their way in single 

 til(^ through the marsh appear like so many gray spectres. They are 

 absolutely nude, considering any sort of covering as etJ'eminate. Their 

 invariable weapons are a long club made of bastard ebonj'^, a fish lance, 

 and a broad-bladed spear, and the chiefs wear enormous ivory bracelets. 

 The southern Dinkas cut their hair like a cock's com)), and the northern 

 Dinkas train their hair like a mop. Both bleach it with manure. 



Six days from Bohr the Inish recedes 40 miles from the main channel 

 of the Nile, and the swamp appears limitless; even from an anthill 30 

 feet high I could see nothing but a vast sea of reeds north, west, and 

 south — not even the remotest suggestion of the far liank. At the curve 

 of the swamp, before the dr}" ground again turns west toward the 

 junction of the Bahr-el-Zaraf, there is a tribe quite distinct from the 

 Dinkas, presumably the Woatcsh, of whom Sir Sanuiel Baker heard 

 rumors. They are much smaller, and are ichthyophagic, possessing 

 no cattle. The whole population of each village turned out in force 

 and accompanied me to the next village, singing a wild eai'-piei'cing 

 chant, and continuously pointing to the sun. I suppose they imagined 

 I had just left there. Some of the villages are far inland, and the 

 women come long distances for water. I met many groups of them 



