One of Gordon's Officers 359 



been proved by the collections made by Emin Pasha, Mr. 

 F. J. Jackson, Mr. Oscar Neumann, and Dr. Stuhlmann. 

 Perhaps the first to bring this fact home to the notice of 

 ornithologists was Mr. F. Bohndorff, who made a collection 

 of birds in the Niam-niam country, though the late Baron 

 von Henglin had already described from the Gazelle river 

 many species which showed the presence of a West 

 African element in the Upper Nile districts. Bohndorff 

 had been one of Gordon's lieutenants in the Soudan, had 

 been in charge of Sobat, had accompanied Dr. Junker 

 on his expedition to Equatorial Africa, and on his way back 

 to Egypt he met his old commander Gordon in the middle 

 of the Korusko desert, as the latter was hurrying to meet 

 his fate at Khartoum. Bohndorff was, in fact, one of the 

 last Europeans to speak with our national hero. 



When he entered the bird-room at the Natural History 

 Museum, he was accompanied by his faithful black servant 

 Yuma, who had been with him through all his troubles in 

 the Niam-niam country, and had come with Bohndorff down 

 the Nile, when, knowing nothing of the Mahdi and his 

 insurrection, they had been surprised to find their steamer 

 fired on as they made their way to Khartoum. The box 

 which Yuma carried on his head was opened in the bird- 

 room, and I shall never forget my surprise at finding that 

 the birds it contained were West African, and a new 

 idea as to the geographical distribution of African birds 

 was unfolded. A few days afterwards the collection was 

 exhibited at a meeting of the Linnaean Society, when 

 Bohndorff and his servant Yuma appeared, the latter in 

 European dress, which caused me to quote to this august 

 assembly a few lines of Mr. W. S. Gilbert's : 



"And though the dress he's made him don 

 Looks awkwardly this man upon, 

 It is a great improvement on 

 The one he found him in." 



