Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



quiet, and the ship goes along on her downward 

 journey, twiddling round like a teetotum, hitting 

 now one bank and now the other, rounding one 

 corner by a hair's breadth, and crushing and 

 grinding up against the reeds when the next 

 comes in the way, till at last they are able to 

 get her head straight again, and away we go 

 once more. It's all right in broad daylight when 

 we can see what is going to happen, but it's quite 

 another matter at niorht — sitting at dinner, let 

 us say. 



Next day we wake up in the sudd country, of 

 which little, if any, description is necessary. A 

 vast sheet of reeds and papyrus, with an occa- 

 sional ambatch tree raising its golden-crowned 

 head above the swamp, meets the eye on every 

 side, and extends far beyond the human power 

 of vision — a waste of marsh and spills, floating 

 on the water. They say that none of the Lake 

 Victoria water ever reaches below this ; it is all 

 spread out into the swamps and loses itself by 

 sinking into the earth or evaporating into the 

 air. The sudd roots do not touch the ground, 

 but are interlaced and intertwined with one 

 another, forming an impenetrable barrier to navi- 

 gation ; and yet it is quite impossible to walk 

 over them. 



Nothing lives here except cormorants, darters 

 with their long snake-like necks, and beautiful 

 long-tailed bee-eaters, resplendent in green and 



56 



