Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



A new post was being established on the 

 opposite bank at Tonga Island — which is in- 

 tended to be the means of ingress and egress for 

 Southern Kordofan — in the shape of a telegraph 

 office in the Austrian Mission House and a few 

 storehouses. 



Next we see under the shadow of a few Dom 

 palms the military station of Taufikia, a "dust- 

 heap " in the wilderness, dry and burnt up in 

 December. In the rains the buildings stand just 

 clear of the swollen river whirling past in front, 

 and of an extensive swamp behind. Another 

 military post, some forty miles on, is Kodok — 

 Fashoda, as it used to be called — the administra- 

 tive capital of the Shilluk District and the head- 

 quarters of the Governor thereof Traces of 

 Marchand's earthworks still remain ; with a strong 

 north wind blowing the place is enveloped in 

 a dust cloud. 



Thence the Nile, now some four hundred yards 

 broad, winds its stately way past the Game 

 Reserve on the eastern bank, past Renk and 

 Jebel Achmed Aga, a small hill rising out of a 

 dead flat plain, flowing on through sandy desert 

 dunes edged on the river bank with dry and 

 withered-up thorn-trees, to El Dueim, the land- 

 ing-place for El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan ; 

 till about twenty miles above Khartoum the 

 dreaded shallows begin, and the river broadens 

 to a mile in places. 



58 



