Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



great success as a due reward for his severe 

 labours. 



After a twelve-mile march along a red-brown 

 road, up hill and down dale through everlasting 

 elephant grass, anything up to twenty feet high, 

 swallowed up at intervals by gigantic forest trees 

 covered with creepers and flowers innumerable, 

 and swarming with bird and insect life, we came 

 to a halt at our first camp — a tiny clearing on 

 the side of the road, surrounded by a neat fence 

 of grass work. In this clearing huts, both large 

 and small, had sprung up as if by magic during 

 the last day or two, erected by the local chief 

 who held sway over that portion of the road. 



There was a big hut, to be used as a sitting- 

 and dining-room, about twenty feet high by forty 

 feet long, constructed of acacia poles sunk in the 

 ground and rafters of the same material bound to 

 them with strips of bark ; the whole thatched and 

 walled in with armfuls of long grass, care being 

 taken to leave broad ample windows all round for 

 the free passage of air. A house of this kind is 

 quite impervious to a tropical rain storm, provided 

 the roof be made with a very sharp slope. All 

 the houses were of this pattern, though of course 

 the rest, being only bedrooms, were little larger 

 than an ordinary tent. There was also a guard- 

 room as well as a kitchen. All our camps were 

 of this description. If in any of them there 

 were not enough houses to accommodate such a 



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