Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



but, on account of the long grass, we met nothing 

 on the way, though we were told to keep our 

 eyes well skinned from here onwards. 



On the march from this place to the Uma 

 River we passed through a goodish bit of culti- 

 vation, chiefly simsim, ground-nuts, and mahogo, 

 all of which form the staple food of the iVtadi 

 tribe. Once we touched bamboo country, which 

 seemed odd to me, as in East Africa bamboos 

 grow only at excessive altitudes, and here we 

 were quite five thousand feet lower than the 

 regions where they are found in that part of the 

 world. We saw little or no game from the road, 

 but Colonel Wilson again distinguished himself 

 by securing a couple of roan antelope — fine up- 

 standing creatures with their stiff manes and long 

 tufted ears. He had made what he described as 

 "a short chukka round," but which probably 

 really meant that he had sweated blood for miles ! 



The Uma River is, I think, the boundary 

 between the Madi and Bari tribes. The extent 

 of country occupied by this latter tribe is about 

 a hundred miles along the river bank. They are 

 subdivided into smaller sections. The Bari is 

 thickly inhabited. The general features of the 

 landscape are rolling, park-like grass lands — very 

 litde actually flat, but a series of undulations, 

 ornamented with exceedingly fine timber — forests 

 of considerable extent, and mountains rising to 

 about three thousand feet above their bases. 



96 



