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Butiaba. We steamed along past the wooded 

 mountains and the forest-clad hills, past the 

 papyrus banks and lagoons, running aground 

 now and again, cursing at the delays and getting 

 dragged off at last. In that part of the river 

 it is scarcely possible to avoid the shoals of weeds 

 and mud. First the weeds collect until they 

 form a dense spongy mass which stretches across 

 the river and acts as a filter. Then as the water, 

 charged with muddy particles, arrives at this 

 natural dam where the stream is suddenly checked, 

 it deposits all impurities as it oozes and percolates 

 slowly through the tangled but compressed mass 

 of vegetation. This deposit quickly creates mud- 

 banks and shoals, which effectually block the 

 original bed of the river. 



The plant which enters most largely into the 

 composition of the sudd blocks is the Pistia 

 stratioles. This resembles a small floating cab- 

 bage, with fine thready roots like a human beard, 

 some sixteen inches in length. The pistias often 

 form dense masses which are very difficult to 

 clear. Merrily they bob along the surface of the 

 river in batches of twos and threes, or of several 

 hundreds, till they get broken up in the rapids, 

 or entangle themselves in a bank of reeds, and 

 seed themselves there. 



An uneventful passage brought us up at anchor 

 in the land-locked harbour of Butiaba at the foot 

 of the lofty escarpment that hems in the eastern 



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