Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



From the woods a little farther to the south, rose 

 numerous small clouds of dark and lurid smoke, 

 that were easily to be distinguished from the 

 purer exhalations of the springs, and which I 

 marked down as evidence of another large village 

 in that direction. The natives were, for the most 

 part, Kuku, but there was a fair sprinkling of 

 Moru and Makraka in the villages, owing, I 

 think, to the fact of a large consignment of ivory 

 having been brought from far away inland by 

 the latter. The natives of the interior here will 

 do anything in this underhand way to bring ivory 

 into English posts, rather than to their own 

 Belgian stations, so they told me, as we give 

 them proper prices, either in coin or implements, 

 for what they bring, instead of seizing it at a 

 mere nominal valuation. The commodities they 

 are most desirous of receiving in exchange are 

 mainly sheep and cattle, but in addition to these 

 they like a few native soft-iron hoes — malotes. 

 The deal often takes days of bargaining before 

 an agreement is arrived at, but that is half the 

 battle to the natives ; unless there has been a lot 

 of argument he considers that nothing has been 

 properly settled. 



Once beyond the mountain wall shutting down 

 the left bank of the Nile, one enters upon an un- 

 dulating land of grassy plains and woods. These 

 evidently teem with game of all descriptions 

 in drier weather ; little, however, was to be seen 



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