CHAPTER XIV 



A FIGHT WITH " HIPPOS " 



BACK in the early days," my friend 

 Bancroft began, "the mail that supplied 

 the garrisons in Central Africa was 

 brought by flat-bottom steamers up the Nile 

 from Khartoum to Gondokoro. From there 

 carriers transported it overland to Nimule, a 

 distance of one hundred and sixty miles. At 

 Nimule I received it and distributed it to the 

 army and trading posts along the White Nile 

 and in the region of Lake Albert. I always 

 made the trip by canoe. 



"One spring morning I left Nimule with the 

 usual consignment of mail-sacks and began the 

 three-hundred-mile journey up the White Nile. 

 My water caravan consisted of two large native 

 dugout canoes, made each from a single log 

 and manned by four stalwart Baganda blacks. 



"On both sides of the river for almost the 

 entire distance there were great areas of papy- 

 rus from fifteen feet to a mile wide. For miles 



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