DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 441 



He crooned to himself as he crouched by the tiller, steering 

 the boat, and gradually, as the moon shone on the swift, 

 quiet water of the river, his crooning turned into a regu- 

 lar song. His voice was beautiful, and there was a wild 

 meaningless refrain to each verse; the verses reciting how 

 he intended to write this letter to those whom he had not 

 seen for two years; how a friend would take it to them, so 

 that the letter would be in Mombasa; but he, the man who 

 wrote it, would for two years more be in the far-off wil- 

 derness. 



On February i;th the long line of our laden safari left 

 Nimule on its ten days' march to Gondokoro. We went 

 through a barren and thirsty land. Our first camp was 

 by a shallow, running river, with a shaded pool in which 

 we bathed. After that we never came on running water, 

 merely on dry watercourses with pools here and there, 

 some of the pools being crowded with fish. Tall half- 

 burnt grass, and scattered, well-nigh leafless thorn scrub 

 covered the monotonous landscape, although we could 

 generally find some fairly leafy tree near which to pitch 

 the tents. The heat was great; more than once the ther- 

 mometer at noon rose to 112 in the shade not real shade, 

 however, but in a stifling tent, or beneath a tree the foliage 

 of which let through at least a third of the sun rays. The 

 fiery heat of the ground so burnt and crippled the feet of 

 the porters that we had to start each day's march very 

 early. 



At quarter of three in the morning the whistle blew; 

 we dressed and breakfasted while the tents were taken 

 down and the loads adjusted. Then off we strode, through 

 the hot starlit night, our backs to the Southern Cross 



