464 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



As we went down the Nile we kept seeing more and more 

 of the birds which I remembered, one species after another 

 appearing; familiar cow herons, crocodile plover, noisy 

 spur-wing plover, black and white kingfishers, hoopoos, 

 green bee-eaters, black and white chats, desert larks, and 

 trumpeter bullfinches. 



At night we sat on deck and watched the stars and the 

 dark, lonely river. The swimming crocodiles and plung- 

 ing hippos made whirls and wakes of feeble light that 

 glimmered for a moment against the black water. The 

 unseen birds of the marsh and the night called to one an- 

 other in strange voices. Often there were grass fires, 

 burning, leaping lines of red, the lurid glare in the sky 

 above them making even more sombre the surrounding 

 gloom. 



As we steamed northward down the long stretch of the 

 Nile which ends at Khartoum, the wind blew in our faces, 

 day after day, hard and steadily. Narrow reedbeds bor- 

 dered the shore; there were grass flats and groves of 

 acacias and palms, and farther down reaches of sandy 

 desert. The health of our companions who had been 

 suffering from fever and dysentery gradually improved; 

 but the case of champagne, which we had first opened at 

 Gondokoro, was of real service, for two members of the 

 party were at times so sick that their situation was critical. 



We reached Khartoum on the afternoon of March i4th, 

 1910, and Kermit and I parted from our comrades of the 

 trip with real regret; during the year we spent together 

 there had not been a jar, and my respect and liking for 

 them had grown steadily. Moreover, it was a sad parting 

 from our faithful black followers, whom we knew we 



