Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



him, held his own unscathed in this blackguard Bohemia, not a bit sullied by it and 

 much amused. We arranged with our Captain to take us all together a little way 

 up the Nile. We could not spare time for more than a very few days. So up we 

 went. The mournful character of the big, slow, marsh-like expanse of river was very 

 depressing. The air was heavy and seemed to be pestiferous and I was heartily glad 

 to get away from it. The hippopotami were in great numbers, I blazed at 40 different 

 ones (at absurd distances though) in one day. Boulton went out one night with 

 Parkyns and shot a poor cow by mistake for one. There was no perceptible current 

 in the river, the offal and cook's messes that were thrown overboard each night when 

 the boat anchored, hung about her all night and were still there in the morning, so 

 that we had to send a man wading to a distance to fetch clean water. The river 

 lapped over the sloping banks like a flood over a meadow. There were vast flights 

 of flamingoes, &c. and the aspect of the river was weird and strangely melancholy. 

 We turned back short of the Shilluk country, and returning to Khartoum, where we 

 dropped Parkyns, sailed on to Metemneh. There we engaged camels to cross the 

 Bayuda desert. It hardly ranks as a desert as there are many watering places, we 

 only took 2 or 3 days rations of water with us and travelled 14 and even 16 hours 

 a day. I started equipped in native dress, just a white cloth wrapped round with arm 

 and shoulder bare. The effect was I got fearfully blistered by the sun, all my back and 

 arm was covered with minute blisters side by side. It was fearfully painful at night 

 for some days. We travelled late into the night and the tail of the great bear was 

 the index of our 24 hour clock. We met Prince Pukler Muskaw (1 spelling) by the way. 

 I saw nothing of any wells, for we camped at night away from them and the camel 

 men fetched the water. The ground had not at all the utter desert look of the 

 Korosko. Rain falls there periodically 

 and there are plenty of shabby mimosa 

 trees. We were 6 days in getting to 

 Meraweh. There we stopped a few days 

 wondering at the white ants. Everything 

 had to be laid on "angarebi," frames with 

 strips of hide across, and on legs, otherwise the white ants got at them. I went up 

 Jebel Barkal bare-footed as a bravado, and the sharp edges of the schist like rocks 

 severely punished my feet. There I got the vase, with what I now know was the 

 representative of the God Bess upon it (given to the British Museum). From Meraweh 

 we went a short 3 days ride across the desert to New Dongola where the Pasha was 

 a much grander person than any hitherto seen. He had a review in our honor and 

 mounted us on thoroughbred ponies with their queer Arab seats with the cruel curbs. 

 We all made a great mess of our riding with so unusual a seat, and if we touched 

 the curb up went the plaguy ponies' heads, who were always at a gallop or a sudden 

 stop. The Pasha gave a monkey, to add to the two I had got at Berber and which 

 were my constant companions in travel sitting on the camel with me or if not, with 

 someone else. From Dougola we rode along the left bank of the Nile to Wadi Haifa, 

 passing that wonderful Semneh. The Nile was then low and ran in a sluice between 

 two low rocky banks that are under water at other times. It was so narrow that 

 we thought we might throw a stone across it and tried hard to do so, but failed, some 



