530 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



another 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 

 should never see again. It had been an interesting and a 

 happy year; though I was very glad to be once more with 

 those who were dear to me, and to turn my face toward my 

 own home and my own people. 



Kermit's and my health throughout the trip had been 

 excellent. He had been laid up for three days all told, and 

 I for five. Kermit's three days were due, two to tick fever 

 on the Kapiti Plains, one probably to the sun. Mine were 

 all due to fever; but I think my fever had nothing to do 

 with Africa at all, and was simply a recurrence of the fever 

 I caught in the Santiago campaign, and which ever since 

 has come on at long and irregular intervals for a day or 

 two at a time. The couple of attacks I had in Africa were 

 very slight; by no means as severe as one I had while bear 

 hunting early one spring in the Rocky Mountains. One 

 of these attacks came on under rather funny circumstances. 

 It was at Lake Naivasha on the day I killed the hippo 



