138 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



poison, remains in the wound, and before it can be cut out the 

 poison is absorbed by the system. Fortunately the natives are 

 bad archers. The bows are invariably made of the male bam- 

 boo, and are kept perpetually strung; they are exceedingly stiff, 

 but not very elastic, and the arrows are devoid of feathers, being 

 simple reeds or other light wood, about three feet long, and 

 slightly knobbed at the base as a hold for the finger and thumb ; 

 the string is never drawn with the two fore-fingers, as in most 

 countries, but is simply pulled by holding the arrow between the 

 middle joint of the fore-finger and the thumb. A stiff bow 

 drawn in this manner has very little power ; accordingly the ex- 

 treme range seldom exceeds a hundred and ten yards. 



The Ban tribe are very hostile, and are considered to be about 

 the worst of the White Nile. They have been so of ten defeated 

 by the traders' parties in the immediate neighborhood of Gondo- 

 koro, that they are on their best behavior while within half a mile 

 of the station ; but it is not at all uncommon to be asked for 

 beads as a tax for the right of sitting under the shade of a tree, 

 or for passing through the country. The traders' people, in 

 order to terrify them into submission, were in the habit of bind- 

 ing them, hands and feet, and carrying them to the edge of a cliff 

 about thirty feet high, a little beyond the ruins of the mission 

 house ; beneath this cliff the river boils in an eddy, and into this 

 watery grave the victims were remorselessly hurled as food for the 

 crocodiles. It appeared that this punishment was dreaded by the 

 natives more than the bullet or rope, and it was accordingly 

 adopted by the Turkish trading parties. 



BAKER'S TROUBLE IN GONDOKORO. 



BAKER was regarded by the Turks in Gondokoro as an intruder 

 or as a spy sent by England to obtain information concerning the 

 slave trade ; they therefore set about to create dissatisfaction 

 among his men and to annoy him into a hasty departure. The 

 slaves were kept out of sight as much as possible, being heavily 

 manacled and confined in close stockades. There were about six 

 hundred traders in the town, who spent their leisure drinking, 



