CHAPTER III 



VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 

 KHARTOUM TO UGANDA 1200 MILES 



A GENERAL SURVEY 



THE joy of journeying under sail is a lost sensation. 

 The modern traveller has neither the desire for it nor 

 even the opportunity. On the oceans of the world the 

 sailing-ship is extinct at least as a passenger conveyance. 

 It is chiefly on archaic byways, such as Nile, that sail 

 survives ; and even Nile voyagers oft set forth on palatial 

 stern-wheelers chartered at 25 a day. True, they 

 "save time," and many of them proceed to waste the 

 time thus dearly bought. In me that old-time joy 

 survives unalloyed : no regret at being outpaced disturbs. 

 On the contrary, I rejoice when, aboard a humble gyassa 

 (costing one-twentieth the amount and a hundredfold 

 better adapted to my purpose), the lateen-sails are sheeted 

 home and, with the unbought wind, we set forth to 

 explore at will the thousand arcana of this unknown 

 waterway. 



A gyassa is a two-masted felucca-rigged sailing-vessel 

 of the type common on the Nile during ages, and which 

 in larger and more luxurious development is termed a 

 diabiyah. The Isis, the gyassa which I chartered for 

 my first prospecting voyage, measured 45 feet in length, 

 with a beam of 15 feet, and carried a crew of six 

 hands, including the rats (captain). My dragoman was 

 Mahomed Maghazi, half Egyptian, half Sudani ; and- my 



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