VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 71 



chase and presently returned with the hare in its jaws ! 

 The Baggdra know a thing- or two about (pot-) hunting. 

 I visited their camp under some umbrella-topped thorn- 

 trees. It consisted merely of a wind-screen, 6 feet high, 

 under the lee of which stood their angarebs, or bedsteads, 

 devoid of roof or of any protection, though the place was 

 only a few minutes' walk from where we had seen the lion 

 that morning. 



On reaching the ship, I gave each savage a beaker of 

 lemonade. It was laughable to watch the gleam of 

 sudden suspicion that shot from their keen eyes as the 

 fizzy stuff tickled unaccustomed throats! Laden with 

 half an oribi-buck and a bunch of guinea-fowls, they 

 departed fast friends. 



These Baggdra of Kordofan mark the southernmost 

 outpost of Arab penetration into the Sudan. Beyond 

 this point it is exclusively the "Country of the Blacks" 

 that is, of the aboriginal savage tribes, Dinkas, Shilluks, 

 Nuers and, beyond the Bahr-el-Ghazal, of the amiable 

 cannibals known as Nyam-Nyams. The Baggdra are 

 reputed enterprising and skilled herdsmen ; yet here, in 

 their habits and manner of living they appear to be but 

 little, if at all, raised above the level of their purely savage 

 neighbours, the Shilluks. They are one and all stark 

 barbarians a singular contrast with the burnoused and 

 comparatively gentle Arabs of the Blue Nile, only a few 

 days' march to the eastward. 



January 31. Aboard his, in 10-35 North latitude. 

 How delicious to be at a nameless spot in space, only 

 definable by the symbol of its latitude and longitude ! 

 It was 5.35 this morning when the watch on deck sent 

 me the word Gamoos ( = buffalo). The darkness was still 

 intense, hardly relieved by an expiring moon or by the 

 Southern Cross. The wind had dropped dead and Isis 

 was slowly drifting down-stream towards the eastern 

 bank. On all sides the silence of night was broken by 

 the sonorous grunts, blowing's, and wallowings of schools 



