136 SAVAGE SUDAN 



Procera\ that projects far out into the waterways. So 

 colossal in places are these aquatic growths, that the wide- 

 spreading tops of papyrus and the rest come to resemble 

 the outlines of palms or of Scots fir. Navigating at dusk 

 some tortuous channel through archipelagos where lateral 

 creeks open out on every side, the ship appears to be 

 enveloped in a c^tl de sac of broken pine-forest in the 

 mystery of tropical twilight, confusion grows greater as 

 darkness deepens and fire-flies flash around. This 100 

 miles of aquatic labyrinths, bye-channels, and mud-banks 

 swarms with hippopotami, crocodiles, and with a wealth 



"WHISTLING TEAL." 

 (Sit rigidly upright in stiff and formal pose.) 



of bird-life no less amazing than that of the lower reaches 

 already described. The avifauna of the first 150 miles I 

 characterised as " true wildfowl," a definition which I trust 

 conveys its intended meaning ; here, further south, the 

 character is essentially " Ethiopian." Already, in the 

 central stretches of the river, we have made acquaintance 

 with these Ethiopian orders ; but that is merely their 

 "overflow." Here, in the "western bend," we reach their 

 true home. 



It is here, upon these expanses of steppe and marsh 

 of the "western bend" that the hunter-naturalist en- 

 counters two new forms of African antelope (possibly a 

 third), neither of which has he seen before, since neither 



