142 SAVAGE SUDAN 



Shilluks also frequented our various anchorages, 

 partly to get any spare meat, but also bringing chickens 

 for sale at fivepence a couple ; the price of a wife, I 

 understood, being twelve cattle. These stark savages are 

 becoming "tamed" by being employed to cut and carry 

 timber, as fuel, for the Government steamers, but the 

 destruction resultant to the forests is appalling. Under 

 the Pax Britannica the whole country is being repopu- 

 lated : new villages spring up mushroom-like on every 

 side. That is all to the good. Still a naturalist may 

 lament the reckless and wickedly wasteful woodcutting 

 and the grass-fires that desolate the land, scrub and 

 saplings replacing the forests of yore. 



I enjoyed one merry morning's shooting. Far away 

 inland the veld seemed to bristle with a spiky cheveau de 

 /rise that might have been a Zulu Impi on the warpath. 

 They were all crowned cranes, feasting on locusts and 

 grasshoppers. I commandeered the services of our 

 friendly Shilluks, and in each of two "drives" secured 

 a right-and-left. The spectacle of these massed skeins, 

 flashing alternately black and white, russet and rich 

 maroon-red, together with their chorus of clarion cries, 

 remains a notable memory. These splendid birds 

 weighed from 8 to 9! Ib. apiece, with a wing-expanse of 

 78 inches, the sexes being equal, and, like all cranes, 

 are excellent eating. I saw three giraffes that morning. 



One evening after "browning" a passing flight of 

 teal, a wounded duck, after circling blindly around, 

 finally fell at some distance. After gathering the dead, 

 I was rowing out in the dinghy to retrieve the cripple, 

 when from behind came a rushing sound from the 

 heavens, and a great river-eagle with collapsed wings 

 swept down and, deftly clutching the prey (so smart 

 was the stoop that I failed to see the actual stroke), 

 bore it away to the opposite bank. I followed, and not 

 wishing to shoot the eagle, hailed him that the teal was 

 mine. The robber, however, was obdurate and rose 



