THE START 87 



Nasser) ; 12 sailors (4 raises) ; i woman (cook to 

 the sailors) ; 5 native servants (2 boys) ; 3 native 

 engineers ; i boy. 



It was at Nasser that I picked up my interpreter. 

 He was one of those boys who, like carrion crows 

 and dogs, invariably attach themselves to soldiers 

 for the sake of what they can pick up. He knew 

 his own language, Anuak, and a smattering of Arabic 

 and Nuer. His companion was a stowaway whom 

 I did not discover till it was too late to get rid of 

 him, and who, a runaway slave of the Nuers, and 

 marked with their tribal mark — three horizontal weals 

 on his forehead from ear to ear — was perhaps the 

 saviour of the situation later on. 



Not long after leaving Nasser we swung into the 

 Pibor, which was known to the rais as the Yayo 

 River. The lakes, which earlier cartographers had 

 placed on either side of its mouth, and even named, 

 were non-existent, for small ponds, some four acres 

 in extent, did not deserve the big marks on the 

 map. Navigation was easy ; the current less strong 

 than that of the Sobat. The well-defined banks 

 were crowded with villages — Nuer on our left bank, 

 and Anuak on the Abyssinian, or right bank. The 

 latter were continually being raided both by Nuers 

 and Abyssinians. At one village of theirs I was 

 asked for the Anglo-Egyptian flags. To the native 

 mind an empty envelope forms a mantle of protec- 

 tion which few dare pierce, but flags would be a 

 patent of nobility. No chieftain of these parts would 

 dare aught against any one under the protection of 



