92 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



larger trees and was very dense. A great commotion 

 among the crew brought me from the quarter-deck, 

 where, compass and field-book in hand, I was recording 

 the course of the river. A fire had been sighted. On 

 approaching the bank and getting out I found a lot 

 of most primitive huts. Some of them had a sort of 

 frame, three feet high, on which grass had been thrown ; 

 in others the supports were the lower branches of 

 trees. I went to where the fires had been located, 

 and found them burning under rude sort of couches 

 with no covering from the weather, which, I forgot 

 to say, was most inclement ; we were seldom dry, 

 for the roof of the gunboat leaked like a sieve. The 

 couch was made of forked stakes driven to a height 

 of about two or three feet in the ground, and on them 

 were laid rough boughs. I shouted to the runaways, 

 but presume frightened them still more. As I had 

 no time to waste, I wrapped up a few beads in paper 

 and left them on one of the couches. I wonder 

 if the owner on his return thought the gunboat a 

 beneficent genii. 



This and other fishing villages are occupied by the 

 people of the Agibba tribe, who state that they come 

 here when the river dries up further south. I think, 

 if true, that this does away with the supposition that 

 the Pibor emerges from some great lake or is a loop 

 of the Bahr el Jcbel, though where is the sudd we 

 passed formed ? I saw no canoes here or elsewhere 

 in the Agibba country, and no fishing-spears, though 

 quantities of fishing-baskets, like our lobster-pots. 



We were greatly cheered up by finding these traces 



