CHAPTER IX 



We leave the gunboat and proceed in the Hyslop l)oat— And then on fof)t 

 — A kicky precaution — Homeward bound — A crocodile — The sudd 

 again — We meet a "relief party" — My difficulties — Renk — I hunt 

 crocodiles and hippos in an American canoe — A crocodile story — 

 Rudeness of the natives — The need of pomp and ceremony — The 

 administration of the Dinka country — The Dinkas — I leave for the 

 "front" — The friends I left behind me. 



" Beggars cannot be choosers." Out we waded. 

 Sharpies took one relief, I the other. The Egyptian 

 gunners (especially) and sailors worked at the wood- 

 cutting like heroes. We were three days at it that 

 time, from dawn to dark, and the same time on our 

 return journey, but strange to say no one seemed to 

 suffer any ill effects. 



I never saw so many birds in one place, if I except 

 gulls over a shoal of fish in shallow water. When 

 they rose from the trees they darkened the air. They 

 were large and black, the size of large ducks. There 

 were, too, numbers of egrets, and some guinea-fowl. 

 The trees were covered with nests containing eggs, 

 whose flavour was so strong that one could scarcely 

 swallow them, even made up as an omelette and eaten 

 in the dark. 



We saw a herd of twenty giraffe as we steamed 

 in, about a mile from the halting-place. On the 

 other side of the wood we came upon a dry patch, 



