GODELPUS ISLAND 127 



about 100 yards square, on which are built a few straw 

 huts, and a lot of timber is stacked as fuel. By its 

 first name hangs a tale. When that heroic officer, 

 the late Commander Fell, R.N., was engaged in cutting 

 a channel through the vast sudd swamp to the main 

 river of the Jur, the loosened sudd floating away 

 formed a barrier past which no one up or down 

 stream could get. Provisions were exhausted, and 

 Fell said to his companion, " If a steamer with supplies 

 does not reach us soon, God help us ! " It did force 

 its way, and the expression was perpetuated in the 

 name. 



The island, when I knew it, was situated in the 

 middle of a vast swamp, not very deep, and with 

 scattered villages, the inhabitants of which fish and 

 hunt the rare situtunga. 



Once on the steamer we had very little poling or 

 hauling to do. Before long we found ourselves in 

 a really fine river with firm banks studded with trees. 

 The country was park-like. In lieu of deer one saw 

 giraffes everywhere, and occasionally small herds of 

 antelope could be seen drinking their fill on some 

 sandbank — a scene that required the pencil of a Land- 

 seer to depict. 



Two incidents on this trip nearly ended my career. 

 When the steamer was "wooding" at one of the 

 stations on the Jur, I went out to shoot. As I might 

 come across dangerous game (elephant, lion, or buffalo), 

 I gave my .500 to a soldier, who posed as a shikari, to 

 carry. I had not been walking many minutes when 

 a bullet whizzed past my head, which was enveloped 



