THE WAU RIVER 195 



route followed by Junker, the Busseiri took some 

 time to reach. I halted in a shady glen, out of which 

 we had turned a herd of hartebeest and some gazelle. 

 I was too tired to follow them, but as we were short 

 of meat I allowed a couple of men to go out on their 

 own account. My plan on such occasions, i.e. when 

 bad luck had followed my stalks, was to give a man 

 two rounds. If he got anything, well and good, I 

 paid ; if he did not, he paid for the ammunition. 

 Though his weapon was an old Remington, I never 

 remember one of them paying. Remember, of course, 

 that the locally enlisted Jehadia were accustomed, from 

 boyhood up, to stalk game to spear it, so got fairly 

 close. 



These men came back with the welcome news that 

 the Busseiri, as this branch of the Wau River is called, 

 was only a few miles south of us. I followed the 

 glen, which soon merged into a dried-up swamp on 

 which were a number of marabout stalks. This 

 brought me to the river in the middle of another, 

 which, when overflowed, would be li miles broad. 

 On the opposite side, at the edge of the trees, was a 

 large herd of waterbuck. As the men had killed, I 

 stalked for view, crossing the sandy river-bed 22 yards 

 broad. The perpendicular banks, between which a 

 faint trickle of water flowed from pool to pool (this 

 was the height of the hot weather), were about 20 

 feet high. From its size one would say that the source 

 of the river must be quite 40 miles further west. 

 This, if so, would mean that when the frontier is 

 demarcated we will find ourselves the possessors of 



