196 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



another 30,000 square miles of country south of the 

 Bahr el Arab. 



I could now turn back. South of me was the 

 territory of the Sultan Tambera (Niam-Niam). The 

 wakils of Said Baldas, who had come with me, 

 declared themselves highly satisfied with the country. 

 I had also carried a traverse near the sources of all 

 the western sources of the Nile, from the northernmost 

 one to those of the southern rivers. The swamp I 

 mentioned stopped two miles down-stream, when the 

 river on both sides ran between small containing hills. 

 The branches of trees on either bank might perhaps 

 scratch a steamer's paint, but I feel sure one could 

 penetrate much further west than this. 



We halted for the night, prepared to receive the 

 Niam-Niams if they came, but in this almost virgin 

 wilderness we were undisturbed save by the yowling 

 of leopards, whose tracks we saw next morning. We 

 marched along the right bank till daybreak, and then 

 crossed. That day we found water with the aid of 

 a wart-hog ! The time to halt was past, but there was 

 no sign^^of water. I saw a wart-hog, the flesh of which 

 is almost the only tasty one in the forest, and shot it. 

 His stomach showed us that he had just drunk. A 

 few casts round brought to light a pool hidden under 

 the overhanging roots of a big tree. 



Our way lay over long undulations. Often the now 

 tangled dry grass had been spared by forest fires and 

 made the way difBcult. At one place, Babai Khair- 

 mulla, so called after the famous slave-raider, we found 

 what may have been, as suggested, a French settle- 



