200 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



usually large, and every now and then we came on 

 open glades. 



We had followed it for some considerable distance 

 when we came upon footprints on newly burned grass. 

 My guide and I were not left long alone, for a couple 

 of my men, on seeing the marks, came running to 

 join me. It was still difficult for them to realise that 

 every one is not an enemy nowadays. We presently 

 came on a party of practically naked Mandalla, who 

 led me to their camp. The bag of this party consisted 

 of two animals like badgers, a dikdik, and a quantity 

 of rats, which they got by firing patches of grass and 

 spearing what came out. Arrived at their camp, I was 

 received by the elders while my guides went off to 

 dress. I was told that they had been unlucky in not 

 coming on elephants. They were hard up for food, 

 for I saw my men giving them the game they had. I 

 promised to shoot them something, and did shortly 

 afterwards out of a herd of waterbuck. It proved the 

 truth of " Cast thy bread upon the waters and it will 

 return to thee," for when I patrolled their country 

 later I was given a triumphal progress. After all, the 

 Bible is the accumulated wisdom of aeons. 



Except those of a Uganda cob and wart-hog, I 

 brought no heads back on this trip, as the roan, water- 

 buck, &c., I shot were smaller than those I already had 

 killed. With limited transport one cannot accumulate 

 trophies. 



The country now was rather strange. First on one 

 bank it would be high, then on the other. I had left 

 the river to avoid going round a bend, when I came to 



