DOLEIB PALMS 219 



Telgona. Alas, constant taking of temperature and 

 medicine and no exercise had laid the latter on his 

 back. His letter to me, a farewell one, as he expected 

 his "relief" at once, was filled with technical terms, 

 describing his symptoms, and ended in the hope of 

 meeting in a better world. We did meet, months 

 later, at Haifa. Wahbi Eff. determined to combine 

 the two patrols, and so went by Ragaa to Kossinga. 

 Between these two places he surprised a caravan of 

 slaves going to Nasr Andal. It consisted of five men 

 (bazingers), five girls in budding womanhood, and 

 thirty-three or forty-three (I forget which) small boys, 

 the whole led by a Zanzibari, who declared that he had 

 been guide to Stanley, &c., and was now wakil of a 

 Niam-Niam Sultan in French territory. 



I hired Sheikh Obo's donkey and started to Kossinga, 

 twenty-five miles or so to the south. Before reaching 

 the Boru again, we passed through a forest of doleib 

 palms. I tried the fruit — a hard orange ball, three 

 inches in diameter. It tasted like oakum of mango 

 flavour, peppered with a little cayenne. I did not get 

 the fibres out of my teeth for a long time. Leaving 

 this belt of palms we skirted the right of a plain, 

 through which the river ran, and then crossed the 

 latter, which was quite 200 yards wide, with banks 

 twenty feet high, from which emerged a quantity of 

 birds like red starlings. The right bank was covered 

 to its very edge by small timber and undergrowth. 

 Presently we found ourselves on a " buta," known in 

 these parts as a "dahl," which was covered with game. 

 I pushed on on my donkey. Rain had fallen near 



