IOTBODTICTIOST. xlv 



good fortune. These basins are large areas enclosed by embankments and at flood-time 

 are filled with water by means of regulators or sluices set in the irrigation-canals. After 

 the silt has been deposited, the water is run off into canals, which take it back to the Nile, 

 and it is while this water is being discharged that the fishermen set their nets, already 

 described, at the regulators. In less than three weeks I had obtained over 500 specimens, 

 when my work was interrupted by a bad attack of ophthalmia, which necessitated my 

 going to Cairo for treatment ; but I left my servants and the boat at Luxor, with instruc- 

 tions to go on collecting, so that by the middle of November over 300 specimens were 

 added. By the beginning of December I was sufficiently recovered to start work again, 

 my scheme being to work the White Nile from Omdurman to Lake No, a little over 

 600 miles. I hired a large " nuggar " (boat) at Omdurman for six months, with a " rais " 

 (captain), a crew of six men, and a black woman to cook their food ; a companion 

 (Mr. D. Gunn) and myself completing the party. Provisions for six months for the whole 

 party had to be taken. We set sail on December 31st, 1900. The 6< nuggar " was 35 ft, 

 long and 15 broad, turtle-shaped, built of stout planks of " sunt," a hard and heavy 

 wood of great durability found up the Nile, spiked together. The fore part and stern 

 were decked over. Amidships was a short strong mast carrying a long slender spar, 

 built in sections, to which a large triangular sail was attached. The ropes and gear 

 were made from the leaves of the Dom palm and were neither strong nor durable, as 

 1 had good cause to know before the journey was over, and it was a wonder that we 

 got through without serious accidents. I believe that some of the large sailing-boats 

 at Omdurman have hempen ropes. Near the stern of the boat was erected a sort of 

 hut, made of native mats on a wooden framework, with a window fore and aft for 

 purposes of ventilation and also to let the man at the helm see the course he was 

 steering. It was found necessary to cut more windows as the weather grew warmer. 

 Beneath this cabin the men's rations and other perishable articles were stored. In the 

 fore part was another small mat structure, called the if kitchen," in which a cooking- 

 range was patched up with Nile mud and pieces of iron ; this answered fairly well with 

 the exception of an occasional collapse, which a little fresh mud soon rectified. 



The crew were rather a mixed lot ; the captain, an Arab polite in manner and very 

 religious, turned out to be more or less useless and untrustworthy ; his brother, whom 

 we nicknamed the " Mad Mullah," was very irritable and given to cataleptic trances ; 

 the chief boatman, an Arab, was the best all-round man of the crew and could turn his 

 hand to anything ; the chief steersman was not unlike an East Indian in appearance, tall, 

 thin, and silent, The rest of the crew were Soudanese— one a man of herculean build, 

 who looked back with regret to the days of the Khalifa, when stealing cattle and women 

 was a favourite pastime ; whilst another was noted for the great quantities of u marissa," 

 a drink made from fermented "dourra," he could consume at a sitting. I intended to 

 reach Lake No first and then work north, thus keeping ahead of the rains, which 

 commence in that region about the beginning of March, and getting help from the 



