222 GONDOKOKO TO AGARU. 



with pieces of bones. The large root-stock of a plant, about 

 twenty inches high, growing plentifully here, is dug up by the 

 natives and used to impart a pleasant taste to drinking-water. 

 It has greyish-green stiff leaves, which grow without a pedicel 

 on the squarrose ramifications. The fruit is sweet, and in 

 shape like olives. We found ripe yellow plums of the Spondia. 



We then entered fine park land, and soon heard the sound 

 of running water from the Khor Gineti (Baker's Kanieti), 

 which flows northwards in foaming rapids. We had to pass 

 its broad bed, in which were numerous piles of stones and 

 very little water, and then we came to our first station in 

 the Latiika country. It stands at a turn of the khor, and is 

 entirely concealed in forest, so that it was not visible until we 

 were close upon it. Okkela, or Wakkala, as the Danagla pro- 

 nounce it, is occupied by only twenty men, and was erected 

 last year after repeated requests from Chief Chulong, in order 

 to protect him and his people from the attacks of the Ber, 

 which recur periodically in the rainy season. The Khor 

 Gineti, flowing close by, and having a floodmark on its deep 

 bank of from four to seven feet above its present, and certainly 

 lowest, level, often rises so much in a few hours that the ford 

 is rendered impassable for days. Though containing little 

 water, it flows throughout the whole year, which indicates the 

 existence of springs, probably in the Obbo mountains. Its 

 water is muddy, very likely owing to its loamy sides, and is 

 not good, although some ten minutes above the station, at a 

 bend of the Ichor, there are rapids, where the water roars and 

 foams — a favourite haunt of Scopus umbretta. To the north it 

 loses itself in the broad swamps of the Ber country, enormous 

 stretches of land extending, perhaps, to Bahr-el-Zaraf, and 

 forming a refuge for numerous herds of elephants, which are 

 only disturbed by hunters in the dry season. 



The country here is richly wooded, and its stores of game 

 are inexhaustible. Elephants, giraffes, buffaloes and zebras, 

 wild boars, and thousands of antelopes, from the bulky Antilope 

 oreas to the graceful A. Hcmprichiana, disport themselves in 

 the verdant clearings and open forest. No less than seven- 

 teen pitfalls have been made round the station, and prove very 

 dangerous to the traveller. 



