376 
SCENES ON THE NILE. 
the river. Pelican flew in solemn procession, or 
marked the water's edge by a line of white. Myriads 
of the Indian paddy-bird perched upon the trees. 
There were cranes, divers, and sometimes a fish-eagle. 
At one time I counted the heads of twenty-two hip- 
popotami, a perfect shoal of them, packed as close 
as they could swim together, looking like monstrous 
retriever dogs in the stream. Some were spouting 
water, others dipping, others snorting, and others 
rearing their heads and shoulders ; but as we got near 
them, all dived to come up again scattered. This 
packing seemed common, as at other places we came 
on them in the same order, with cranes perched on 
their heads. 
We saluted Koorshid's colours with two guns from 
our deck at a Shir village where we lay-to for some 
hours. Two of his soldiers, holding possession of the 
place, were posted with a supply of beads, &c, with 
which they purchase ivory. The village chief came to 
call on us ; he was dressed like a Turk, with a fez and 
long-sleeved gown of pink striped calico, but the crowd 
of natives who sold commodities on the bank were nude, 
only that their skins were covered with wood-ashes. 
They made here an excellent basket, shaped like a 
finger-glass, from the fronds of the doom palm. Its 
fruit and flour, tasting of gingerbread, as also tobacco, 
were exposed for sale, in exchange for our men s pro- 
visions of doora-grain. Many of the nude natives 
had been circumcised, and all had their lower incisors 
extracted like the Wanyoro. On entering the village 
we found it clean and tidy; the part before each 
doorway plastered as a space to sit upon. Here, sit- 
ting by some standards, three women received us 
