114 
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
had not seen a bird or animal. A quantity of fish were netted. We 
do our best to encourage the men to be careful of their provisions^ 
and seeing that we can be ^^Mark Tapleys’^ over a dinner of beans 
or lentils, they are more provident of their dried meat. Eoxcroft, 
Achmed, and Ringa angle with great perseverance; the fish they 
attempt to dry. Towed until sunset. 
May 2nd . — Rain incessant during the night, and the cabin 
was deluged, everything damp. Towing all day ; towards evening 
a short space on the east shore was free of reeds, and on it we 
landed to give the gazelle and goat a little run. Signor Carlo and 
a soldier, within fifty yards of the dahabyeh, were surprised by 
bufialoes rising from the high grass. Carlo had with him his heavy 
rifle, and fired, hitting a buffalo ; the herd rushed off, the wounded 
beast separating from them. Carlo tracked a considerable distance, 
for the animal was bleeding ; but darkness came on, and with it a 
storm, and the disappointed hunter was, with his companion, com- 
pelled to return. 
♦ The locality upon a former occasion had proved an eventful one 
for Carlo, and he told the following, subsequently inserted by my 
husband in the ^^Field,^^ No. 563, which I am kindly permitted 
to reprint : 
With his elder brother Theodor, and thirty-two Arabs, in the 
service of the Brothers Poncet (nephews of M. Yaudet, Sardinian 
Proconsul for the Soudan, who, some years ago, with sixteen of 
his men, had been massacred by the Barris, near Gondokoro), he 
proceeded in the year 1859 to the Bahar il Gazal, for the purpose 
of hunting elephants and to barter tusks. On their arrival in the 
Raik territory. Carlo, with the awkward squad, was left in charge 
