ABANDONMENT OF OUE BOATS. 
169 
July hth . — Monsieur Poncet sailed for Khartoum with his fol- 
lowers^ and we had the station to ourselves. All were now actively 
employed with preparations for the overland journey. Packages 
weighing some fifty pounds or more^ for the negroes to carry^ were 
to be arranged ; the tents on shore are put up and examined : the 
one in which we had lived so many weeks at Korosko is useless^ 
the rats and water having rotted it_, and the fragments are to be 
applied to caulking the Lady of the Nile.^^ 
July 1th . — Yesterday was miserably cold and wet; to-day the 
same. Mussaad and one soldier returned from Ador. He says 
that much water is out : one extensive sheet they forded and swam 
across. The donkeys had been persistently followed by hysenas. 
July IQth . — A fearful storm : all work suspended. 
July 11th . — Petherick wished me to accompany him on the Nile 
in the India-rubber punt_, as Mussaad and others are sceptical as to 
its capabilities ; they evidently wanted to leave it behind,, deeming 
it an unnecessary load. Petherick inflated the punt,, and loading 
it with guns to show what could be carried^ we paddled across the 
river^ thus satisfying the doubters. 
July 1 ^th . — The weary packing work still continues,, bad weather 
alsOj and the smell from the stagnant water is sickening. 
July IQth . — I was so ill yesterday that Dr. Murie advised our 
mooring in the centre of the river^ away from the disagreeables of 
the swamp, and I soon recovered. This morning, when I went on 
deck, our people made a fantasie, as it was my birthday ; the tara~ 
