ESCAPE OF MUSSAAD'S ASSASSIN. 
247 
of the same kind we frequently gathered at Agar. One fruit was 
entirely new to us^ about the size of a nectarine,, and fawn-colour. 
It contained a large stone^ with only about three-eighths of an 
inch of mellow fruit covering it. In flavour it was very similar to 
the banana,, and in the Djour language was called mooH. Four 
similarly enclosed groups of huts were visible from this place. 
This district is called Jirri^ over which our host’s brother,, Afwal, 
is chief. I am told that elephants abound here. The Djour do 
not hunt, but dig pitfalls, in which the wary animals but rarely fall. 
November \7th . — Young Foxcroft, our bird and insect collector, 
came to announce that his gun had been stolen during the night. 
Making an investigation, it was discovered that the assassin of our 
much-lamented agent Mussaad had unaccountably made his escape, 
and doubtless, to defend himself, had taken the fowling-piece, a 
light single barrel one, made by Holland. Several Djours took 
up his trail, and in a short time they reported he had taken the 
path to the Agar, therefore his intention evidently was to return 
to the station we had left in that province. A score of our men, 
with two of the keenest Djour trackers, pursued him to the con- 
fines of Agar, and, after a weary and ineffectual march, returned to 
to us with the conviction that, handcuffed as he was, he could not 
escape death by either man or beast. 
The aborigines speak the same language as the Djour of the 
Bahr il Gazal, and are part of the same tribe. This territory extends 
north-west in that direction, and eastwards it wedges in between 
the Atwat and the Aliab, but does not reach the Nile. They appear 
to possess more nationality than the people of the Aliab, who, in the 
construction and more isolated positions of their habitations, have 
imitated the more slovenly Dinkas, with whom they are in closer 
