54 
TEDIOUSNESS OF VOYAGE. 
[chap. I. 
is like an entangled skein of thread. Wind light; 
course S. 20° W. The strong north wind that took us 
from Khartoum has long since become a mere breath. 
It never blows in this latitude regularly from the 
north. The wind commences at between 8 and 9 a.m., 
and sinks at sunset; thus the voyage through these 
frightful marshes and windings is tedious and melan¬ 
choly beyond description. Great numbers of hippo¬ 
potami this evening, greeting the boats with their loud 
snorting bellow, which vibrates through the vessels. 
Jan. 9 th .—Two natives fishing; left their canoe and 
ran on the approach of our boats. My men wished to 
steal it, which of course I prevented; it was a simple 
dome-palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, 
very neatly made with only one barb. Both sides of 
the river from the Bahr el Gazal belong to the Nuehr 
tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of 
river endless; continual hauling. At about half an 
hour before sunset, as the men were hauling the boat 
along by dragging at the high reeds from the deck, a 
man at the mast-head reported a buffalo standing on a 
dry piece of ground near the river; being in want of 
meat, the men begged me to shoot him. The buffalo 
was so concealed by the high grass, that he could not 
be seen from the deck; I therefore stood upon an 
angarep (bedstead) on the poop, and from this I could 
