CHAP. I.] 
MISERY OF SCENE. 
25 
tribe on the west bank. At Wat Shely some of the 
latter came on board to offer their services as slave- 
hunters, this open offer confirming the general custom 
of all vessels trading upon the White Nile. 
2 5 th Dec.—The Tokroori boy, Saat, is very amiable 
in calling all the servants daily to eat together the 
residue from our table ,* but he being so far civilized, 
is armed with a huge spoon, and having a mouth like 
a crocodile, he obtains a fearful advantage over the 
rest of the party, who eat the soup by dipping kisras 
(pancakes) into it with their fingers. Meanwhile Saat 
sits among his invited guests, and works away with 
his spoon like a sageer (water-wheel), and gets an 
unwarrantable start, the soup disappearing like water 
in the desert. A dead calm the greater portion of the 
day; the river fringed with mimosa forest. These 
trees are the Soont (Acacia Arabica) which produce an 
excellent tannin : the fruit, “ garra,” is used for that 
purpose, and produces a rich brown dye: all my clothes 
and the uniforms of my men I dyed at Khartoum with 
this “ garra.” The trees are about eighteen inches in 
diameter and thirty-five feet high; being in full foliage, 
their appearance from a distance is good, but on a 
closer approach the forest proves to be a desolate 
swamp, completely overflowed; a mass of fallen dead 
trees protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary 
crane perched here and there upon the rotten boughs; 
floating water-plants massed together, and forming 
green swimming islands, hitched generally among the 
sunken trunks and branches; sometimes slowly de¬ 
scending with the sluggish stream, bearing, spectre-like, 
storks thus voyaging on nature’s rafts from lands 
unknown. It is a fever-stricken wilderness—the current 
not exceeding a quarter of a mile per hour—the water 
coloured like an English horse-pond; a heaven for 
mosquitoes and a damp hell for man ; fortunately, 
this being the cold season, the winged plagues are 
absent. The country beyond the inundated mimosa 
woods is of the usual sandy character, with thorny 
