VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 
87 
gunbearer, an ebony-black Nubian, Abdul Halim, both 
of whom accompanied me on my subsequent voyage on 
board Candace , in 1913--14. 1 A cabin-boy, or sufragi, 
made up a total of ten hands all told. A notable personage 
on my second voyage in Candace was my Arab shikari, 
Baraka, a Baggara of the Selim tribe, hailing from near 
Renk, and a skilled hunter and tracker. 
The general appearance of both vessels will be gathered 
from the photographs. In Isis , the white erection forward 
was the kitchen ; the deckhouse aft was fitted in the style 
of a miniature liner-—first a dining-room, 14 by 10 feet, 
whence a corridor led aft to two tiny sleeping-bunks and 
a bathroom. The poop-deck above afforded a promenade 
and look-out; but was rendered untenable at midday by 
the sun, and after sundown (save when we had a breeze) 
by mosquitoes. 
Both these drawbacks we remedied on our second 
voyage by bringing out a movable mosquito-netted frame¬ 
work, big enough to dine and sleep in, which could be 
erected on the poop; and by having an awning stretched 
overhead. The former we had constructed in London 
for about sixty shillings; the latter would cost about as 
many pence. 
The local climatic feature which renders a 1200-mile 
Nile voyage by sail not only feasible but delightful, is 
the permanent North Wind which, during the winter 
months, blows steadily up-river, constant by day ; frequent, 
though Intermittent, by night. That blessed breeze, 
tempering the fierce sun-rays, renders up-stream sailing 
fast and reliable, at least as far as the Sobat River (530 
miles from Khartoum). Beyond that point, White Nile 
takes its great westerly bend of 100 miles to Lake No. 
The wind on that latter stretch being abeam is necessarily 
less favourable to a gyassa, since these keelless craft sail 
1 Again in 1919 faithful Mahomed Maghazi attended my brother and sell 
through the Sudan. He had meanwhile put in three years’service with 
the camel-transport in Palestine, and had just returned from Beyrout. 
