VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 
47 
us beneath them, the geese all bunched together with 
a curious whistling chorus, and a rifle-bullet, chanced 
“ through the brown,” brought one to earth—weight, 13 lb. 
None of these geese are good eating, though a young 
Chenalopex may be passable. Of course, the fierce heat 
of Sudan which necessitates everything being cooked 
at once , gives neither bird nor beast a fair chance; and 
here it may be remarked that an absolutely indispensable 
adjunct to the outfit is a “mincing machine,” which 
reduces all flesh to one common denominator—mince! 
Characterless it is, but, after all, food —and that is all 
one should require. 
Heads of Spur-winged and Comb Geese. 
No British wildfowler — habituated to the trim and 
smart figures of our European Anatidse, spick and span 
one and all—but must be painfully impressed by the 
different and degenerate aspect of their Ethiopian con¬ 
geners. All these Nilotic wildfowl present to his eye 
contours and carriage that by comparison can only be 
characterised as clumsy and ungainly—almost slovenly. 
The great spur-winged goose, for example, squats on a 
sand-bank more untidy than Sarah Jane the scullion, its 
long scapulars and tertiaries sticking up at sixes and 
sevens; while its slouching gait and unsightly headgear 
recall that grotesque creature, the Muscovy duck. 1 Nor 
has the comb-goose (5 ardordornis melanonota , shortly to 
come under notice) any greater claim to elegance, whether 
1 The simile is corroborated by the fact that in South Africa the Boer 
name for the spurwing goose is Wilde Macaaue , signifying Wild Muscovy. 
