VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 
71 
chase and presently returned with the hare in its jaws! 
The Baggara know a thing- or two about (pot-) hunting. 
I visited their camp under some umbrella-topped thorn- 
trees. It consisted merely of a wind-screen, 6 feet high, 
under the lee of which stood their angarebs , or bedsteads, 
devoid of roof or of any protection, though the place was 
only a few minutes’ walk from where we had seen the lion 
that morning. 
On reaching the ship, I gave each savage a beaker of 
lemonade. It was laughable to watch the gleam of 
sudden suspicion that shot from their keen eyes as the 
fizzy stuff tickled unaccustomed throats! Laden with 
half an oribi-buck and a bunch of guinea-fowls, they 
departed fast friends. 
These Baggara of Kordofan mark the southernmost 
outpost of Arab penetration into the Sudan. Beyond 
this point it is exclusively the “Country of the Blacks”-— 
that is, of the aboriginal savage tribes, Dinkas, Shilluks, 
Nuers and, beyond the Bahr-el-Ghazal, of the amiable 
cannibals known as Nyam-Nyams. The Baggara are 
reputed enterprising and skilled herdsmen ; yet here, in 
their habits and manner of living they appear to be but 
little, if at all, raised above the level of their purely savage 
neighbours, the Shilluks. They are one and all stark 
barbarians—a singular contrast with the burnoused and 
comparatively gentle Arabs of the Blue Nile, only a few 
days’ march to the eastward. 
January 31.—Aboard Isis , in 10*35° North latitude. 
How delicious to be at a nameless spot in space, only 
definable by the symbol of its latitude and longitude! 
It was 5.35 this morning when the watch on deck sent 
me the word Gamoos ( = buffalo). The darkness was still 
intense, hardly relieved by an expiring moon or by the 
Southern Cross. The wind had dropped dead and Isis 
was slowly drifting down-stream towards the eastern 
bank. On all sides the silence of night was broken by 
the sonorous grunts, blowings, and wallowings of schools 
