136 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
firocera), that projects far out into the waterways. So 
colossal in places are these aquatic growths, that the wide- 
spreading tops of papyrus and the rest come to resemble 
the outlines of palms or of Scots fir. Navigating at dusk 
some tortuous channel through archipelagos where lateral 
creeks open out on every side, the ship appears to be 
enveloped in a cul de sac of broken pine-forest—in the 
mystery of tropical twilight, confusion grows greater as 
darkness deepens and fire-flies flash around. This ioo 
miles of aquatic labyrinths, bye-channels, and mud-banks 
swarms with hippopotami, crocodiles, and with a wealth 
“Whistling Teal.” 
(Sit rigidly upright in stiff and formal pose.) 
of bird-life no less amazing than that of the lower reaches 
already described. The avifauna of the first 150 miles I 
characterised as “true wildfowl,”a definition which I trust 
conveys its intended meaning; here, further south, the 
character is essentially “ Ethiopian.” Already, in the 
central stretches of the river, we have made acquaintance 
with these Ethiopian orders; but that is merely their 
“overflow.” Here, in the “western bend,” we reach their 
true home. 
It is here, upon these expanses of steppe and marsh 
of the “western bend” that the hunter-naturalist en¬ 
counters two new forms of African antelope (possibly a 
third), neither of which has. he seen before, since neither 
