142 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
Shilluks also frequented our various anchorages, 
partly to get any spare meat, but also bringing chickens 
for sale at fivepence a couple; the price of a wife, I 
understood, being twelve cattle. These stark savages are 
becoming “tamed” by being employed to cut and carry 
timber, as fuel, for the Government steamers, but the 
destruction resultant to the forests is appalling. Under 
the Pax Britannica the whole country is being repopu¬ 
lated : new villages spring up mushroom-like on every 
side. That is all to the good. Still a naturalist may 
lament the reckless and wickedly wasteful woodcutting 
and the grass-fires that desolate the land, scrub and 
saplings replacing the forests of yore. 
I enjoyed one merry mornings shooting. Far away 
inland the veld seemed to bristle with a spiky cheveau de 
frise that might have been a Zulu Impi on the warpath. 
They were all crowned cranes, feasting on locusts and 
grasshoppers. I commandeered the services of our 
friendly Shilluks, and in each of two “drives” secured 
a right-and-left. The spectacle of these massed skeins, 
flashing alternately black and white, russet and rich 
maroon-red, together with their chorus of clarion cries, 
remains a notable memory. These splendid birds 
weighed from 8 to 9! lb. apiece, with a wing-expanse of 
78 inches, the sexes being equal, and, like all cranes, 
are excellent eating. I saw three giraffes that morning. 
One evening after “browning” a passing flight of 
teal, a wounded duck, after circling blindly around, 
finally fell at some distance. After gathering the dead, 
I was rowing out in the dinghy to retrieve the cripple, 
when from behind came a rushing sound from the 
heavens, and a great river-eagle with collapsed wings 
swept down and, deftly clutching the prey (so smart 
was the stoop that I failed to see the actual stroke), 
bore it away to the opposite bank. I followed, and not 
wishing to shoot the eagle, hailed him that the teal was 
mine. The robber, however, was obdurate and rose 
