BUFFALO 179 
in their main objective, yet the memory of those rambles 
remains replete with incident and adventure. 
But fortune that is denied to systematic effort may 
sometimes be vouchsafed to the easier category of chance. 
We were navigating the great “Western Bend,” 
slowly coasting along the Nuer country, close-hauled 
on the beam-wind, when the game-like look of certain 
forests inflamed us with the resolve to make a great 
effort to reach them. The difficulties of landing, common 
to all White Nile, were here accentuated. The river 
in these regions subdivides itself into several channels 
separated by narrow but league-long islands, each 
usually impassable by reason of the broad buttresses 
of papyrus which outflank it. One such island now 
interposed itself between us and our goal; we could, 
moreover, see from the mast-head that not only the 
island itself but also the main shore beyond were 
deeply bordered by heavy papyrus-barriers which might, 
or rather, almost certainly would preclude all hope of 
landing, even if we ever reached their outskirts. As 
dusk fell, however, we imagined we had discovered a 
sort of break or breachable channel through the obstruc¬ 
tive island that might possibly be made negotiable for 
the dinghy. We chanced the rest and anchored; it 
was a happy decision. 
By dawn, after stolid digging, we had cut a passage 
through the intervening island and reached the open 
water beyond ; but after crossing that channel, the mural 
papyrus-barrier on the main shore appeared at first im¬ 
pregnable. After cruising some distance along it, we 
rejoiced to observe a slight break in its solid continuity. 
This proved to be the private landing-place of a hippo¬ 
potamus, a sort of tunnel winding for 50 yards through 
floating swamp and submerged roots with deep water 
between. Though neither pachydermatous nor amphibian, 
we essayed the plunge. By aid of the oars and bottom- 
boards of the dinghy, and after struggles when success or 
