CHAPTER XXI.
IN NUERLAND.
The following two days I still kept to the plain, on the first day finding plenty of water, and camping near a mud-trough where the water was flowing west; but on the second day we wandered into a waterless wilderness, and taking a north-west course marched for hours before we reached a stream. Our sufferings were intolerable, increased as they were by the salt nature of the water which we had been drinking for days. Half the boys fell by the road, and lay helpless till relieved by the water I sent back. I was beginning to despair of saving them, when from the only ant-hill for miles I saw a flight of birds, and after an hour's sharp burst I arrived at a large vlei, where to my joy I found that the water was flowing north, and was less salt. At an early stage of that day's march I had to leave yet another load. Soon after starting I saw a herd of at least four hundred hartebeeste, and on the vlei, where we camped, the numbers of ducks, geese, and pelicans were extraordinary. At my first shot I killed two large spurwings, and a few more rounds provided geese for all the camp, while I revelled in the luxury of pâté de foie maigre; but the little plump teal, knowing that I had no shot-gun, kept flighting backwards and forwards in thousands. Two guns might have had an evening's sport that they would have remembered for a lifetime. A few miles from camp I met some Nuer who had come to meet me. The chief, who was very sociable, though, like all, an incorrigible beggar, had been to Fashoda in the old times, and again my classic Arabic came into play. He asked after Emin, and seemed surprised to hear of his death, and also after Wadelai and Lado, and was particularly anxious to know if there was still a zariba at Bohr. He laid great stress on this point, asking me over and over again, so I imagined he wished to verify reports he had received of the flight of the Dervishes.
The following day I marched to the junction of the Kohr with the Bahr-el-Zaraf. In Justus Perthe's old map it is suggested that this Kohr is the outlet of the streams crossed by Lupton Bey in the hills east of Gondokoro. This cannot be so, as the natives at Bohr assured me that there was no water many days east; and if these streams are the feeders of this Kohr, they must, by the contour of the country, pass close to Bohr. Nor could the channel be dry, as the Kohr held plenty of water. Hence I am inclined to think that Lupton's streams either flow into the Nile south of Bohr, or pass down the other side of the watershed into the Pibro, the largest tributary of the Sobat. As Lupton went overland from Gondokoro to Bohr, and does not mark any significant feeder of the Nile, it is probable that the latter hypothesis is correct. That is, that they flow into the vast marsh recently located as the headwaters of the Pibro. If this is correct, the Kohr must also drain out of the Pibro marsh, in which case the country between the Sobat and the Bahr-el-Zaraf is an island.
The whole length of the bank was cut up with giraffe and elephant spoor, and as I could see for miles and miles in every direction and never saw one, I suppose they come great distances for water. The Kohr, though evidently from the exposed mud-flats of considerable width in the rains, was here not more than twenty yards wide and four feet deep; and the numbers of hippo and clouds of pelicans and cranes made sleep almost impossible.
The surrounding country assumed a little more character, long lines of palm-trees enlivening the awful monotony of that heart-breaking plain. The Nuer, though well-set-up, appear not to have the same unusual stature as the Dinkas; they wear circlets of cowries round their hair, which they grow long like a mop; the woolly buttons of the negroid, though visible from time to time up till now, have quite disappeared. Nothing impressed me so much as the vast flocks of birds. With five shots from a rifle I killed three geese, eight duck, and two pelicans, and that from camp: had I fired at some of the flocks I saw on the march I might have doubled the result.
Following the river, which has a very devious course, I saw large numbers of natives, and they were all very friendly, insisting on indulging in the trying practice of spitting in one's hand or on one's chest, which signifies intense respect; the Dinkas have the same objectionable custom.
For two days I saw numbers of natives with large herds of cattle and plenty of small palm-tree canoes, but a very limited supply of grain, and on the third day I came to a small Kohr with about a dozen large villages. Hundreds of natives came out to meet me, and I had some difficulty in driving them off, as, confident in their numbers, they were inclined to be boisterous.
A few miles further on, one of my Congolese soldiers, who, against all orders, lagged behind a few minutes, mysteriously disappeared, and an exhaustive search failed to find any trace either of him or of natives. The country was very open, and he was carrying a rifle, so they must have spirited him away very cleverly. From here to the mouth of the Zaraf there is only one village, so that for food I was entirely dependent on my rifle. At first there was no difficulty, as the river swarmed with hippo, and there were numbers of hartebeeste, Mrs. Gray's waterbuck, leucotis, reedbuck, waterbuck, and roan. A magnificent bull of the latter species I at first took to be a sable, owing to the extraordinary length of his horns, and with the cussedness of his kind he stood and watched us all pass at a distance of thirty yards. But for several days afterwards I had the greatest difficulty in obtaining meat, subsisting entirely on pelicans, one day being even reduced to marabout soup, and it was not till within thirty miles of the mouth that I again came into a game country, where the bush comes down to the river. Here I saw numerous giraffe, and one day marched for hours through small herds of cow elephant. It was curious that I saw nothing but bulls on the Nile swamps, while on the Zaraf there were huge numbers of breeding cows, and I only saw the spoor of a very few bulls, and those were mostly small. For days the muddy tide rolls slowly on between banks of sun-baked mud, unrelieved by swamps or vegetation. The flocks of birds no more break the depressing monotony, naught but great, loathly crocodiles, that slip without a sound into the turgid flow, bald-pated marabouts, and screaming kites. No sign of hope; a vast reserve for God's foulest creatures, and a fitting one. Ye gods, what a land! The old boyhood's desire to shriek and break something that invariably recurred on Sunday morning broke out afresh, and I felt that I was near that indefinable boundary beyond which is madness.
About thirty miles south of the Abiad an extensive Kohr, which was dry when I passed, flows into the Zaraf. Close by there is a small ridge a few feet above the level of the surrounding country; here I camped and saw a great variety of game. Four giraffe came and peered over a bush at me while I was having my bath, and thoroughly enjoyed the novel spectacle. They showed no inclination to move away, and I had a splendid chance of having a good look at them. The situation was quaint. It struck me as an admirable study for René Bull or Mr. Shepherd.