This year’s rainy season was remarkable for the violence of the separate storms, but also for the small number of decidedly wet days; of these I counted ten in July, twelve in August, and ten in September, the number altogether corresponding very nearly to what I had recorded in the previous year. Nevertheless, the rainfall was so great that the sorghum in all the low-lying fields rotted in the ground; the condition of the crops, however, was equally bad in all places where the soil, although rocky, was sloping, and threw off the water too rapidly, for between the intervals of rain the heat of the sun was so overpowering that the corn was parched up through being drained of moisture.
METEOROLOGICAL NOTES.
By reference to a few notes that I saved I find that the 4th of October, in a meteorological point of view, was an important day, as being the date on which the wind first veered round to the north-east. I cannot speak positively as to the date when the south wind had first set in, as I was absent amongst the Niam-niam and Monbuttoo at the time; but my impression is that it was not far from the same time as in the year before, viz., the 16th of March; thus the entire period during which the south-west winds had been prevalent was seven months. But although the north-east wind had thus commenced on the 4th of October, there was no perceptible fall in the temperature until the 20th of November; after that the thermometer at sunrise stood at about 70° Fahr.
As the flora at this season presented little with which I was not already familiar, my time was spent very much under the same routine as in the previous autumn; I continued my occupations of measuring the natives, studying their dialects, collecting insects, preparing skulls, and joining the people in chase of small birds. But, all along, I did not lose sight of my projected journey, and applied all the experience I had gained so that I might equip myself for renewing my wanderings with the best advantage. My health was by no means impaired, but, on the contrary, I had gained fresh vigour in the pure air of the southern highlands, where I had undergone more fatigue than I could have previously trusted myself to encounter; I came to the resolution, therefore, that I need not fear to accompany Ghattas’s next expedition, and visit the central portions of the Niam-niam countries that were still unknown to me. The journey was specially attractive to me as promising to enable me to complete my exploration of the hydrographical system of the Gazelle, taking me as it would to the middle sections of those rivers, which, indeed, I had already crossed, but only in their upper and their lower courses. By this means I indulged the hope that, under favourable circumstances, I might be able once for all to settle the details of this particular district of the Nile territory, and so to make one contribution more towards building up the true theory which may solve the complicated problem of Central Africa.
Being desirous of making some exchanges and effecting some purchases to complete my supplies, I set out on a tour to Kurshook Ali’s head Seriba, with which I was already well acquainted. This excursion occupied from the 24th of October until the 4th of November. The owner, as already mentioned, had been sent out by the Egyptian Government at the head of a body of troops; but before reaching the interior he had succumbed to the pestilential climate of the Dinka, and had been succeeded in command by a Turkish Aga, who had accompanied him as lieutenant, and who, having broken up his camp in the Dinka country, had turned farther to the west.
Credit had been opened for me in all the establishments of the Khartoomers, and not only were the magazines of Kurshook Ali’s Seriba amply supplied with stores, but Khalil, the controller, received me hospitably and rendered me all possible service, so that I accomplished my business most satisfactorily.
ACROSS THE DYOOR AGAIN.
The little trip gave me another opportunity of twice crossing the Dyoor, and thus, by taking fresh measurements, of adding to the information I had already gained about this important river. At ten o’clock in the morning, when the atmosphere was at a temperature just under 80° Fahr., the temperature of the water was just over 90°.
The passage over was effected in a ferry-boat of the most wretched description; it was composed of nothing more than a couple of hollow stems bound together by ropes and caulked with common clay, the miserable craft demanding perpetual vigilance to keep it afloat at all. It is a striking proof of the unconquerable indolence of the Nubians that during their fifteen years’ residence in the land, although they are beyond a question acquainted with the art of ship-building, they have never attempted to construct an ordinary boat for the daily passage of such an important river as this.
The aspect of the vegetation was very similar to that of late autumn in Europe. Quite recently as the water had left the steppes, the low parts of them were already beginning to look withered, and in the woods the trees were rapidly becoming more and more bare. Amongst smaller and less important plants I found a considerable number of new species, which either had previously escaped my notice, or which probably do not spring up until after the receding of the waters.