Whenever we halted during daylight, I took a stroll with the rifle, accompanied by Lieutenant Baker.
We walked for some time along the banks of the river up stream without seeing any game, and I was struck with the absence of tracks of the larger animals, which coincided with my remarks on the Asua river many years previous, when I crossed it about thirty miles higher up, on my route from Latooka to Shooa.
I expected to return without seeing game, when we suddenly spied a few waterbuck in the sandy bed of the river, about 300 paces distant.
We made a good stalk, but I only wounded the animal at which I fired at about 150 yards, and they galloped off through the open forest. I heard the bullet from the left hand barrel strike a tree stem, which saved the antelope, but having quickly reloaded, I had a clear and steady shot at a long range as the large buck suddenly stopped and looked back. I put up the last sight for 250 yards and took a full bead. To my great satisfaction the waterbuck with a fine set of horns dropped dead. I could not measure the distance accurately as we had to descend a rocky bank, and then, crossing the bed of the Asua, to ascend the steep north bank before we arrived at tolerably level ground.
Upon reaching the animal, I found the bullet in the neck, where it had divided the spine. I guessed the distance at about 240 yards. Some of our Lobore natives, who had kept at a distance behind us, now came up, and in a short time the noble waterbuck was cut up and the flesh carried into camp. This species of antelope, when in good condition, weighs about thirty stone (cleaned).
On March 2 we started at 6 A.M., and marched at a rapid rate along a hard and excellent path, which inclined upwards from the river for about eight miles.
The bush was very open, and in many portions the country was a succession of deep dells, which in the wet season were covered with high grass, but at this time the young grass was hardly three inches high, having sprouted after the recent fires.
From an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the Asua river, we had a splendid view of the entire landscape.
On the east, at about fifty miles distant, was the fine range of lofty mountains that stretched in a long line towards Latooka. On the west, on the left bank of the White Nile, which now flowed almost beneath our feet, was the precipitous mountain Neri, known by the Arab traders as Gebel huku. This fine mass of rock descends in a series of rugged terraces from a height of between three and four thousand feet to the Nile, at a point where the river boils through a narrow gorge between the mountains. It is in this passage that the principal falls take place which I witnessed in my former journey. At that time our path led along the rocky bank of the river, and was both difficult and dangerous.
Eight miles from the Asua river now brought us to the top of the pass, and having stopped for a few moments to take compass bearings, we began the somewhat steep descent.