Five years in the Sudan . for these regions,and had never been heard of since passing few boats had at that time been upthe river, and I was very glad to get the opportunityof making the journey ; indeed, it was very luckythat I did so, for in all the time that I was in theSudan I never got far from its mouth again. I had some difficulty in procuring fresh meat tostart with, as, much to my dismay, I found that inspite of a good supply of gold and silver of the realm,I might just as well have been without money at all,for the inhabitants of Taufikier would have none of i
Five years in the Sudan . for these regions,and had never been heard of since passing few boats had at that time been upthe river, and I was very glad to get the opportunityof making the journey ; indeed, it was very luckythat I did so, for in all the time that I was in theSudan I never got far from its mouth again. I had some difficulty in procuring fresh meat tostart with, as, much to my dismay, I found that inspite of a good supply of gold and silver of the realm,I might just as well have been without money at all,for the inhabitants of Taufikier would have none of foot of brass wire would have procured me food suf-ficient to last me for a month, but money was my boy managed to buy some brass froma Greek, at an exorbitant rate, and I got a fewchickens to start the journey with; these proved tobe more than ample, as there was any amount ofgame to be got whenever we stopped, guinea-fowland pigeon principally, but enough to keep the tableplentifully supplied. 74. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 75 My recollections of the Sobat are, unfortunately,somewhat vague; everything was new and im-pressive, and I have got events and places rathermixed up in my mind ; the sheets of my diary whichwere written during that first trip have, unfortunately,been lost. I recollect, however, that two of the thingswhich impressed me most at the time was the extra-ordinary greenness of the vegetation, and the won-derful clouds of fireflies which lined the banks of theriver at night. There were millions of them—and theeffect was very beautiful as they moved, a constantscintillating wave of glittering light about the are supposed to devour the mosquitoes, andthese latter had, I sincerely trust, as bad a time asthey gave me. At least there is no danger of myforgetting the mosquitoes of the River Sobat. I hadnever seen anything like them before, and indeed,there were only two spots in the Sudan that I cameacross which were as bad as this. The
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