The wind is S.W., dead against us. Many men are sick owing to
the daily work of clearing a channel through the poisonous marsh. This
is the Mahommedan festival of the Hadj, therefore there is little work
to-day.
"March 13. - Measured 460 yards of apparently firm marsh, through which
we plumbed the depth by long poles thrust to the bottom.
"Flowing water being found beneath, I ordered the entire force to turn
out and cut a channel, which I myself superintended in the advance boat.
"By 6 p.m. the canal was completed, and the wind having come round to
the north, we sailed through the channel and entered a fine lake about
half a mile wide, followed by the whole fleet with bugles and drums
sounding the advance, the troops vainly hoping that their work was over.
The steamers are about a mile behind, and I have ordered their paddles
to be dismounted to enable them to be towed through the high grass in
the narrow channel.
"March 14. - At 6 a.m. I started and surveyed the lake in a small rowing
boat, and found it entirely shut in and separated from another small
lake by a mass of dense rotten vegetation about eighty yards in width. I
called all hands, and cleared it in fifty-five minutes sufficiently to
allow the fleet to pass through. Upon an examination of the next lake, I
found, to my intense disappointment, that not only was it closed in, but
there was no outlet visible even from the mast-head. Not a drop of water
was to be seen ahead, and the entire country was a perfect chaos, where
the spirit of God apparently had not yet moved upon the waters. There
was neither earth nor clear water, nor any solid resting-place for a
human foot. Now and then a solitary bittern rose from the marsh, but,
beyond a few water-rails, there were no other birds. The grass was
swarming with snakes, and also with poisonous ants that attacked the
men, and greatly interfered with the work.
"It is easier to clear a passage through the green grass than through
the rotten vegetation. The former can be rolled in heaps so as to form
banks, it is then secured by tying it to the strong grass growing behind
it; the rotten stuff has no adherence, and a channel closes up almost as
fast as it is made, thus our labour does no permanent good. I am in
great anxiety about Mr. Higginbotham; it will be impossible for him to
proceed by this route, should he arrive with a comparatively small force
and heavily-laden vessels.
"As the channel closes so rapidly, I must wait until the steamers can
form a compact line with the fleet.
"The black troops have more spirit than the Egyptians, but they are not
so useful in clearing channels, as they are bad swimmers. They
discovered to-day a muddy spot where they had a great hunt for fish, and
succeeded in capturing with their hands about 500 pounds weight of the
Prolypterus, some of which were above four pounds. We caught for
ourselves a number of very delicious boulti (Perca Nilotica) with a
casting-net.
"March 15. - Having probed the marsh with long poles, I found deep water
beneath, which denoted the course of the sub-vegetal stream. All hands
at work, and by the evening we had cut a channel 300 yards in length.
The marsh swarms with snakes, one of which managed to enter the cabin
window of the diahbeeah. The two steamers, now far astern, have become
choked by a general break up and alteration of their portion of the
world. The small lake in which I left them is no longer open water, but
has become a dense maps of compressed vegetable rafts, in which the
steamers are jammed as though frozen in an ice-drift in the Arctic
regions! There is much work required to clear them. The only chance of
progress will be to keep the entire fleet in compact line so as to push
through a new channel as quickly as it is made. I shall send back the
wood tender, if possible, from this spot with a letter to stop Mr.
Higginbotham should he be south of the Sobat, as it will be impossible
for him to proceed until next season. Many of the men are sick with
fever, and if this horrible country should continue, they will all
sicken.
"March 16. - I went back in a rowing boat, accompanied by Lieutenant
Baker, to the two steamers which we found stuck fast in the drift rafts,
that had closed in upon then. Many men are sick - all are dispirited; and
they worked badly. Having worked all day, we returned at 6.30 p.m., to
my diahbeeah, having the good fortune to shoot seven ducks by a family
shot upon a mud bank on the way home.
"I found that the main body under the colonel, Raouf Bey, had completed
the channel about 900 yards long to lake No. 3. I ordered sail to be
made immediately, and after five hours' hard work, as the channel was
already beginning to close, we arrived in the open lake at 11.15 p.m.,
in which we found the fleet at anchor.
"March 17. - The lake is about 2 1/2 miles long, and varies from 150 to
300 yards in width, with a mean depth of ten feet. I sent men ahead in
the boat to explore the exit; they now report it to be closed by a small
dam, after which we shall enter another lake. Thunder and clouds
threatening in the southeast.
"About half-an-hour before sunset I observed the head of a hippopotamus
emerge from the bank of high grass that fringed the lake.
