- Frightful stinking morass. All stopped at a black muddy pond
in the swamp. The river is altogether lost. We have to cut a passage
through the morass. Hard work throughout the day. One soldier died of
sunstroke. No ground in which to bury him.
"It is a curious but most painful fact that the entire White Nile has
ceased to be a navigable river. The boundless plains of marsh are formed
of floating rafts of vegetation compressed into firm masses by the
pressure of water during floods. So serious is this obstacle to
navigation, that unless a new channel can be discovered, or the original
Nile be reopened, the centre of Africa will be entirely shut out from
communication, and all my projects for the improvement of the country
will be ruined by this extraordinary impediment.
"March 12. - I think I can trace by telescope the fringe of tall papyrus
rush that should be the border of the White Nile; but this may be a
delusion. 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.
