Against
My Express Orders, The Box Had Been Hermetically Sealed, And The
Vitality Of The Larger Seeds Was Entirely Gone.
Seeds should be simply
packed in brown paper bags and secured in a basket.
The neighbouring country was, as usual in the White Nile districts, flat
and uninteresting. Forest and bush clothed the banks of the river, but
this formed a mere fringe for a depth of about half a mile, beyond which
all was open prairie.
Although there was a considerable extent of forest, there was a dearth
of useful timber for building purposes. The only large trees were a
species of mimosa, named by the Arabs "kook." We were very short of
small rowing boats, those belonging to the steamers were large and
clumsy, and I wished to build a few handy dingies that would be
extremely useful for the next voyage up the obstructions of the Bahr
Giraffe. I therefore instructed the English shipwrights to take the job
in hand, and during a ramble through the forest they selected several
trees. These were quickly felled, and the sawyers were soon at work
cutting planks, keels, and all the necessary wood for boat-building. It
is a pleasure to see English mechanics at work in a wild country; they
finish a job while an Egyptian workman is considering how to do it. In a
very short time Mr. Jarvis, the head shipwright, had constructed an
impromptu workshop, with an iron roof, within the forest; several sets
of sawyers were at work, and in a few days the keel of a new boat was
laid down.
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