The Country Was The Usual Rich
Soil, But Covered With High Grass And Bush; It Was Uninhabited,
Except By Wandering Arabs And Their Flocks, That Migrate At The
Commencement Of The Rainy Season, When This Land Becomes A Mere
Swamp, And Swarms With The Seroot Fly.
At 6.30 we halted, and
slept on the road.
This was the main route to Sennaar, from which
place strings of camels were passing to the Rahad, to purchase
corn. On the 16th of May, we started by moonlight at 4.30 A.M.
due west, and at 7.30 A.M. we arrived at the river Dinder, which,
at this point, was eighteen miles from the village of Kook, on
the Rahad.
We joined a camp of the Kunana Arabs, who at this season throng
the banks of the Dinder. This river is similar in character to
the Rahad, but larger: the average breadth is about a hundred and
ten yards: the banks are about fifty feet high, and the immediate
vicinity is covered with thick jungle of nabbuk and thorny
acacias, with a great quantity of the Acacia Arabica, that
produces the garra, already described as valuable for tanning
leather. I made ink with this fruit, pounded and boiled, to which
I added a few rusty nails, and allowed it to stand for about
twenty-four hours. The Dinder was exceedingly deep in many
places, although in others the bed was dry, with the exception of
a most trifling stream that flowed through a narrow channel in
the sand, about an inch in depth. The Arabs assured me that the
crocodiles in this river were more dangerous than in any other,
and their flocks of goats and sheep were attended by a great
number of boys, to prevent the animals from descending to the
water to drink, except in such places as had been prepared for
them by digging small holes in the sand. I saw many of these
creatures, of very large size; and, as I strolled along the banks
of the river, I found a herd of hippopotami, of which I shot two,
to the great delight of my people, who had been much disappointed
at the absence of game throughout our journey from Gallabat. We
had travelled upwards of 200 miles without having seen so much as
a gazelle, neither had we passed any tracks of large game,
except, upon one occasion, those of a few giraffes. I had been
told that the Dinder country was rich in game, but, at this
season, it was swarming with Arabs, and was so much disturbed
that everything had left the country, and the elephants merely
drank during the night, and retreated to distant and impenetrable
jungles. At night we heard a lion roar, but this, instead of
being our constant nightingale, as upon the Settite river, was
now an uncommon sound. The maneless lion is found on the banks of
the Dinder; all that I saw, in the shape of game, in the
neighbourhood of that river and the Rahad, were a few hippopotami
and crocodiles.
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