When
These Men Were Gone, I Tried To Get Up An Elephant-Shooting
Excursion Due West Of This, With A
View to see where the Nile
was, for I would not believe it was very far off, although no one
As yet, since I left Chopi, either would or could tell me where
the stream had gone to.
8th. Mahamed professed to be delighted I had made up my mind to
such a scheme. He called the heads of the villages to give me
all the information I sought for, and went with me to the top of
a high rock, from which we could see the hills I first viewed at
Chopi, sweeping round from south by east to north, which demarked
the line of the Asua river. The Nile at that moment was, I
believed, not very far off; yet, do or say what I would,
everybody said it was fifteen marches off, and could not be
visited under a month.[FN#25] It would be necessary for me to
take thirty-six of Mahamed's men, besides all my own, to go
there, which, he said, I was welcome to, but I should have to pay
them for their services. This was a damper at once.
I knew in my mind all these reports were false, but, rather than
be out of the way when the time came for marching, I agreed to
wait patiently, write the history of the Wahuma, and make
collections, till Mahamed was ready, trusting that I might find
some one at Gondokoro who would finish what I had left undone; or
else, after arriving there, I might go up the Nile in boats and
see for myself.
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