danger sufficiently obvious to be disquieting. So long as the boat's nose, pointing upstream, was the first part of her to hit the bank, good and well. Once the other end hit first, over she would go, and down like a stone. Meantime the passengers were getting lots of excitement, and the ship a deal of buffeting about. Throughout, the little black captain, who had never been on the Dongabba before, and his two quartermasters, played the game splendidly. They were perfectly cool, they showed themselves full of skill in handling their boat, and they got everything possible out of her. The end came when, owing to something going wrong inside, the paddlewheel ceased to revolve. They got the anchor down just in time. It held, fortunately, and there, in the midst of the rushing current, the White Duck sat till morning.

The engineer and Ogle and the captain worried away at the engine, and the white man, at any rate, got himself very oily and grimy. Whilst the tinkering was in progress the engineer remarked, en passant, and à propos of nothing in particular, that his engine had been condemned some months before, and was marked to go to the shops for overhauling and repairs, but that a sudden need having arisen, the boat had been despatched up river, and had never since found herself in the neighbourhood of the shops. And Ogle gathered

she had been bumping about, off and on to sandbanks and snags in central Africa, for some years, seven or 80. Local conditions-and engineers combine to take a lot out of any engine. And the proper place for the White Duck, engine and all, was the scrap-heap, which was defrauded of its just dues so long as she remained off it. However, she hasn't gone there even yet, because only the other day I saw her down river, but not even the nice fresh paint that had been lavished upon her availed to disguise from the eye the alltoo-visible twists and bumps upon her.

en

The night passed, with great lack of comfort for all on board. Long before daybreak the fire was started, and at dawn there was fully as much steam on as the old kettle could carry, probably a good deal more than was wise, since your native gineer is an incurable optimist, and would much rather go up with his machine than work with a pound less steam than she can tolerate. The sun came up, and with it the anchor, and shortly after 9 A.M. the corner was conquered, and passengers and crew joined in a whoop of triumph that put up a great flock of egrets from a stricken, withered, shabby-looking old tree on the bank.

The pace, in the best places, was not more than a mile an hour, and during the day two more bad ones were passed.

Ogle spent the time on the sun-deck, clad in as little as possible, standing by to make a jump for it if the worst should happen-not much of a chance; still, better than going down with the craft. All in all, he had the fright of his life that day, all day. Creeping up one long, wide reach, everybody on board was much interested in a python, seen in mid-stream, swimming smartly across, his head and about a foot of his body clear of the water. About the same time the boat hit a crocodile, and there was a lot of splashing and some little excitement for a few moments.

At sundown they anchored, and the engineer came to inform Ogle that his wood fuel was all but exhausted. In the morning it was discovered that he had just enough left to serve, with severe economy and careful management, to get the boat from where she lay anchored in mid-stream to a point on the bank a quarter of a mile away. Arrived there, everybody landed and went off to get wood. On the rivers that are regularly served by steamers there are wooding stations at intervals, where logs of suitable quality and size are kept stacked. The Dongabba, of course, in the ordinary way, never sees & steamer, and its banks are bare of wooding stations. However, with all hands helping, wood was broken down, torn off, pulled up, worried out with bayonets, and otherwise obtained and dumped into the hold, and a

VOL. CLXXXIX,—NO, MCXLIII.

start was made again, Evening saw the fleet at Gassol, and Ogle stepped ashore. That step was like to have been his last because he poised it upon the body of a recently killed manatee, slipped, and just missed going into the river, in the dark. A manatee is a curious-looking beast-a mammal, of course, living in the water. The form of the body is rather like that of a porpoise; the head though is quite different. Six feet is a fair length for a manatee to attain in the Dongabba. Glimpsed at night in the river, a manatee looks not unlike a man, and non-riverine natives tell queer stories of "human fish" that are said to live in certain rivers. The animal appears to be quite harmless, and is esteemed as an article of diet by the curious Wurubo people, surely amphibians if any men are, who live their lives along the river. They are generally very big men, with enormous muscular development, they soud about the river at all states of the flood in their tiny twelve-foot long canoes, sewed together, laterally, amidships. The Wurubo does little farming, though he does grow a little grain, which he plants in such situations that he has to collect most of his cargo in a canoe, more suo.

and

Gassol is by way of being a town, with a wall and a king, both of its very own, at a point on the bank opposite the northern end of the island Kwogin Gassol, whereon were the Filani and their cattle. Crew and escort went off to the town to

B

get food; the king came down in a great hurry in the dark to salute Ogle; it wasn't raining, and after a period of storm and stress, peace and comparative comfort reigned.

With the first streak of light the king came on board, and the White Duck made for the island opposite, where Ogle and the escort, and the interpreter and the king, with a few friends of his, landed. Communication with the Filani was soon opened, and they were invited to inform their "big men that the Political Officer-"the judge," as he is universally called throughout the country-had arrived on the island, and desired to see them. As a matter of fact, the arrival of the steamer at Gassol the previous evening had, of course, been observed, and all the Filani notables were close at hand. So within the hour they made their appearance, headed by a venerable-looking old gentleman, his name Isa Audullahi.

The Filani is not a negro. This is not the place in which to discuss his origin, interesting, fascinating study though that is. Shortly, it seems likely that he is of Arabian extraction. Certainly he is a Semite of sorts. He is usually a spare, well-made man, finely featured, with wonderfully perfect hands and feet. He is invariably a Muslim, his manners are delightful, he is full of dignity, and his diplomacy is that of Talleyrand. Old Isa Audullahi, robed and turbaned, with his following of about a dozen, sat before Ogle, and the interview,

He

having begun in the ordinary way with compliments, proceeded at once to business. Ogle said that he was come to count the herds, to assess the jangali or cattle-tax, and that this year at any rate the money would have to be paid. warned his auditors that whilst his heart yearned with friendship towards the honest, truthful man, he had it in intention to make much trouble for all others. He congratulated them upon having successfully evaded payment in previous years, and assured them of his conviction that they, alike as reasonable men and as sportsmen, would realise the altered conditions, assist him in his work, refrain from munafuke (intrigue), and pay up when the time should come for doing so. In fact, Ogle did all the talking. The Filani said nothing, and the expression of their eloquently silent faces indicated a struggle for the mastery between boredom and depression merelynot at all an unusual expression on a Filani countenance, by the way. It was arranged that certain herds should remain in their sleeping kraals next morning till Ogle had seen and counted them. And that was all. He gathered that he could make an end of the job in four days.

Kwogin Gassol is an islandat high river. Last year the rains were not much, the year before they were nothing to write home about, but this year is a bumper. Consequently

every animal on Kwogin Gassol must stop there for the present, and until such

time as the water goes down. The island is ten or a dozen miles long, and it averages about one in width. Hitherto these Filani folk have evaded paying the jangali, the only tax they are called upon to pay, because, being nomads, they have no towns, nor villages, nor farms, nor any permanent resting-place. They just wander about the country, up and down, living mainly on the milk they get from their COWS. Their small requirements in the way of clothing and vegetables and corn they purchase with milk. When a beast dies they become meateaters till the carcase is finished. Till now it has not been possible to get anything out of them in the way of tax because they have always deolined to have anything to do with it! If one went to try to meet them and count their herds and make an assessment, the various small herds went off in all directions, and one could do nothing. Now, however, the whole lot, to the number of three or four hundred, with about four thousand head of cattle, are fast upon that island. No doubt they counted upon a small river again this year. But the rains came, and the floods, and the river rose, and continued to rise, until Kwogin Gassol, generally a courtesy island merely, separated from the mainland by a few feet of very shallow water, a few inches deep, stands now isolated by a couple of roaring torrents, quite impassable.

The Filani being gone, a fresh visitor, in the person of

the king of the town on the bank of the river remote from Gassol, arrived; his town's name, Sendrishi. This person, and his majesty of Gassol, were at issue one with the other, and spoke not together, having quarrelled about their respective shares in the island of Kwogin Gassol. Each claimed the whole of it, and the Resident, on the matter having been referred to him for adjudication some years before, ruled that each was to have one-half, Sendrishi the southern and Gassol the northern.

The Filani would have to pay their jangali to the Administration through the sovereign of whichever half their herds happened to be settled in. This arrangement offered obvious opportunities for intrigue, but one for which Ogle was not responsible, and which he had no power to alter in any way.

Sendrishi was a mean, miserable, snivelling sort of king, more like a rabbit than man, and he failed to impress Ogle favourably. Gassol, on the other hand, was a very fine fellow. As a young man, he had found that his position as younger nephew of a great ruler was neither pleasant nor profitable, and so he set forth, went abroad, and carved out a little kingdom for himself, which he held manfully against all comers. Gassol had the defects of his qualities, and was brusque, overbearing, difficile, but eminently a man. They show the house now in his capital where, one night, there entered three assassins, thinking to murder him whilst he