132 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

of seven players ; the music is very good : five men play on reed flutes and two boys have gourds in each hand ; the gourds are partly filled with beads or fruit seeds, and are shaken in time to the flutes.

Each gourd is of a difi'erent size, and gives forth a different note ; the flutes have from five to eight notes, and, with the exception of the music in Uganda, this was the best I have heard among the natives.

We took two days in marching from Madi to Takke, leaving Madi on September 29. After passing through the cultivated land, which extends for about three miles west of the station, we had very hard marching through swamps and grass jungle.

Very few large , trees were to be seen, this, I think, being due to the fact that the natives burn the grass every year, and consequently trees as well as the undergrowth perish in the flames. We camped near the Eodi, and saw a very fine rapid, but one which would, I fear, be a bar to its navigation except in the harif. Guinea-fowl, pigeons, and black-and-yellow finches abounded, also a large blackand-yellow fly, which, having a very sharp sting, was troublesome. The number and variety of the butterflies in this part would have delighted the heart of an entomologist. The huts which our porters built were far superior and of better build than those farther south ; they were shaped like a sugar-loaf, and were ten feet high, the only drawback being the time occupied in their construction.