CHAPTER X THE "CREWE JUNCTION" OF THE NILE As we steamed southward up-river, a few Shilluk boats were crossing, bringing in the last of their taxes in kind, dhurra being its form.

To Tewfikieh is fifty-five miles, and this space gave occasion some years before for a demonstration of the great powers of endurance a native possesses, and will exhibit when put to it. One of our sailors was a tall, negroid Arab, powerfully built, and known by the name of Sheikh. In most ways a reliable man, he had the failing which so many white brethren succumb to. The neighbourhood of the suk Sit Tewfikieh proved too much for him ; there was merissa in plenty, and Sheikh had been weeks up the river with us, even as far as Gondokoro.

So he fell ; the steam-whistle called on stupefied ears, and " bukra " (to-morrow) appealed more to him than his sense of the urgency of the summons. So after an hour had been spent by the steamer battling with the breeze, and it had just succeeded in breaking away from the bank, a black figure, wildly gesticulating, fled along on the opposite 191