THE AUSTRIAN MISSION 195 a mound, and a cross, marking the Austrian Jesuit Mission. " Shadoofs " from the river sent their water some hundreds of yards, and a fever-worn brother stood on the shore. Yet better here is their lot than that of the self-sacrificing Father Knoblecher, who in the barbarous days of 1848 penetrated far up the Mountain Nile to Kenisa (Church), or Heiligen Kreuz, only six degrees above the equator. There in the midst of the most desolate morasses and forest, where nature as well as man was vile, where daily existence could have been nothing short of torture, he and his brethren spent their days and lost their lives on a mere patch of ground above water, amongst scattered members of a degraded race. When I was there, little if anything remained to mark the post. One large tree with thick, pendulous pods hung over the water ; a tangle of small growth matted the eminence which held the bones of some seventy victims. There is romance in this desolate spot ; it is still hellig— gone is the earthly, remaining the spirit, and one may believe that, in vain as it may have appeared at the time, the effort was not entirely wasted.

Onward to the high bank of Tewfikieh, crowned again by the rustling shade of the broad-leafed palm, where the steamers of the Irrigation Department and of the monthly Gondokoro service lie alongside, and the long spars of ghayassas tower high in the air. The last station before the three great routes branch off to the east, south, and 13—2