330 BUFI TO RUMBEK.

here; no one aided us in the construction of our huts, nor even provided us with water. I may mention, however, as a partial excuse for the people, that water was very scarce through the stretch of country we had just passed, that the villages are usually situated at a considerable distance from their water-supply, and this village, moreover, had only recently been occupied. We marched over sandy, reddish-brown soil, covered with nodules of iron, in the direction of several large rocks, which he on a kind of open plateau free from all grass, and where we saw the remains of the huts of former travellers. Those of the inhabitants who speak Arabic call this locality Hajr Abdu (the stone of Abdu), after a former official who was stationed in Mvolo, but the natives call it Dolille Finnu.

From this point the district inhabited by the Dinka tribe Agar commences. At a distance of some ten minutes to the side of the road there is a mound, entirely covered with fragments of stone, above thirty feet high. Deep holes are dug round its base, from which the natives obtain very brittle stone, sometimes red and sometimes white in colour, and greasy like tallow. The powder made from the white stone is rubbed into the skins that cover the big drums, and is also used to paint the huts and the cheeks. ‘The red stone, which is sometimes almost purple, is mixed with the fat obtained from the buttertree, and then used for anointing the body. This hill is called Duegfala (hole) by the Sofi and Lési; the Agar word vdén has the same meaning. At the base of the hill, the difference between the red soil which composes the hill and the light grey loamy soil of the declivity is very sharply marked. A great number of Agar had come to meet us here, in order to express their joy that a Government had been installed, and that a new and, we will hope, improved era had begun for this oppressed country. A number of the common petunias were in flower along the road; they are here lilac-coloured, whereas to the south they are usually white. Many really colossal trees give a park-like character to this district. Unfortunately we saw, too, the ruins of many villages which had been burnt down, showing that this region had not escaped the devastations of the slave-dealers. In the station of Ayak more than three hundred slaves had just been sent away to their relations and