“It can’t be the Mississippi,” said Mark. “That’s a long way off now. I know--see it runs slow, and it’s not clear, and we don’t know where it comes from. It’s the Nile.” “So it is,” said Bevis. “It is the Nile, and some day we will go up to the source.” “What’s that swimming across up there?” said Mark. “It is too far; I can’t tell. Most likely a crocodile. How fortunate you did not fall in.” When they had crossed, they whistled for Pan, who had been busy among the fern on the bank, sniffing after the rabbits which had holes there. Pan came and swam over to them in a minute. They travelled on some way and found the ground almost level and so thick with sedges and grass and rushes that they walked in a forest of green up to their waists. The water was a long way off beyond the weeds. They tried to go down to it, but the ground got very soft and their feet sank into it; it was covered with horsetails there, acres and acres of them, and after these shallow water hidden under floating weeds. Some coots were swimming about the edge of the weeds too far to fear them. So they returned to the firm ground and walked on among the sedges and rushes. There was a rough path, though not much marked, which wound about so as to get the firmest footing, but every now and then they had to jump over a wet place. “What immense swamps,” said Mark; “I wonder where ever we shall get to.” Underfoot there was a layer of the dead sedges of last year which gave beneath their weight, and the ground itself was formed of the roots of sedges and other plants. The water had not long since covered the place where they were, and the surface was still damp, for the sunshine could not dry it, having to pass through the thick growth above and the matted stalks below. A few scattered willow bushes showed how high the water had been by the fibres on the stems which had once flourished in it and were now almost dried up by the heat. A faint malarious odour rose from the earth, drawn from the rotting stalks by the hot sun. There was no shadow, and after a while they wearied of stepping through the sedges, sinking a little at every step, which much increases the labour of walking. The monotony, too, was oppressive, nothing but sedges, flags, and rushes, sedges and horsetails, and they did not seem to get much farther after all their walking. First they were silent, labour makes us quiet; then they stopped and looked back. The perfect level caused the distance to appear more than it really was, because there was a thin invisible haze hovering over the swamp. Beyond the swamp was the gulf they had gone round, and across it the yellow sand-quarry facing them. It looked a very long way off. Volume One, Chapter VI. CENTRAL AFRICA. “We shall never get round,” said Mark, “just see what a way we have come, and we are not half up one side of the sea yet.” “I wonder how far it is back to the quarry,” said Bevis. “These sedges are so tiresome.”