the progress made in a short time that the country was under a strong man, the whole Nile district forming a very agreeable contrast to the Tanganyika chaos. [Illustration: BALEGGA WAITING FOR ELEPHANT.] *CHAPTER XIX.* *KERO TO ABU-KUKA AND BACK TO BOHR.* As considerable anxiety was felt as to the fate of the steamer, which had been now three months absent without sending news, Inspector Chaltin decided to send Commandant Renier with a whale-boat to Shambeh to endeavour to obtain information, and very kindly offered me the opportunity of accompanying him, with orders to assist me forward in every possible way. As I was suffering from congestion of the liver, which prevented me from standing up straight, and from a remittent fever which showed no inclination to disappear, I gladly availed myself of the chance, knowing that activity alone would keep the fever in check, and that it was advisable to reach the sea as soon as possible. The camp was beaten up for volunteers to go with me overland either from Bohr or Shambeh, as circumstances might dictate, with the result that one small boy, a Dinka, and a mad criminal in chains, were forthcoming, with which formidable recruits on December 20th, I, an old Egyptian Dervish prisoner with a broken leg, a dozen soldiers, and sundry nondescripts, departed in one of the large whale-boats. I carried away with me many pleasing souvenirs of Inspector Chaltin’s hospitality, and everybody’s kindness and welcome, and also the sincere hope that never should I set eyes on Kero or any other spot on the Upper Nile again. For several miles the stream follows the bank, then branches off to the east, and for miles and miles loses itself in a labyrinth of isles of weed. In vain we searched for a landing-place, and it was not till 5 p.m. that we found a small plantation of millet with a few wretched Baris stifling in a fog of mosquitoes on a mud-bank. The following day we paddled for hours, seeing nothing but tall reeds, hippo, and sand-spits, and eventually reached the left bank again at a spot called Semsem, owing to the immense plantations of that grain which existed here in the time of the Dervishes. Here there is a bank nearly 6 ft. high, with a large tree tenanted by hundreds of marabouts; to the south-west and north are swamps, and to the east, beyond the river, stretches one vast howling melancholy--reach upon reach of reed and rush, strips of lagoon, and again rush and reed, till on the far horizon a thin purple haze shows the line of the right bank.