The few Baris that we met on the islands informed us that they had come thither because they had been worsted in an encounter with the Dinkas to the north-west. Their villages were very scattered, the huts being dotted in ones and twos throughout their fields of millet. They beat the ground immediately surrounding their huts into a hard concrete, which they kept well swept, and upon which they dry the seeds of the nenuphar preparatory to pounding it into flour. As most of their huts were covered with strings of drying meat and strips of hippo hide, they would appear to be expert hippopotamus hunters. All their canoes are very tiny, and they work them with consummate skill. The amount of fish that they spear is wonderful. It is very sad to think how the Baris have been wiped out by the Dervishes. It will be remembered what a formidable people they were in Sir Samuel Baker’s time; putting thousands of warriors into the field, and owning vast herds of cattle. Now, with the exception of those who took refuge in the Gondokoro hills, they are to all intents and purposes extinct. A few scattered settlements of miserable fisher-folk alone show the extent of the former Bari kingdom. The whole road from Krefi’s kraal to Fort Berkeley is lined with the stone foundations of former Bari villages, and the country is strewn with discarded stones, used for grinding the corn. There is still, according to report, plenty of cattle in the Gondokoro hills, but with that exception and the exception of the few beasts owned by Ali-madi, all those vast herds spoken of by Baker have been looted and destroyed. Fortunately the Dervish wave did not reach further than Dufilé, so that the southern Nile above the rapids was left untouched. The country east of the Nile, except on the actual river-banks, was also practically untouched, hence the Eastern Dinkas escaped their depredations, and still own enormous heads of cattle. The Western Dinkas were less fortunate, as the Dervishes from the Bahr-el-Djebel and the Bahr-el-Ghazal penetrated far into the Niam-Niam country, and were at one time a serious menace to the Congo Free State. This is the only valid excuse for the Belgian occupation of the Nile; but I think the result could have been equally well accomplished by protecting the Congo Nile watershed. Still, the Belgians carried out their expedition with consummate ability, and all honour is due to Inspector Chaltin for his able leadership. It was a gross error of statesmanship that ever permitted them to obtain a footing on the Nile. For, however good their intentions, their methods are not ours; and their presence cannot but tend to unsettle the natives.