Enormous numbers of Dinkas came to see me beaten by this obstruction; and after two hours’ exhausting conversation in signs, during which I displayed all my remaining trade goods, I had still failed to induce a guide to show me the way across. In native fashion they all wanted to see what I would do. At last, utterly disgusted, I started to wade, intending to swim if we could not manage otherwise, as I dare not waste the two or three days that would be necessary to march round. When they saw that I was quite determined, several came with me and showed me the shallowest path across. They were hugely delighted when I presented them with a Jubilee medal and some beads, but said that they dare not go any further, as the next village was not their village, signifying that if they went they would be speared. A short march soon brought us to the village in question. The natives were rather nervous at first, but soon brought us plenty of rotten fish and a little milk. Here my surviving Ruanda man succumbed to the attacks of the mosquitoes, which defied description; he had been ailing for some time, and being too desperate to keep them off, he was literally sucked dry. It was absolutely necessary to turn in half an hour before sunset and to make all the preparations possible for the night. I piled all my belongings round the edge of my net, and kept a green wood fire burning at each end: then I lay inside, smoked native tobacco (of remarkable pungency), and prayed for morning. As soon as the sun went down they started operations. It was like having a tame whirlwind in one’s tent. They could not possibly have been worse: had there been thousands more it would not have mattered, as not a single one more could have found room on any exposed part of one’s anatomy. Every night two or three hundred contrived to enter my net; I have no idea how. The most pernicious and poisonous kind was a very small black mosquito, that might possibly have penetrated the mesh. I used to turn out in the morning feeling perfectly dazed from the amount of poison that had been injected during the night. The natives of the country obviate the nuisance by lining their huts with a deep layer of burnt cow-dung, in which they lie. They also smear a paste made of this ash and cow’s urine all over their bodies. The women carefully collect all the dung and spread it out to dry. In the evening, when the cattle are brought in to be milked, they burn it. The smoke serves to keep the flies from the beasts during the milking. Then all the ash is collected and placed in the huts.