My headman woke me in the morning with the pleasing information that my home-sick criminal had disappeared in the night, so the body of my tent had to go by the board, a severe loss, as afterwards transpired. During this day’s march and a part of the next, the population changed entirely, the well-bred Dinkas giving place to a miserable fishing-folk, who are presumably the Woatsch spoken of, as reported to live here, by Sir S. Baker. They are an extraordinary people, of a very low stage of civilization, and showed abject terror at the sight of beads and cloth. I imagine they took me for a god, as each village, man, woman, and child, persisted in escorting me for a mile or so, doing the honours with a deafening chant, and continually pointing to the sun; this, though very flattering, hardly acted as a sedative on my fever, and I was heartily thankful to leave them behind; at one spot there must have been fully five hundred men who formed a solid phalanx round me, and sang at the top of their voices for a distance of two miles. They appeared not to have the remotest conception of barter, and hid their faces when I produced any of my trade goods, so that it was impossible to buy any food. Even during the night small bands approached to a respectful distance and chanted, and at one watering-place about a hundred loathsome hags danced a wild fandango around me, uttering the shrillest cries conceivable, and accompanying them with a measured flap-flap of their long pendant dugs; then, as a grand finale, all threw themselves on their faces at my feet, and with one ear-piercing shriek dispersed into the bush, leaving me under the impression that I was in the Drury Lane pantomime, outside two bottles of champagne. Never in all Africa had I met such embarrassing and impossible people. In the intervals of these trying performances I noticed that the country was slightly more elevated, and that there was a profusion of large trees. This would be the best position for a Government station. But it soon settled down again into the dismal flat of sun-baked clay, thorn, and palm-scrub, which in places recedes, leaving large plains that are flooded in ordinary seasons; here there were numbers of small buck, and I saw a beautiful male _Cobus maria_. It was a most handsome little beast, and was running with a large herd of other waterbuck, and had the same action as the Uganda kob. I was much disappointed, from lack of porterage, to lose the opportunity of procuring such a rare specimen. The variety of aquatic birds was enormous; amongst others, a beautiful black-and-white ibis; but I looked in vain for _Balæniceps rex_. The kites, marabouts, and vultures were a great nuisance. On several occasions a kite actually took my dinner out of the frying-pan on the fire while the cook’s back was turned.