I could scarcely believe that it was all over, that my troubles were ended! Those four days, that I imagined still remained, had been a nightmare to me. All my men were sick; the majority of them had to be pushed along at the point of the spear, to prevent them from lying down and giving up the struggle. There were no more hippo and very little game: all our grain had long been exhausted, and but two pipefuls of sour tobacco remained. And then, at a sudden bend of the river, all this nightmare was dispelled! It was over! From being so long without vegetables, my hands had begun to turn black, and the continual anxiety of the last month, day and night, had told its tale on my nerves. With what unspeakable content I sat down and waited for Dunn’s arrival it would be impossible to describe. I had not to wait long, for a few minutes later Captain Dunn emerged from the bush. The following conversation ensued:-- Captain Dunn: "How do you do?" I: "Oh, very fit, thanks; how are you? Had any sport?" Dunn: "Oh, pretty fair, but there is nothing much here. Have a drink? You must be hungry; I’ll hurry on lunch. Had any shooting? See any elephant?" Then we washed, lunched, discussed the war, and eventually Dunn asked where the devil I had come from, saying that at first he had taken me for another confounded Frenchman, and was trying to hunt up some French. All this six hundred odd miles from anywhere in the uttermost end of the earth--the Nile swamps. Verily we are a strange people. How De Tonquedec, the Frenchman, laughed at the tale! Then we dropped slowly down-stream in the boat, and in the light of the myriad stars discussed the strange world into which the Father Nile was slowly carrying me. A whirl of thoughts made sleep impossible, and as I pondered over many things I thought long on the Fashoda incident. In the course of a chequered career I have seen many unwholesome spots; but for a God-forsaken, dry-sucked, fly-blown wilderness, commend me to the Upper Nile; a desolation of desolations, an infernal region, a howling waste of weed, mosquitoes, flies, and fever, backed by a groaning waste of thorn and stones--waterless and waterlogged. I have passed through it, and have now no fear for the hereafter. And for this choice spot thousands of homes might have been wrecked, and the whole of civilization rushed into a cockpit of mutual slaughter. Let me recommend France to send the minister responsible for the Marchand expedition for a short sojourn in the land: no fitter punishment could be found. What a sensible idea it would be if ministers of rival nations, foreseeing a dispute, were to buy in a large store of choice wines and cigars, leave them at home, and decide to spend the time, till the dispute should be amicably settled, in the bone of contention. *CHAPTER XXII.* *THE SOBAT TO CAIRO.*