As the voyagers approached Gondokoro, they observed that the panoramas assumed a grander character; that the landscapes were on a loftier scale. Tropical forests extended their deep shades along the river banks; and sometimes in their recesses it was possible to catch sight of the remains of ancient buildings, at one time, perhaps, inhabited by a busy race. Gondokoro, long regarded as the _Ultima Thule_ of the Nile Valley, was reached on the 30th of September. It proved to be the extreme southward limit of Alexina Tinné’s explorations. She ardently longed to advance—to share some of the glory resting upon the names of Speke and Grant, Baker and Petherick—to see with her own eyes the immense basin of the Victorian Sea—to trace to its well-head the course of the Nile; but the obstacles thrown in her way proved insurmountable. Moreover, most of her followers were seized with malarious fever, and she herself had an attack, which for some days held her life in danger. When she recovered, she began to study the habits and manners of the native tribes residing in the neighbourhood of Gondokoro. They are all Baris, and very ignorant and superstitious, but not naturally cruel. No trade flourishes among them like that of the sorcerer, who is also the medicine-man. When a Bari falls ill, he hastens to consult the Punok, who gives him some absurd but infallible recipe, and the cure is effected! One of these magicians succeeded in persuading the negroes that he was invulnerable. Oxen, sheep, and presents of all kinds were poured into his willing hands; but unluckily he declaimed against the expeditions of the Egyptians, who, not having any sense of humour, put him to death. His dupes, gathering round his dead body, waited patiently for his resurrection; and only began to doubt when the corpse putrefied. Among the Bari sorcerers a high rank is held by the “rain-maker”—a personage of great repute, to whom the villagers bring oxen, fruits, and trinkets, in days of drought, to bribe him to invoke the clouds and their treasures of fertilizing rain. But his position is not without its inconveniences; if, after the performance of his rites, the drought continues, the people assemble at his house, drag him forth, and without more ado, cut open the stomach of the unfortunate Kodjour, on the plea that the storms must be shut up in it, as they make no external manifestation. Few are the years in which one of these rain-makers does not perish, unless he has the wit to escape out of danger before his deception is discovered.