Start for the interior. Flags of the Khartoomers. Comfortable travelling with bearers. The African elephant. Parting from Shol and Kurdyook. Disgusting wells in the district of the Lao. Wide sandflats. Village of Take. Fatal accident. Arabian protocol. Halt in the village of Kudy. Description of the Dinka. Peculiarities of the race. Dyeing of the hair. Nudity. “The Turkish lady.” Iron age. Weapons of the Dinka. “People of the stick.” Weapons of defence. Domestic cleanliness. _Cuisine._ Entertainment of the ladies. Snakes. Tobacco-smoking. Construction of the huts. Dinka sheep, goats, and dogs. Reverence for cattle. Degeneration of cows. Intestinal worms. Deficiency of milk. Large murahs. Capabilities of the Dinka. Warlike spirit. Treatment of enemies. Instance of parental affection. Forest district of the Al-Waj. Arrival at Ghattas’s chief Seriba. It was not until the eighteenth day of our sojourn in the Meshera that Ghattas’s second boat arrived, conveying the remainder of the newly-enlisted mercenaries and a year’s provisions for the Seriba. The agent on board was commissioned to procure for me from the interior whatever porters were requisite for my progress. The shortest possible time that must elapse before he could get to the Seriba and back was eleven days; punctually at the end of that period he returned, and placed at my disposal seventy bearers. Thus fortunately I had time enough and to spare before the commencement of the rainy season to start for the interior. By the 25th of March all arrangements for setting out were complete, and we were ready to turn our backs upon the damp air of the swamps with its nightly plague of flies.