At an equal distance of about a league and a half from Kulongo and from Geer lies the village of Gurfala. The way thither led through perpetual marshes and was so interrupted by deep masses of mud that I had repeatedly to change my clothes. When the naked skin is exposed to the filth of the bogs, it is not only annoyed by a number of insects, some of them harmless enough, many of them most disgusting, but it is terribly cut by the sharp edges of the grass. This not merely causes considerable pain, but the wounds inflicted in this way are often very troublesome and slow to heal; they not unfrequently result among the Nubians in serious sores, and have been known to entail the loss of a foot. At every Seriba there will be found some who are suffering from this cause, and Baker observed the recurrence of the same evil amongst his people. As the same consequences do not occur in Nubia itself they are probably to be attributed to the effect of the climate. The backs of the negroes are not available for transport over any long distances of this fenny land, because of the insecurity of the footing; and in another respect this mode of conveyance offers little attraction; to mount one of the negroes is almost as disastrous to one’s white summer garments as an actual tumble into the marsh. Soap is not a common article hereabout, and must be used economically, and the traveller has to put up with a general wash about once in two months. All the minor Seribas are really established for the purpose of overlooking the Bongo, and the sub-agents are always in trepidation lest there should be a sudden disappearance of all their negroes. It has not unfrequently happened that whole communities of the Bongo, quite unawares, have taken up their baggage, started off from their state of subjection, and, escaping the hands of their masters, have established themselves amongst the neighbouring Dinka. If they wish to cultivate corn for themselves, who could venture to blame them? [Sidenote: AFRICAN DISTILLERY.]