About noon on the third day, after marching about sixteen leagues from Kulongo, we arrived at Duggoo, the chief Seriba of Shereefee, who maintained some small settlements in this remote wilderness. Notwithstanding the almost unlimited scope with regard to space, he was on the bitterest terms of hostility with Aboo Sammat, his neighbour in the south. A regular mediæval feud had broken out between them, the nominal cause of the quarrel being that one of Shereefee’s female slaves had been maltreated, and, having taken refuge with Aboo Sammat, had not been restored; but the interchange of cuffs and blows had been the actual ground of the discord. When two months previously Aboo Sammat was despatching his ivory-produce of the year, consisting of about 300 packages, to the Meshera, it was seized by the negroes as it was being conveyed across Shereefee’s district. These negroes attacked the defenceless bearers and massacred several of them; others they wounded with arrows and lances, till the whole caravan was overpowered, and every one throwing down his valuable burden made a precipitate flight. The Khartoom soldiers belonging to Aboo Sammat looked quietly on throughout the fray, for no attachment to their master would have induced them to fire a shot against any of their brethren. Aboo Sammat, with all his property, was now in the desert, 150 miles away from the boats. To enter into action against Shereefee he hastened to the west, and induced a number of the controllers of Seribas to repair to the scene of violence, and to insist upon judgment being passed at Khartoom. But to accomplish this purpose he had to travel hundreds of miles in a few weeks, during the rains, and before his task was completed the proper time for shipment had elapsed, the high waters had abated, and all his goods had to remain at the Meshera to await another season, exposed all along to the too probable attacks of the hostile Dinka. Aboo Sammat, so far from taking the law into his own hands, had proceeded in the most legitimate way to demand compensation; but Shereefee, not satisfied with the wrong he had already perpetrated, spurred on his negroes to make repeated incursions upon his rival’s territory. Sometimes he endeavoured to entice Aboo Sammat’s Bongo people to desert, and sometimes sent his own to commit all manner of outrage and depredation. Many of the poor natives, the shuttlecocks of the fray, lost their lives in the contention; and I enriched my collection of skulls by some splendid specimens which I picked up on my way. “This was the spot,” said Aboo to me, “where the thieves made their attack. You have seen for yourself, and should speak up for me.”