To a degree that created some misgiving as to what might be before us, the progress now began to be unalterably tedious. For a weary time all woodlands seemed wholly to have forsaken the shore; nothing was to be perceived but the desolation of a vast savannah. Dark brown widow-ducks (_Anas viduata_) and shovellers were shot, whose oily taste is only disguised by red pepper. At night the time was usually beguiled by stories of adventures in the Upper Nile district. Everyone has something wonderful which he delights to tell, something beyond all experience, and is ready to swear by the Koran and by the beard of the Prophet that what he says is true. “Africa,” said Aristotle ages ago, “has always something new to show;” the latest tale was now about the pygmies, of whom I here received my earliest information. I had no idea that I should be brought into actual and close connection with such people. I laughed at the accounts which eye-witnesses gave of them, and, for my part, quietly put them into the category of men with tails. I took my share in dressing up a story for the entertainment of my party. Alexandre Dumas’s tale, ‘l’Homme à queue,’ served my purpose admirably. It is so clever, and yet so pointed in its fine simplicity, that it thoroughly enlisted the attention of all who heard it. [Sidenote: NILE VEGETATION.] Notwithstanding the undeniable sameness which prevailed in its outward character, I found every fresh landing-place afford me some surprise or other. Rich was the reward of penetrating, as I did, a thorough wilderness on the right bank on the mainland. Buffaloes forcing their way along had beaten many avenues through thickets and creepers, and along these I went, followed by a group of armed men. The vestiges in every direction were so conclusive as to the number of the beasts that were about, that we might well expect a _rencontre_ as dangerous as that which has already been related. Here in a wild state is found the Luffa, a plant of the gourd family. The dried fruit of this contains a fibrous skeleton, that answers the purpose of a bathing-sponge, and it is frequently cultivated in Egypt for that purpose. I could enumerate a whole series of plants, known in Egypt only under cultivation, which find their original and proper home in the primeval forests of the White Nile. Not unreasonably may an inference be drawn that, in ages indefinitely long ago, the entire Nile Valley exhibited a vegetation harmonising in its character throughout, much more than now. It was the upgrowth of civilisation in ancient Egypt which displaced the flora from its northern seat, and made it, as at present, only to be found hundreds of miles higher up the land. This assumption is in a measure confirmed by the traditions which survive with regard to animals. In remote times, the ibis, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, all existed in far more northerly latitudes than now. The papyrus, it may be added, gives its witness to the same theory.