rnment had no authority whatever
over the people, and that the money matters of the Soudan were
hopelessly mixed with those of Cairo. But at present he could only note
what was wrong, and wait to set it right. His work just now lay at
Gondokoro, and thither he must go.

On the 22nd he started up the river, and at each mile, as they drew
nearer and nearer to the equator, he found the climate more trying. It
was, as he says, nothing but 'heat and mosquitoes day and night, all the
year round.' But, exhausting though the climate was, he could not help
being deeply interested in the many things that were new to him. There
were great hippopotamuses plunging about in their clumsy way; the
crocodiles, looking more like stone beasts than living things, basking
motionless on the mud where the river had fallen; the monkeys that had
their homes with the storks among the trees that covered the banks in
places; the storks that sounded as if they were laughing, and 'seemed
highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope
of doing anything.' In a forest higher up they found a tribe, the
Dinkas, dressed in necklaces. Their idea of greeting a white 'chief' was
to lick his hands, and they would have kissed his feet also had not
Gordon jumped up hastily and, snatching up some strings of gay beads he
had brought with him for the purpose, hung them over their heads.

* * * * *

The people of Gondokoro were filled with astonishment when Gordon's
steamer anchored under the river banks. It was a wretched place, worse
even than Khartoum, and inhabited by wretched people, whom ill-treatment
had made at once revengeful and timid. But Gordon did not care how
miserable the place was, he felt sure he could do something to help the
people; and first he began by trying to make friends. For a time it was
uphill work; they had given up planting their little plots of
ground--what was the use when their harvest was always taken from them?
Their only possession of value was their children, and these they often
begged Gordon to buy, to save them from starvation. It seemed too good
to be true when the white man gave them maize, which they baked in
cakes, and fed them while they sowed their patches once more. 'He would
see that no one hurt them,' he said, and little by little, under his
protection, the poor people plucked up heart again and forgot their
troubles, as nobody but negroes can.

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