THE LION AND OTHER BEASTS OF PREY 273 immense width of the cheek-arches, and the great development of bony ridges for the attachment of muscles. Like some other beasts of a similarly mean nature, the spotted hyena, in particular, prefers not to do its own killing, but likes better to live as a sort of humble messmate on those better provided than itself with the courage requisite to good hunters. When it does cater for itself, instead of subsisting on the leavings of its betters, it always makes its attack in a cowardly way, and trusts rather to stratagem than to any of the higher qualities of a sportsman. 278 DOWN THE NILE TO KHARTUM flag, made for the occasion, and gave the travelers an enthusiastic greeting. Shortly after leaving Lado the northern boundary of Uganda is reached, and the Nile enters the Egyptian Soudan, more than two thousand miles distant from its delta on the shores of the Mediterranean and nine hundred miles from the desert city of Khartum, at which the long steamboat journey would end. At Lado (in 5° north latitude) the rapids of the upper river end and thenceforth it moves slowly and sluggishly through the long and level Egyptian plain to the section below Khartum, where a series of cataracts, six in number, render the navigation of the Nile once more difficult. At a point about two and a half degrees north of Lado the sluggish stream becomes so choked with sudd, a thick accumulation of river plants, as to be almost impassable. Only by cutting and dragging out these dense masses of tangled weed can navigation be kept open and constant attention is needed. Here the channel divides and flows apart for miles through a low swampy region, which in the rainy season spreads into a lake-like expanse, thick with tall reeds and papyrus and the haunt of swarms of insect plagues. There are animals here, however, and a hunting party went out in search of game while the steamboat slowly made its way along the winding channel cut through the sudd. Lower down the Nile is fed by a number of streams flowing in from east and west, especially by the Bahr-el-Ghazul coming from the west and the navigable Sobat from the Galla country on the east. Sixty miles below the mouth of the Sobat lies Fashoda, a town in the Shilluk country notable as the seat of an important historical incident, since it led to a threat of war between England and France. The occasion was the following: Thomas Marchand, a daring French explorer, distinguished himself in 1896-98 by making a long and difficult journey from Brazzaville, in the French Congo, to the upper Nile. Reaching Fashoda in July, 1898, he claimed it as French territory. Lord Kitchener, then Sirdar of Egypt, at once disputed the claim, declaring that Fashoda was in English territory and ordering Marchand to withdraw. The controversy that ensued A CHAPTER XXXIII Down the Nile to Khartum T Gondokoro, the most northerly station in Uganda, Colonel Roosevelt bade a final adieu to the hunting country of which he had been a very active inmate for nearly a year. In love all his life with wild life and a hunter born, his months in the African wilderness had been months of deep enjoyment, which was added to by the spice of danger which gave the needed zest to his encounters with the savage wild beasts of Africa. He made many narrow escapes, from the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the buffalo and the hippopotamus, but came through it all without a scratch. This may also be said of Kermit, his son, who proved himself a true "chip of the old block." The son surpassed the father, indeed, as an expert with the rifle, and was complimented by Scout Cuninghame as one of the best shots and most daring hunters he had ever seen. It was not only peril from the deadly charges of savage beasts that the hunters had to fear, but equal peril from the enervating fevers of Africa and the attacks of the equally deadly tsetse fly, that inoculates its victims with the germs of the incurable "sleeping sickness." As it was, both Colonel Roosevelt and his son came through their months of hardship and exposure without sickness and reached Gondokoro the picture of rugged health, though several of their better acclimated comrades suffered from attacks of fever, and one of the blacks of their train died. The first stage of the journey from Gondokoro ended at Lado, on the west bank of the Nile. Here the Congo Free State sends a spur northward along the great river, reaching its most advanced point at this outpost, where the lonely Belgian officers were glad enough of the opportunity to welcome and dine he American hunters and their party, As a special mark of honor they set afloat a huge American |