d. He then made friends with Mahamed,
who promised to help him on to Faloro, and I gave Mahamed and his men
three carbines as an honorarium.

I should now have gone down the Nile at once if the moon had been in
"distance" for fixing the longitude; but as it was not, I had to remain
until the 26th, living with Baker. Kurshid Agha became very great
friends with us, and, at once making a present of a turkey, a case of
wine, and cigars, said he was only sorry for his own sake that we had
found a fellow-countryman, else he would have had the envied honour of
claiming us as his guests, and had the pleasure of transporting us in
his vessels down to Khartum.

The Rev. Mr Moorlan, and two other priests of the Austrian Mission, were
here on a visit from their station at Kich, to see the old place again
before they left for Khartum; for the Austrian Government, discouraged
by the failure of so many years, had ordered the recall of the whole
of the establishment for these regions. It was no wonder these men were
recalled; for, out of twenty missionaries who, during the last thirteen
years, had ascended the White river for the purpose of propagating
the Gospel, thirteen had died of fever, two of dysentary, and two had
retired broken in health, yet not one convert had been made by them.

The fact is, there was no government to control the population or to
protect property; boys came to them, looked at their pictures, and even
showed a disposition to be instructed, but there it ended; they had no
heart to study when no visible returns were to be gained. One day the
people would examine the books, at another throw them aside, say their
stomachs were empty, and run away to look for food. The Bari people at
Gondokoro were described as being more tractable than those of
Kich, being of a braver and more noble nature; but they were all
half-starved--not because the country was too poor to produce, but
because they were too lazy to cultivate. What little corn they grew they
consumed before it was fully ripe, and then either sought for fish in
the river or fed on tortoises in the interior, as they feared they might
never reap what they sowed.

The missionaries never had occasion to complain of these blacks, and to
this day they would doubtless have been kindly inclined to Europeans,
had the White Nile traders not brought the devil amongst them. Mr
Moorlan remembers the time when they brought food for sale; but now,
instead, they turn thei