ushed' [ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA]; but all who have
drunk deeply of its soft yet fateful waters--fateful, since they give
both life and death--will understand why the old Egyptians worshipped
the river, nor will they even in modern days easily dissociate from
their minds a feeling of mystic reverence.

South of Khartoum and of 'The Military Soudan' the land becomes more
fruitful. The tributaries of the Nile multiply the areas of riparian
fertility. A considerable rainfall, increasing as the Equator is
approached, enables the intervening spaces to support vegetation and
consequently human life. The greater part of the country is feverish and
unhealthy, nor can Europeans long sustain the attacks of its climate.
Nevertheless it is by no means valueless. On the east the province of
Sennar used to produce abundant grain, and might easily produce no less
abundant cotton. Westward the vast territories of Kordofan and Darfur
afford grazing-grounds to a multitude of cattle, and give means of
livelihood to great numbers of Baggara or cow-herd Arabs, who may also
pursue with activity and stratagem the fleet giraffe and the still
fleeter ostrich. To the south-east lies Bahr-el-Ghazal, a great tract of
country occupied by dense woods and plentifully watered. Further south
and nearer the Equator the forests and marshes become exuberant with
tropical growths, and the whole face of the land is moist and green.
Amid groves of gigantic trees and through plains of high waving grass
the stately elephant roams in herds which occasionally number four
hundred, hardly ever disturbed by a well-armed hunter. The ivory of
their tusks constitutes the wealth of the Equatorial Province. So
greatly they abound that Emin Pasha is provoked to complain of a pest of
these valuable pachyderms [LIFE OF EMIN PASHA, vol.i chapter ix.]: and
although they are only assailed by the natives with spear and gun, no
less than twelve thousand hundredweight of ivory has been exported in a
single year [Ibid.] All other kinds of large beasts known to man inhabit
these obscure retreats. The fierce rhinoceros crashes through the
undergrowth. Among the reeds of melancholy swamps huge hippopotami,
crocodiles, and buffaloes prosper and increase. Antelope of every known
and many unclassified species; serpents of peculiar venom; countless
millions of birds, butterflies, and beetles are among the offspring
of prolific Nature. And the daring sportsman who should survive his
expe