after a fortnight's march across the desert
they reached the two or three thousand yellowish-white, flat-roofed,
mud-walled houses that made Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan.

There eight busy days were spent. He issued proclamations; he held a
review; he visited the hospitals and the schools. "The little blacks
were glad to see me," he wrote; "I wish the flies would not dine on the
corners of their eyes."

The grown-up people at Khartoum also seemed delighted to see "His
Excellency General Colonel Gordon, the Governor-General of the
Equator," as his title went. "They make a shrill noise when they see
you, as a salutation; it is like a jingle of bells, very shrill, and
somewhat musical," wrote Gordon.

From Khartoum he sailed up the Nile to Gondokoro, and enjoyed like a
boy all the new sights he came across.

Hoary old crocodiles lay basking on the sand, their hungry mouths
agape. Great hippopotamuses, "like huge islands," walked about in the
shallows, and sometimes bellowed and fought all night. Troops of
monkeys, "with very long tails stuck up straight like swords all over
their backs," came down to drink. Herds of elephants and of fierce,
coal-black buffaloes eyed the boat threateningly from the banks, while
giraffes, looking like steeples, nibbled the tops of trees. At
Khartoum the sight of flocks of English sparrows had gladdened Gordon's
heart. Now he saw storks and geese preparing to go north for the
summer, and many strange birds as well. He found out that some little
white birds that roosted in the trees near where he camped were white
egrets. Their feathers make the plumes of horse artillery officers,
and trim many hats and bonnets, so Gordon did not tell his men of his
discovery. "I do not want the poor things to be killed," he wrote.

Not only strange birds and beasts were to be seen on the way to
Gondokoro. The wild black people came down to the banks to stare.
Some had their faces smeared with ashes, others wore gourds for
headdresses. Some wore neither gourds nor anything else. One
chieftain's full dress was a string of beads. At first he was afraid
to come near Gordon, but when he had been given a present of beads and
other things he grew very friendly.

"He came up to me," says Gordon, "took up each hand, and gave a good
soft lick to the backs of them; and then he held my face and made the
motion of spitting in it."

This was a mark of great politeness and respect. A chief of