I had been anxious when at Gondokoro concerning the vessel, as many persons while on board had died of the plague, during the voyage from Khartoum.

The men assured me that the most fatal symptom was violent bleeding from the nose; in such cases no one had been known to recover.

One of the boatmen, who had been ailing for some days, suddenly went to the side of the vessel and hung his head over the river; his nose was bleeding! Another of my men, Yaseen, was ill; his uncle, my vakeel, came to me with a report that "his nose was bleeding violently!" Several other men fell ill; they lay helplessly about the deck in low muttering delirium, their eyes as yellow as orange-peel.

In two or three days the vessel was so horribly offensive as to be unbearable.

THE PLAGUE HAD BROKEN OUT! We floated past the river Sobat junction; the wind was fair from the south, thus fortunately we in the stern were to windward of the crew.