great distance upon all sides. We immediately set to work to
construct our new camp, and by the evening our people had cleared
a circle of fifty yards diameter; this was swept perfectly clean,
and the ground being hard, though free from stones, the surface
was as even as a paved floor. The entire circle was well
protected with a strong fence of thorn bushes, for which the
kittar is admirably adapted; the head being mushroom-shaped, the
entire tree is cut down, and the stem being drawn towards the
inside of the camp, the thick and wide-spreading thorny crest
covers about twelve feet of the exterior frontage; a fence thus
arranged is quickly constructed, and is quite impervious. Two or
three large trees grew within the camp; beneath the shade of this
our tent was pitched. This we never inhabited, but it served as
an ordinary room, and a protection to the luggage, guns, &c. The
horses were well secured within a double circle of thorns, and
the goats wandered about at liberty, as they were too afraid of
wild animals to venture from the camp: altogether this was the
most agreeable spot we had ever occupied; even the night-fires
would be perfectly concealed within the dense shade of the nabbuk
jungle, thus neither man nor beast would be aware of our
presence. We were about a hundred paces distant from the margin
of the river; late in the evening I took my rod, and fished in
the deep bend beneath a cliff of conglomerate pebbles. I caught
only one fish, a baggar, about twelve pounds, but I landed three
large turtles; these creatures were most determined in taking the
bait; they varied in size from fifty to about ninety pounds, and
were the same species as that which inhabits the Nile (Trionis
Nilotica). From one of them we took upwards of a hundred eggs
which we converted into omelettes, but they were rather strong in
flavour.