The boatmen
told me that dead hippopotami had been found on the other side, that had
been carried under the dam and drowned.
Two days' hard work from morning till night brought us through the
canal, and we once more found ourselves on the open Nile on the other
side of the dam. The river was in that spot perfectly clean; not a
vestige of floating vegetation could be seen upon its waters; in its
subterranean passage it had passed through a natural sieve, leaving all
foreign matter behind to add to the bulk of the already stupendous work.
All before us was clear and plain sailing. For some days two or three
of our men had been complaining of severe headache, giddiness, and
violent pains in the spine and between the shoulders. I had been anxious
when at Gondokoro concerning the vessel, as many persons had died on
board 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.
Pages:
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708