When these men were gone, I tried to get up an elephant-shooting excursion due west of this, with a view to see where the Nile was, for I would not believe it was very far off, although no one as yet, since I left Chopi, either would or could tell me where the stream had gone to.
8th.

Mahamed professed to be delighted I had made up my mind to such a scheme.

He called the heads of the villages to give me all the information I sought for, and went with me to the top of a high rock, from which we could see the hills I first viewed at Chopi, sweeping round from south by east to north, which demarked the line of the Asua river.

The Nile at that moment was, I believed, not very far off; yet, do or say what I would, everybody said it was fifteen marches off, and could not be visited under a month.

[25] It would be necessary for me to take thirty-six of Mahamed's men, besides all my own, to go there, which, he said, I was welcome to, but I should have to pay them for their services.