Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/264



OR weeks there had been a steadily rising Nile at Wadi Okar, where the British cotton planting experiment was located. For weeks the British spirits had been just as steadily going down, and their wrath mounting to flood tide. After months of effort they had nothing to show for their toil and energy, except a makeshift cotton patch, where the ground had been scratched a bit, and the seed stuck in.

During the first two weeks that Colonel Spottiswoode spent on Wadi Okar plantation, a swarm of Shilluks, Dinkas and Nyam-Nyams fought with each other for a chance to work. The Colonel was amazed; he wiped his dangling eyeglasses and stared at them some more. But as each negro acquired the article he particularly craved—a string of beads or a fathom of cloth—nothing could tempt him to work any more, because he didn't want anything else.

"That's just like they do at home," the Colonel explained to Bimbashi McDonald. "When they come up from Vicksburg in cotton-picking time, 250