Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/305

 at several villages on this island in order to purchase fowls, which the inhabitants, though well disposed to us, were unwilling to sell, as they have little use for money. Here, too, we saw some large gayassas in course of construction on the shore; for Argo is famous throughout the Sudan as a great shipbuilding centre. The Mahdi's family came from Argo, and were known for many generations as expert boat-builders. The timbers and knees of these craft are of the hard wood of the native acacia, while the masts and planking are of imported Norwegian pine; how this was procured while the Dervishes closed the Sudan to trade it is difficult to say.

There were plenty of sailing craft on the river. Some, downward bound, performing the same clumsy evolutions as our own, a few of them crowded with Dervish prisoners, still clad in the Mahdist patched jibbas and turbans, on their way to Halfa; others upward bound, deeply laden with supplies for our troops, rushing through the water under their great lateens, the two-masted boats with their sails goose-*winged. On October 2nd we passed Hafir and the scene of our recent fight. Then we shot the Hannek, or Third Cataract of the Nile, at that season a long series of rapids, through which we threaded our devious way between innumerable rocks and whirlpools. We were more fortunate than two other correspondents who had preceded us, and who had capsized here, lost their kits, and