The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-23

season the stream was in full flood The l food supply for the 200 people who were l with me had come to an end, and for five terrible days and nights we were | endeavoring to cross. We tried every means of a bridge that we built of creep 1 CTS. For 20 days we had been traversng a foodless country, and we knew that there was another ten days ahead, be- fore we could reach the first village in the Ang1o-Egyptian Sudan. One man had died of starvation and six of my fol- lowers had to be carried, as they were too weak to walk All the carriers-men especially chosen for their physique and intelligence, were like walking skeletons The position of one solitary European with 200 dependents, including number of old men and children belonging to the Mecca pilgrims who were with me, was not an enviable one. Imagine therefore my feelings when, on getting to this is- land after a terrible period Of work, a sudden tornado. causing a great rise of the river, carried away our bridge and left us stranded. The river was from 15 to 20 feet deep, with a tremendous cur rent running between the rocks After a further period of anxious e~ort we finally managed to get another creeper bridge between the island and the opposite bank and hauled the women and children to a place of safety.
 T found most interesting pagan tribe who inhabit the finest mud sfr1c- lures I have seen. They are painted red and white. are sometimes quite 25 feet high, and remind one of diminutive for tihed castles. The people are quite naked and distend their upper and lower lips by inserting in them silver Maria Ther- esq dollars. The German government is contemplating an expedition against them, as they seem to have made them selves objectionable. These people use an iron missile shaped like an Austra- Han boomerang, which has the same property of returning to its owner should 1t miss its mark
 After crossing the Kotto- river, to which I have already alluded, our posi- tion became desperate. For ss hours 1t rained necessarily. and the gface-l2 to IS feet hfgh-becanas almost impenetrable. We followed old elephant tracks as far a we could, but these mostly ran north to south, while our direction lay eastward. Game there was none, and 1t was heart rending to see women and children whose gray, wrinkled skin covered nothing but bones. The sunken eyes of the mothers with their babies in their arms became nightmare.
 All my rice. breakfast foods, flour. etc, was distributed, but it was all too lit- tie. Antelope skins, which had been used as sleeping mats, were now boiled and eaten, and yet when We marched into Keffi GenJi. the first government post in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, I had only actually buried one man, though the greater part of my people had to be left there, being unable to proceed further"
 But besides the spiritual progress. the exploring party accomplished some last ing results, which pr. Kumm summed up as follows:
 l. The opening up of c new high road across the Sudan.
 2. Obtaining valuable information about the frontier line between Islamism and organism.
 8. Steps taken to intercept and cut off the last great high road for the slave traffic
 Dr. Kumm brings with him a fine col lection of butterflies, many of them new, Q mineral collection. plants and ethnolog- ical specimens, new giraffe. new buffalo and specimens of gold, silver, tin and copper, of the two former of which he found considerable deposits.