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In three days' march from this point through beautiful park-like country, we arrived at the Asua river. The entire route from Farajoke had been a gentle descent, and I found this point of the Asua in lat N. 3 degrees 12 minutes to be 2,875 feet above the sea level, 1,091 feet lower than Farajoke.
Should I delay at Gondokoro, the dry season would pass by; the ground, now baked hard by the sun, would become soft, and would render transport by carts impossible. The torrents would become impassable during the rains, especially the river Asua, which in the wet season cuts off all communication with the south.
The bed of the Asua seemed very large, but, being far off, was not very distinct, nor did I care to go and see it them; for at that moment, straight in front of me, five buffaloes, five giraffes, two eland and sundry other antelopes, were too strong a temptation.
"Beef" was a magnificent animal, but having been bitten by the flies he so lost his condition that I changed his name to "Bones." We were ready to start, and the natives reported that early in January the Asua would be fordable. It was the month of December, and during the nine, months that I had been in correspondence with his party I had succeeded in acquiring an extraordinary influence.
I have shown in former works, in describing the system of the Nile, that the great affluents of that river invariably flow from the south-east vide, the Atbara, Blue Nile, Sobat; and the Asua, which is very inferior so the three great rivers named. We have lastly the Victoria Nile of the Victoria N'yanza, following the same principle, and flowing from the south-east to the Albert N'yanza.
At length we arrived at a steep descent, and dismounting from our oxen after a walk of about a quarter of a mile over rough stones, we reached the Asua river, about a quarter of a mile above its junction with the Nile.
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 river was not as full as it was when we crossed it at the Karuma Falls, yet, according to Dr Khoblecher's account, it ought to have been flooding just at this time: if so, we had beaten the stream. Here we left it again as it arched round by the west, and forded the Asua river, a stiff rocky stream, deep enough to reach the breast when waded, but not very broad.
Accordingly, the Asua, receiving the Atabbi river, which is the main drain of the western face of the Madi mountains, and the entire drainage of the Madi and Shooa countries, together with that of extensive countries to the east of Shooa, including the rivers Chombi and Udat, from Lira and Umiro, it becomes a tremendous torrent so long as the rains continue, and conveys a grand volume of water to the Nile; but the inclination of all these countries tending rapidly to the northwest, the bed of the Asua river partakes of the general incline, and so quickly empties after the cessation of the rains that it becomes nil as a river.
In four days' march we reached the Asua River, and on January 13th arrived at Shooa, in latitude 3 degrees 4'. Two days after our arrival at Shooa all of our Obbo porters absconded.
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