The thoughts of seeing the Niger in the morning, and the troublesome buzzing of mosquitoes, prevented me from shutting my eyes during the night.
-Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, Mungo Park, 1799
Hard to get a grip on my impatience once I’ve sniffed the Nile.
-Trail Diary, Day 21, 1984
Mungo Park had never before seen the river and didn’t know which way it flowed, but I had and I did. Even so it was a big deal for me, for all of us, to arrive at Khileiyu upstream from Dongola. Half way there, we thought, from here forward, Kullu shai sukar, Everything is sugar, to ride beside the river and its fields and farmers and flocks of cattle egrets, Friends of the Farmer they are called there, so different from the vultures that shadowed our dabouka back in the sands.