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National Geographic : 1960 Sep
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Where Elephants Have Right of Way37 in shorts of pink corduroy. A flock of horn bills, roosting in a fig tree, called raucously overhead, and a red-headed lizard ran back and forth across the veranda chasing beetles. The heat was oppressive, and the air heavy with smoke haze from far-off bush fires. A drum thudded in the distance. Basil talked with us of serious things recent events in Sudan, across the border, and the blight that was attacking his roses. He lamented also a trend in administration that called for more and more reports. "Paper, paper, paper," he said. "I'm stifled by it." We could well understand his frustration. Basil is one of the few remaining old Africa hands. He knows his territory as he knows his own living room; he understands the think ing of its people, is respected by them and loved as their friend. When we left Moyo a few days later, he was back at his desk. "Well," he said, "so long." Country of the White Rhino Our next port of call was to be Murchison Falls on the Victoria Nile, where a national game park had been opened to the public since our last visit. It was two days' drive from Moyo by the regular route back across the Albert Nile and through Gulu. But we chose to remain on the west bank to try to see some of Uganda's rare white rhinos. Strangely, there are no white rhinos on the east bank, no black rhinos on the west. Even more difficult to explain is the fact that, in all Africa, the only habitat of white rhinos other than the west Nile is in Zululand, more than 2,000 miles away in South Africa. The same species, Ceratotherium simum, is found in both places, but there is thought not to be a single one between. The west Nile habitat extends into the Congo's Garamba National Park and a few hundred miles to the northwest. The Ga ramba white rhinos, carefully protected, have increased to about 1,000. Possibly 50 or so more exist across the Sudanese border. There is little difference in color between the black and the white rhino. But the white is the larger, heavier animal. A bull stands nearly six feet at the shoulder and weighs two and a half to three and a half tons. There is also a difference in the muzzle. The black rhino, being a browser, has a prehensile, snout like upper lip. The white rhino is a grazer, and his lips are flat and wide. The horns are equally sharp in either spe cies, but the black rhino's disposition is, for reasons best known to himself, considerably more testy than the white's. Acrobatics Amid Elephant Grass The route we chose through Arua and Pak wach was considerably longer and more inter esting than the direct road back across the Nile to Murchison Falls Park. For the first part of the way, the west bank offered no road at all. We were fortunate in having Robbie Robson, the game ranger from Arua, with us to show the way. Before we were two miles out of Moyo, our Land-Rover-laden with half a ton of bag gage-was performing acrobatics. We drove through elephant grass higher than the car. There were also fallen logs and anthills in discernible until run into. Gullies as deep as 20 feet ran west to east, while we traveled north to south-not without difficulty. The heat and dust in the long grass were stifling. After taking five hours to cover 18 miles, we at last reached the limit of the grass. Dropping down toward the Albert Nile, we found Robbie's favorite camping place, a glade shaded by enormous trees, with a spring of fresh, cool water gushing from under a rock. Robbie called it Moroke. Six of his African game guards were camped there, after patrolling the area for poachers. They were a little disgruntled, for a herd of elephants had visited them the previous eve ning, and they had spent the whole night perched in the trees. While we lunched, Robbie told us of the poachers and of the difficulty he had in track ing them. White rhinos fall under an inter national agreement on the protection of wild life. But local hunters pay no attention when they can get $12 a pound on the black market for horns weighing 3 to 4 pounds each, and sometimes more than 10 pounds. Seething Nile Waters Burst Through Murchison Falls' Rock Bottleneck Squeezed into a cleft only 19 feet wide at its narrowest point, the pent-up Victoria Nile thunders 130 feet down a series of spectacular cascades. Crashing onto the rocks, it hurls up a rainbow spray, then widens in the gorge beyond. Tribesmen, who believe in a spirit of the falls, appease the cataract with sacrifices of goats. KODACHROMEBY GEORGERODGER, MAGNUM0 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICSOCIETY 375
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