onths, and both furnished with grapnels to enable them at night to
anchor in the river, might, in my opinion, ascend and return securely:
as the tribes on its borders have great dread of fire-arms, and will
hardly dare to meddle with those who carry them.

We stayed on the Sennaar side of the Bahar el Abiud till the 1st of
Ramadan, when the army commenced its march for Sennaar, the capital,
proceeding by the bank of the Nile.[48]

The army reached Sennaar in thirteen days. The signal for striking the
tents and loading the camels was generally fired about two hours after
midnight. One hour was allowed for loading the baggage, when a second
cannon was fired, and the march of the army commenced, and was continued
each day till about two or three hours before noon, when the camp
reposed till about two hours after midnight of the same day. The army
suffered severely during this march; nothing was given to the troops for
subsistence but durra, unground, which the soldiers were frequently in
great distress to obtain the means of making into meal, in order to bake
a little miserable bread, which was all they had to eat.[49] For myself,
I was reduced to great extremity. The camel, carrying my provisions
and culinary utensils, and several other articles, was lost by the
carelessness of a domestic. I was consequently left without any thing to
eat, or the means of preparing what I might obtain. I threw myself under
the hospitable shade of the tent of Mr. Caillaud, (then only occupied
by Mr. Constant, his companion,) the gentleman I have mentioned in the
Preface with so much well merited esteem, where I stayed till my arrival
at Sennaar.

The country we traversed is that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which
lies between the Nile and the Bahar el Abiud. It is an immense and
fertile plain, occupied by numerous villages, some of them very large;
that of "Wahat Medinet," for instance, containing, probably, four or
five thousand inhabitants. What country we saw was, at this season,
perfectly naked of grass, consisting generally of immense fields which,
in the season past, had been planted with durra. Acacia trees, and
bushes in the country far back from the river, (which is sandy,) were
abundant, but no herbage was visible; I did not see throughout our route
a single waterwheel;[50] and I believe that the country is only cultivated
when the inundation has retired.

The houses of the villages are built in the following manner. A circle