); he added, that the country abounded in beautiful birds
and insects, one of the latter he brought with him; it was a small
scarabeus, covered with a fine close crimson down, exactly resembling
scarlet velvet. The people of the country he described as very harmless,
and exceedingly anxious to know what had brought us to Sennaar to
trouble them."

Two of these Chiefs taken prisoners the Pasha ordered to be impaled in
the market-place of Sennaar. They suffered this horrid death with great
firmness. One of them said nothing but "there is no God but God,
and Mohammed is his Apostle," which he frequently repeated before
impalement; while the other, named Abdallah, insulted, defied, and
cursed his executioners, calling them "robbers and murderers," till too
weak to speak, when he expressed his feelings by spitting at them.[58] The
third Chief was detained prisoner, in order to be sent to Cairo.

During my stay in Sennaar, I endeavored to get information of the
people of the country, and of the few caravan merchants found in the
market-place of Sennaar, relative to the Bahar el Abiud and the Nile.
The information I received was as follows: "The source of the Adit (so
the people of Sennaar call the river that runs by their city) is in
the Gibel el Gumara, (i.e. that great range of mountains called the
Mountains of the Moon,) about sixty days march of a camel from Sennaar.
in a direction nearly south. It receives, at various distances above
Sennaar, several smaller rivers which come from Abyssinia and from the
mountains south of Sennaar. The general course of the Bahar el Abiud
(they said) was nearly parallel with that of the Adit, but its source
was much farther off, among the Gibel el Gumara, than that of the Adit.
The Bahar el Abiud, they said, appears very large at the place where the
Pasha's army crossed it, because it is augmented from the junction of
three other rivers, one from the south-west, and two others from the
east, running from the mountains south of Sennaar."[59] On my asking them,
"whether the Bahar el Abiud was open and free of shellals or rapids?"
they said, "that at a place called Sulluk, about fifteen days march
above its junction with the Adit, (i.e. above the place where we crossed
the Bahar el Abiud,) there was a shellal, which they believed that boats
could not pass.[60] On my asking whether, by following the banks of the
Bahar el Abiud and the river that empties into it from the west, it was
not poss