to prepare a little rice and bread once in twenty-four
hours;--and from the exasperation of my ophthalmia, which had never
entirely quitted me since I was attacked by it at Wady Halfa, on the
second cataract. The Selictar, however, did not indulge us with more
than half a day's and one night's repose on the bank of the river, which
we found well cultivated by the inhabitants of numerous villages in
sight. On the morning of the ninth day of the moon, we were again called
to proceed. For this day our march lay near the bank of the river, and
through and by fine fields of barley, cotton, and wheat. The day after,
our route lay over a narrow space of rocky land, lying between the river
and the hills of the desert. We saw this day but a few cultivated spots.
On the 11th we commenced our march before sunrise, animated by the
information that we should be at the Pasha's camp by noon or the middle
of the afternoon. Our road lay this day on the edge of the Desert, just
where it touches the cultivable soil deposited by the Nile, which is
indicative of the point to which the inundations of the river extend
in this country. On both sides of tills road was an almost continued
succession of villages, which are built here in order to be out of the
reach of the overflowing of the river, which almost every year here
overspreads the country for one or two miles from its banks. The land
liable to this inundation is in part cultivated as well as any portion
of Egypt, and in part devoted to feeding great numbers of fine horses,
camels, dromedaries, kine, sheep, and goats, with which the country of
the Berbers is abundantly stocked.

We marched on till nearly set of sun, without halting, when we arrived
at the encampment of the Pasha; it was on our side [i.e. the west side]
of the Nile, which here runs in its natural direction from south to
north. At five or six days march below it, it turns to the left, and
describes, from above its turning point and Dongola, a track something
resembling the following figure--which is the reason why, in coming up
the river from Dongola, we found it running from the north-east. The
length of this curious bend in the river Nile, never known to the
civilized world before the expedition of Ismael Pasha, may be about
two hundred and fifty miles long, the greater part of it all rocks and
rapids.

The journey from our last encampment on the third cataract to the
country of the Berbers, following the direction of