BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 379 
into the water on the near approach of any person. We also ob- 
served the sand-bank occupied by numbers of aquatic birds, as geese, 
cranes, pelicans, &c., walking among the outstretched monsters as if con- 
vinced that they were in no peril of their lives in the society of these 
ugly reptiles. A boat, in rounding the bank, fired a gun at the eroco- 
diles, but not within range, which had the effect of sending them all 
off, pell-mell, into the water; but, in a few minutes afterwards, the 
snouts of one or two might be seen emerging, and soon the sand-bank 
became again peopled by the discomfited, but now re-assured, fugi- 
tives.” 
Our travellers were now on their way to Wady Hafeh, 2,000 Mee 
up the Nile. About Henneh, or Genneh, they were struck with the 
great fertility of the soil, and immense abundance of cultivated pro- 
duce. * Both the valley and the river are here of great breadth, and 
the latter is riehly adorned with lofty groves of Date Palms, inter- 
. spersed with Doum Palms, which are now abundant in all the fields, 
aud of which I have to-day (Dec. 17) seen very fine specimens in 
full fruit. The country is everywhere beautifully green with the 
tender springing wheat and barley, which are as far advanced as in 
England they commonly are in April or May, and will be ready for —— 
harvesting about the former of these months, or even at the end of - : 
March. At this time the Guinea-grass, of which vast quantities are — 
grown in Egypt, is being gathered in, and the sugar-harvest will suc- 
ceed it, a week or two later. The quantity of garden and vegetable 
produce raised in Egypt is prodigious. The whole valley of the Nile 
may be regarded as one vast kitchen-garden, and all the ancient plant- _ 
deities of Egypt still find favour in the sight of her modern inhabitants." - 
. The ruins of Thebes engaged much of the attention of the tra- - 
vellers, both in the ascent of the river and on their return, as well 
as the lofty obelisk at Luxor and the avenue of sphynxes at Kar- 
nak. On the 20th of March, Dr. Bromfield wrote to his sister from 
Khartoum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, in lat. Me 
11’ and long. 34° 10’, almost in the heart of tropical Africa ;— 
region of dust, dirt, and barbarism." Their land journey, from. oh 
time they quitted their boat at Wady Hafeh to the period of their - 
return to it at Korosko (April 27th), occupied a period of ninety-nine - 
days,* and was accompanied by much fatigue, and danger, and suffer- 
* “These hundred days,” he writes in his journal, “ have been full of inci- 
