136 Zoological Society : — 



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to the exploration of some of the unknown regions of Central Africa. 

 My starting-point, Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and 

 White Niles, in lat. 15|° N., a town of about 60,000 inhabitants, is 

 the capital of seven provinces dependent on Egypt, called the Sou- 

 dan, consisting of the whole of that, for the most part, sandy di- 

 strict between the second Nile cataract at Wadi Haifa and the terri- 

 tories inhabited by the naked Negro in 13° N. lat. ; whilst its breadth 

 extends from the borders of Darfour on the west to Abyssinia and 

 the shores of the Red Sea on the east. 



Leaving Khartoum, and navigating the White Nile to between 

 9° and 10° of N. lat., a narrow channel, and for the most part over- 

 grown with reeds, which by former Nile-navigators had been con- 

 sidered unnavigable, attracted my attention, and pursuing it, not 

 without difficulty finding my way through some narrow openings in 

 a forest of reeds, I found this to be the connexion between a large 

 lake and the Nile, of which it is one of the most important feeders 

 hitherto known. 



This lake, according to the time it occupied me to sail in a well- 

 appointed boat with three large latteen sails, from one extremity of it 

 to the other, after making allowance for the windings of the open 

 passages through the dense vegetation with which it is for the most 

 part covered, I consider to be about 180 miles long, and perhaps 

 some 60 miles wide. 



Its waters, ornamented with several promontories and islands, 

 more or less wooded with sycamores, acacias, and mimosas, and but 

 little frequented by man, literally swarm with Crocodiles and Hip- 

 popotami. 



The latter in particular made many rude and uncouth attempts to 

 dispute the right of passage over their hitherto secluded home, by 

 attacking my boat, battering-ram fashion, both under and on the 

 surface of the water ; and on one memorable occasion, to the surprise 

 and horror of all on board, a huge beast, suddenly raising half its 

 great carcass, with an agility hardly to be expected, out of the water, 

 close under the bows, carried off my unfortunate cook from the gun- 

 wale on which he was sitting, one bite of the animal's powerful jaws 

 sufficing to sever his body in two at the waist. 



It was here, whilst returning in the month of April in the year 1858 

 from the regions of the equator, where I founded an establishment of 

 twenty-five men (Arabs from the neighbourhood of Khartoum), for 

 the barter of elephants' tusks with the aborigines, the Niam Niams, 

 that the " look-out " at the mast-head, almost frantic with excitement, 

 called out " A young Hippopotamus," pointing to the reeds within 

 a few yards of which we were sailing. A dozen of my sailors leaped 

 into the water, and, disappearing amongst the thick herbage, soon 

 returned, one of them grasping in his arms a young animal about 

 the size of a spaniel, and kept afloat and propelled towards the boat 

 with shouts of delight by his companions. 



Fortunately for the safety of the men, the old lady Hippopotamus 

 was not at home, and so distant from her charge as not to hear the 

 cries of her baby (similar to those of a young calf) ; or the affair 



