Proceedings in Egypt and Nubia. 41 



dulged in by a rich man; and to remove such impression, he found 

 it at last necessary to sell the beast, and distribute his small 

 parcels on the backs of laden camels, paying to their proprietors 

 a small sum for its conveyance. Great delays were experienced 

 throughout the journey, and the whole of the caravan suffered 

 considerably for want of water, in the course of their route, the 

 hot and dry season having exhausted many of the wells at the 

 principal stations on which they depended for supply. They at 

 length reached Shandy, on the banks of the Nile, where the most 

 important of their wants were supplied by its stream. This 

 settlement, formed of an assemblage of about twenty small 

 villages, scattered near each other, and in this respect resem- 

 bling Salaheah in Lower Egypt, has succeeded Sennaar as 

 the grand rendezvous of the Nubian caravans, and the chief 

 mart of Ethiopian commerce, which consists chiefly in slaves and 

 camels, collected from Darfour and Abyssinia, and sent with 

 their elephants' teeth, gold, ostrich feathers, tamarinds, gums, 

 ^c, into Egypt. 



Their stay at Shandy was prolonged for some time, and among 

 the numberless anecdotes which Ibrahim related to us as having 

 witnessed during his stay there, he assured us that the rats from 

 being unmolested had increased to such numbers, and acquired 

 such confidence, that it was impossible to sleep either in dwellings 

 or in the fields, without being literally covered by these annoying 

 animals who walked over the body in troops, perfectly fearless 

 and unconcerned. He declared that often while extended on 

 the ground with merely a shirt on, either to repose in the shade 

 by day, or to seek sleep at night, these intruders had marched 

 up, and began to nibble his flesh as he lay awake. 



On departing from Shandy with a caravan for Suakin, they 

 directed their course north-easterly, and pursued their route 

 along a double chain of mountains, clothed with forests of trees 

 resembling the larch, and enclosing between their bases a long 

 and narrow valley of extraordinary fertility. Cultivation, how- 

 ever, was by no means general, as the whole tract of country 

 through which they passed, was inhabited by Bedouin Arabs, of 



