THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. n 



master), and pray aloud for him, prostrating them- 

 selves on the ground, and exclaiming that God had 

 sent him to deliver them from their misery. 



" At eight o'clock the barks came to fetch us at the 

 place where they saw the fires alight. While we 

 were having supper, as I happened to praise the taste 

 of the excellent Bindja milk, M. Heuglein made me 

 feel rather uncomfortable by telling me that upon 

 the Upper Nile the tribes which have no salt mix 

 the cows' urine with milk. He added, however, that 

 this custom only commenced with the tribes about a 

 hundred leagues higher up the river." 



in. 



" January 18, 1857. 



" Upon the morning of the 16th we were still only 

 ten leagues from Khartoum. There was a very slow 

 current and no wind, so the boats went slowly up 

 stream. In the afternoon we landed and walked 

 through some woods and some bean fields in flower, 

 which emitted an odour which was very pleasant at 

 first, but soon became too strong. The geese, cranes, 

 and herons swept down upon the banks of the river, 

 and looked in the distance like flocks of sheep, but 

 they would not let us get within gun-shot of them. 

 I was walking on ahead, accompanied only by the 

 boatman, when, as we approached a small creek, we 

 noticed two sharp points floating on the surface of the 

 water and making for land. We saw, as we got 



nearer, that these were the muzzles of two crocodiles 



c2 



