78 
TRAVELS JN AFRICA. 
Chap. LXXIL 
that I obtained a great deal of important inform- 
ation with respect to the quarter north of the river, 
between Hamda-Allahi and Baghena. I also met 
here another person, who gave me a curious piece 
of information with regard to the Ras el Ma, the 
great north-westerly creek of the river, which I have 
already mentioned repeatedly, and of which I shall 
say more in the Appendix*, although I was not en- 
abled to understand its whole purport. In reference 
to that basin, he said, that, when the waters had 
decreased very considerably, a bubbling was observed 
at the bottom of the basin ; but whether this referred 
to sources of living water, or to some other pheno- 
menon, I could not make out distinctly, although I 
imagine the former to be the case. 
This was a very important day in various 
March 21st. ^. . . . , , , , , 
respects. ±*irst, it was highly remarkable 
for its atmospheric character, as beginning the "nisan," 
that is to say, the short rainy season of spring. This 
peculiar season I had not observed in the other more 
southerly parts of Negroland which I had visited, but 
it is also observed in other tropical regions, especially 
in Bengal, although that country is certainly placed 
under different conditions, and reaches farther north- 
ward. We had two regular falls of rain this day, 
although of no great abundance, this phenomenon 
being repeated for about seven days, though not in 
* Appendix I., which contains all that I know about the western 
half of the desert between Timbuktu and the Atlantic. 
