224 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXXVIII. 
a small hamlet, situated on a rising ground, adorned 
with diim-palms. Crossing several small channels, 
where the people were busy renewing the dykes 
encompassing the rice-fields, we reached the firm 
shore, which was adorned with diim-bush, ferndn, 
kalgo, tursha, and damankadda. The river, which 
forms here a tolerably open sheet, is bordered on the 
side of AMbmda by a steep bank, which, a little 
further on, is succeeded by sandy downs. However, 
after a short time, we were again obliged to enter the 
low swampy ground, which at present formed a wide 
grassy gulf enclosed by hills. 
The plain was cultivated with a good deal of sor- 
ghum, the blades of which were just starting 
forth, but the grain does not ripen before the period 
when the inundation covers this spot, and transforms 
it into a lake-like widening of the river. Winding 
along between several channels which had not yet 
dried up, we were glad when we again reached the 
firm shore, where the rocky slope, from 80 to 100 
feet elevation, closely approaches the open river. A 
party of Kel e' Siik were just pitching their tents 
here. 
Keeping along the narrow slip of level shore, which 
gradually became more and more compressed, from 
which circumstance the locality is called Tin-sheran, 
we found ourselves, after a march of about a mile, 
opposite an encampment of the Ga-bero, spreading out 
on a flat sandy beach, which at present formed the 
border of a very extensive grassy plain, but which, 
