396 KHARTOOM IN VIEW THE BLUE NILE. 
island, we could hear the drums of Khartoom. We 
did not make the experiment, and doubt the truth of 
the saying, on account of the distance. On the night 
of the 29 th March, having rowed for Shijr Nagara till 
the moon was well up, we lay-to, our captain not wish- 
ing to enter the port of Khartoom at so late an hour, 
because all eclat and firing of guns would thereby be 
lost. Accordingly, on the following morning, we saw, 
when looking across a plain as bare as a table, at two 
miles' distance, a single conspicuous minaret, with an 
extinguisher top, numbers of mud houses, and groves 
of the date-palm. This was Khartoom — lat., 15° 36'. 
Our route was down the White Nile for two miles, and 
then up the Blue Nile or Bahr Azrak for another mile. 
Wishing to take particular notice of the junction of 
the two rivers, Speke and I were both on deck by 
daybreak. As the main branch of the White Nile 
approaches the junction, the current gets strong and 
rapid, showing a broken surface, with a dangerous 
sunken rock in its right centre. The crew got excited, 
and shouted ; but in an instant the danger rock was 
past, and we were carried a dozen yards beyond the 
junction of the Blue Nile. The sail was here spread, 
and we soon recovered our lost ground, and proceeded 
up the Blue, whose waters now, in March, had scarcely 
any flow, and were so shallow that we had to pole a 
good part of the way up-stream. The colour of the 
water at once attracted our notice, being somewhat like 
the Mediterranean ; it was a green-blue, and, on being 
disturbed, was lively and sparkling in comparison with 
the muddy waters of the White Nile. The junction 
of the two rivers, the sweeping curve, and both shores 
of the Blue river, are not unlike what we had seen at 
* 
