ALI BEY WELCOMES US AT KHARTOOM. 397 
the place where the Sobat joins ; but the right bank 
of the Sobat is of gigantic grasses, while here the Blue 
river is of shelving, drifted sand. Their left banks 
resemble each other in being an abrupt break of twenty 
feet in the alluvial soil. A pier of stone lies unfinished 
near the confluence of the rivers ; and after we had 
passed it by sailing and poling slowly up, the left bank 
was enlivened by boat-building operations, irrigations, 
gardens, date-trees, walled enclosures, &c. Two of De 
Bono's men, to whom we had given a passage from Gon- 
dokoro, fired a salute in our honour from the shore. 
We had not anchored when Ali Bey, the Wukeel of the 
Governor, Musa Pasha, arrived with a friend in his boat, 
and stepped on board. He embraced us in the most 
affectionate manner before we had even time to learn 
who it was that had thus welcomed us. We proceeded 
on shore in his boat, which was shaded with an awning, 
and carpeted. Ali was very nicely dressed a la Turk, 
in a claret-coloured cloth suit, quite a contrast to the 
ragged clothes we wore. There was no such thing as 
a pier or platform. We stepped ashore and ascended 
the steep incline of the river bank, and then stood upon 
the level of the town. Proceeding at a great pace, our 
hands being held by our kind conductor, down lanes 
and round corners, every one we met on the way show- 
ing him great respect, we at last reached a house and 
garden. A white Arab horse stood eating from the 
same bundle of grass as a caparisoned donkey, and 
we were directed to sit upon a charpoy (four-poster) 
covered with carpet, while the Wukeel bustled off into 
the interior of the house. During his absence, the 
friend who had accompanied him to the boat told us 
(native fashion) that the Wukeel who had taken us by 
