426 
THE BLACK RIVER OR ATBARA. 
tance, is not above a few hours' sail from this port. 
We lay for the night just above its confluence with 
the Nile, because there were sunken rocks in the bed 
of the river. In the morning we saw the Atbara, 
Bahr-el-aswad (Black river), the Astaboras of Ptolemy 
— the last great feeder of the Nile. We liked the 
brown appearance of the stream. From bank to bank 
it looked one hundred and fifty yards across, but now 
there was not more than sixty yards of water flowing 
slowly in its bed, with a low rock at its junction with 
the Nile. It joins the latter with even a more grace- 
ful sweep than we observed at the confluence of the 
Blue and White Nile. For a distance of two miles 
below its mouth there are sunken rocks very annoying 
to the boatmen, but at this dry season of April they 
are generally visible. While detained below the At- 
bara on account of contrary winds, Bombay brought 
his wife up to Speke, saying she was very unwell ; but 
as she was too diffident to speak, we could do nothing 
to help her. An hour or two elapsed, and Bombay 
came, grinning with delight, to announce that his wife 
had presented him with a child ! One of the girls 
in the boat had told him of it, but he did not know 
whether it was a boy or a girl — he would go and ask. 
This was the second child born to Bombay upon the 
journey ; but both died, and he regretted very much 
that there would be no keepsake of the journey for 
him to take back to Zanzibar. The infant was buried 
on the shore. 
Our journey by water had now for the present 
ended — we had anchored off the bunder or port of 
Berber. There was some show of trade, and twelve 
large boats lay alongside ours. The population of 
