118 
TRAVELS IN CENTEAL AFEICA. 
river in an ant-liill^ tlie only piece of ground above the vrater that 
the eye could compass in every direction as far as the horizon. A 
few days afterwards another invaluable man^ one of the artizans 
accorded to us by the Viceroy of Egypt^ followed in his wake. To 
describe the melancholy prospect around us beggars description. 
Baker^ in alluding to it (see Proceedings/^ Vol. X.^ No. 1^ page 7 ), 
saysj Far as the eye can reach_, in that land of misery and malaria^ 
all is wretchedness. . » . . One dry spot I saw slightly raised 
above the boundless marsh : there some white man was buried. 
A second most unpleasant circumstance in connection with the 
slave trade now occurred by the detection of Abd il Majid in com- 
plicity therewith_, and his connection during his stay at Gondokoro 
with the notorious Hhurshid Aga and the young Maltese. He was 
forthwith handcuffed and sent under arrest^, with the particulars of 
the circumstances^ to Khartoum^ to be judged by the Egyptian 
Government of which he was a subject. 
After thirty-eight days^ monotonous towing, with occasional 
rough sailing before tempestuous winds occasioned by thunder- 
storms astern, our men, worn out with fatigue and ill health, 
reached Lolnun, or the Abu Kuka of the Arabs, in the Kytch 
territory (July 2nd), in latitude 6° 54' 35'^ N., and E. longitude 
32° 28' 42'^. To convey to the reader the best idea in my power of 
the toilsome ° progress under circumstances so adverse as those we 
necessarily experienced by the unforeseen early setting in of this 
exceptionally rainy season, by reference to the map he will find 
that we only made good, in a direct line during the thirty-eight 
days quoted, little more than seventy miles, or less than two miles 
per day. Under ordinary circumstances, with a fair wind, we 
might easily have reached Gondokoro from this point in six days; 
but now, with my men so thoroughly worn out from the exertion 
