PAPYRUS AND MOSQUITOES. 
129 
palm, except where it swells gradually in the middle, decreasing in 
the same manner as it approaches the top, whence the leaves spring. 
A light favourable breeze served us for two hours, then came a dead 
calm and great heat. The round-robin towing resumed. The 
papyrus was here universal. 
At noon came up to the boat with the horses, and took her in 
tow. At sunset made fast to a hank — the first moderately high 
one we had seen. Fine herbage was here, so the horses were 
landed. We strolled about, but the space free of reeds was not 
more than half an acre in extent. The cactus shrub was a con- 
spicuous object, standing at least sixteen feet in height, but it was 
not in flower. There were also a variety of beautiful grasses. The 
men lighted great fires, and as they stood or reclined on the ant-hills, 
the effect was picturesque : sometimes enveloped in smoke ; again, 
when it rolled away, they showed in fine relief, waving indolently 
their papyrus fans — a single branch — to keep off those mosquitoes 
that are not suffocated by the smoke. 
May \7th. — It is discovered that our consort boat, reis Sur 
Katti^s, requires slight repairs, and it is probable we may remain 
here all the day. Went on shore at dawn with Petherick, and 
climbed an ant-hill. These hills are the natural watch-towers of 
the negroes ; without that eminence they would often find it diffi- 
cult to discern their strayed cattle ; in a time of danger, also, a 
negro can from its summit warn his tribe by waving his lance in a 
peculiar manner. A solitary ibis was shot. I plucked from the 
uscher shrub many ripe and bursting pods : the flower is of a deli- 
cate peach and white hue, and has a wax-like appearance ; the pod 
contained a mass of silky -looking fibre, and with it were seeds 
somewhat similar to those in the cotton-pod : when ripe, it bursts 
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