CHAP. I.] 
PLAN OF EXPLORATION 
5 
ledge of Arabic. My dragoman bad me completely 
in bis power, and I resolved to become independent 
of all interpreters as soon as possible. I therefore 
arranged a plan of exploration for the first year to 
embrace the affluents to the Nile from the Abyssinian 
range of mountains, intending to follow up the Atbara 
river from its junction with the Nile in lat. 17° 37' 
(twenty miles south of Berber), and to examine all 
the Nile tributaries from the south-east as far as 
the Blue Nile, which river I hoped ultimately to 
descend to Khartoum. I imagined that twelve months 
would be sufficient to complete such an exploration, 
by which time I should have gained a sufficient know¬ 
ledge of Arabic to enable me to start from Khartoum 
for my White Nile expedition. Accordingly I left 
Berber on the 11th June, 1861, and arrived at the 
Atbara junction with the Nile on the 13th. 
There is no portion of the Nile so great in its 
volume as that part situated at the Atbara junction. 
The river Atbara is about 450 yards in average width, 
and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep during the 
rainy season. It brings down the entire drainage of 
Eastern Abyssinia, receiving as affluents into its main 
stream the great rivers Taceazy (or Settite), in addi¬ 
tion to the Salaam and Angrab. The junction of the 
Atbara in lat. 17° 37' N. is thus, in a direct line from 
