32 
BAIIR GIRAFFE. 
[chap. I. 
and tlie river is now bank-full. Although the water 
is perfectly clear, and there is no appearance of flood, 
yet masses of weeds, as though torn from their beds by 
torrents, are constantly floating down the stream. One 
of my men has been up the river to the farthest 
navigable point; he declares that it is fed by many 
mountain torrents, and that it runs out very rapidly 
at the cessation of the rains. I sounded the river in 
many places, the depth varying very slightly, from 
twenty-seven to twenty-eight feet. At 5 p.m. set sail 
with a light breeze, and glided along the dead water 
of the White Nile. Full moon—the water like a 
mirror; the country one vast and apparently inter¬ 
minable marsh—the river about a mile wide, and more 
or less cohered with floating plants. The night still as 
death; dogs barking in the distant villages, and herds 
of hippopotami snorting in all directions, being dis¬ 
turbed by the boats. Course west. 
5 th Jan .—Fine breeze, as much as we can carry; 
boats running at eight or nine miles an hour—no 
stream perceptible; vast marshes; the clear water of 
the river not more than 150 yards wide, forming a 
channel through the great extent of water grass re¬ 
sembling high sugar canes, which conceal the true 
extent of the river. About six miles west from the 
Sobat junction on the north side of the river, is a kind 
of backwater, extending north like a lake for a dis¬ 
tance of several days’ boat journey : this is eventually 
lost in regions of high grass and marshes; in the wet 
season this forms a large lake. A hill bearing north 
20° west so distant as to be hardly discernible. The 
Bahr Giraffe is a small river entering the Nile on the 
south bank between the Sobat and Bahr el Gazal—my 
reis (Diabb) tells me it is merely a branch from the 
White Nile from the Aliab country, and not an inde¬ 
pendent river. Course west, 10° north, the current 
about one mile per hour. Marshes and ambatch, far 
as the eye can reach. 
At 6.40 p.m. reached the Bahr el Gazal; the junction 
