chap, i.] CHARACTER OF BAHR EL GAZAL. 35 
Khartoum, and now being separated from his liquor, 
he is plunged into a black melancholy. He sits upon 
the luggage like a sick rook, doing minstrelsy, playing 
the rababa (guitar), and smoking the whole day, unless 
asleep, which is half that time : he is sighing after the 
merissa (beer) pots of Egypt. This man is an illustra¬ 
tion of missionary success. He was brought up from 
boyhood at the Austrian mission, and he is a genuine 
specimen of the average results. He told me a few 
days ago that “he is no longer a Christian. /V 
There are two varieties, of convolvolus growing here ; 
also a peculiar gourd, which, when dry and divested of 
its shell, exposes a vegetable sponge, formed of a dense 
but fine network of fibres; the seeds are contained in 
the centre of this fibre. The bright yellow flowers of 
the ambatch, and of a tree resembling a laburnum, 
are in great profusion. The men completely done : I 
served them out a measure of grog. The “ Clumsy ” 
not in sight. 
Jan . 8th .—Waited all night for the “Clumsy.” She 
appeared at 8 a.m., when the reis and several men 
received the whip for laziness. All three vessels 
now rounded a sharp turn in the river, and the wind 
being then favourable, we were soon under sail. The 
clear water of the river from the Bahr el Gazal to this 
point, does not exceed a hundred and twenty yards in 
width. The stream runs at one and three-quarter 
miles per hour, bringing with it a quantity of floating 
vegetation. The fact of a strong current both above 
and below the Bahr el Gazal junction, while the lake at 
that point is dead water, proves that I was right in my 
surmise, that no water flows from the Bahr el Gazal 
into the Nile during this season, and that the lake and 
the extensive marshes at that locality are caused as 
much by the surplus water of the White Nile flowing 
into a depression, as they are by the Bahr el Gazal, the 
water of the latter river being absorbed by the immense 
marshes. 
Yesterday we anchored at a dry spot, on which grew 
D 2 
