36 
PECULIARITY OP RIVER SOB AT. 
[chap. I. 
many mimosas of the red bark variety; the ground 
was a dead flat, and the river was up to the roots of 
the trees near the margin ; thus the river is quite full 
at this season, but not flooded. There was no water¬ 
mark upon the stems of the trees ; thus I have little 
doubt that the actual rise of the water-level during the 
rainy season is very trifling, as the water extends over 
a prodigious extent of surface, the river having no 
banks. The entire country is merely a vast marsh, 
with a river flowing through the midst. 
At this season last year I was on the Settite. That 
great river and the Atbara were then excessively low. 
The Blue Nile was also low at the same time. On the 
contrary, the White Nile and the Sobat, although not 
at their highest, are bank-full, while the former two are 
failing; this proves that the White Nile and the Sobat 
jise far south, among mountains subject to a rainfall at 
different seasons, extending over a greater portion of 
the year than the rainy season of Abyssinia and the 
neighbouring Galla country. 
It is not surprising that the ancients gave up the 
exploration of the Nile when they came to the count¬ 
less windings and difficulties of the marshes; the river 
is like an entangled skein of thread. Wind light; 
course S. 20° W. The strong north wind that took us 
from Khartoum has long since become a mere breath. 
It never blows in this latitude regularly from the 
north. The wind commences at between 8 and 9 a.m., 
and sinks at sunset; thus the voyage through these 
frightful marshes and windings is tedious and melan¬ 
choly beyond description. Great numbers of hippo¬ 
potami this evening, greeting the boats with their loud 
snorting bellow, which vibrates through the vessels. 
Jan. 9 th .—Two natives fishing ; left their canoe and 
ran on the approach of our boats. My men wished to 
steal it, which of course I prevented ; it was a simple 
dome-palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, 
very neatly made with only one barb. Both sides of 
the river from the Bahr el Gazal belong to the Nuehr 
