I was reduced to great extremity. The camel, carrying my provisions
and culinary utensils, and several other articles, was lost by the
carelessness of a domestic. I was consequently left without any thing to
eat, or the means of preparing what I might obtain. I threw myself under
the hospitable shade of the tent of Mr. Caillaud, (then only occupied
by Mr. Constant, his companion,) the gentleman I have mentioned in the
Preface with so much well merited esteem, where I stayed till my arrival
at Sennaar.

The country we traversed is that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which
lies between the Nile and the Bahar el Abiud. It is an immense and
fertile plain, occupied by numerous villages, some of them very large;
that of "Wahat Medinet," for instance, containing, probably, four or
five thousand inhabitants. What country we saw was, at this season,
perfectly naked of grass, consisting generally of immense fields which,
in the season past, had been planted with durra. Acacia trees, and
bushes in the country far back from the river, (which is sandy,) were
abundant, but no herbage was visible; I did not see throughout our route
a single waterwheel;[50] and I believe that the country is only cultivated
when the inundation has retired.

The houses of the villages are built in the following manner. A circle
of stakes is planted in the ground, a conical frame of poles attached
to these stakes below, and meeting and fastened at the top of the cone,
forms the roof. This roof, and the sides of the house, are then covered
with thatched straw, which suffices to exclude the rains.

Some of the houses, however, belonging to the chiefs are of a stronger
fabric, being composed of thick walls made of bricks dried in the sun,
and having terraced roofs. In the thatched cottages I have mentioned,