his lungs are affected; he has fever again today; I have sent him
quinine and wine, &c.

20th Dec.--The whole of yesterday employed in splicing yard, repairing
mast, and re-rigging. At 8.30 A.M. we got away with a spanking breeze.
The diahbiah horridly leaky. The "tree," or rendezvous for all boats
when leaving for the White Nile voyage, consists of three large mimosas
about four miles from the point of junction. The Nile at this spot about
two miles wide--dead flat banks--mimosas on west bank. My two cabin
boys are very useful, and Osman's ringing laugh and constant
impertinence to the crew and soldiers keep the boat alive; he is a
capital boy, a perfect gamin, and being a tailor by trade he is very
useful: this accounts for his father wishing to detain him. The horses
and donkeys very snug on board. At 1 p.m. passed Gebel Ouli, a small
hill on south bank--course S.W. 1/2 S. At 8.30 p.m. reached Cetene, a
village of mixed Arabs on the east bank--anchored.

21st Dec.--All day busy clearing decks, caulking ship, and making room
for the camels on the noggurs, as this is the village to which I had
previously sent two men to select camels and to have them in readiness
for my arrival. The men have been selecting sweethearts instead; thus I
must wait here tomorrow, that being the "Soog" or market day, when I
shall purchase my camels and milch goats. The banks of the river very
uninteresting--flat, desert, and mimosa bush. The soil is not so rich
as on the banks of the Blue Nile--the dhurra (grain) is small. The Nile
is quite two miles wide up to this point, and the high-water mark is not
more than five feet above the present level. The banks shelve gradually
like the sands at low tide in England, and quite unlike the
perpendicular banks of the Blue Nile. Busy at gunsmith's work. The
nights and mornings are now cold, from 60 degrees to 62 degrees F.