one being drunk on leaving Wat Shely; him we carried forcibly on board.
Passed the island of Hassaniah at 2.20 P.M.; the usual flats covered
with mimosas. The high-water mark upon the stems of these trees is three
feet above the present level of the river; thus an immense extent of
country must be flooded during the wet season, as there are no banks to
the river. The water will retire in about two months, when the
neighbourhood of the river will be thronged with natives and their
flocks. All the natives of these parts are Arabs; the Bagara tribe on
the west bank. At Wat Shely some of the latter came on board to offer
their services as slave-hunters, this open offer confirming the general
custom of all vessels trading upon the White Nile.

25th Dec.--The Tokroori boy, Saat, is very amiable in calling all the
servants daily to eat together the residue from our table; but he being
so far civilized, is armed with a huge spoon, and having a mouth like a
crocodile, he obtains a fearful advantage over the rest of the party,
who eat the soup by dipping kisras (pancakes) into it with their
fingers. Meanwhile Saat sits among his invited guests, and works away
with his spoon like a sageer (water-wheel), and gets an unwarrantable
start, the soup disappearing like water in the desert. A dead calm the
greater portion of the day; the river fringed with mimosa forest. These
trees are the Soont (Acacia Arabica), which produce an excellent tannin:
the fruit, "garra," is used for that purpose, and produces a rich brown
dye: all my clothes and the uniforms of my men I dyed at Khartoum with
this "garra." The trees are about eighteen inches in diameter and
thirty-five feet high; being in full foliage, their appearance from a
distance is good, but on a closer approach the forest proves to be a
desolate swamp, completely overflowed; a mass of fallen dead trees
protruding from the stagnant waters, a solitary crane perched here and
there upon the rotten boughs; floating water-plants massed together, and