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 rise 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 countless windings and difficulties of the
marshes; the river is like an entangled skein of thread. Wind light;
course S. 20 degrees 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 melancholy beyond description. Great numbers of
hippopotami this evening, greeting the boats with their loud snorting
bellow, which vibrates through the vessels.

Jan. 9th.--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 tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of
river endless; continual hauling. At about half an hour before sunset,