On the 29th November, the expedition passed the limit of Turco-Egyptian domination. The land it had now reached paid no tribute. "All slaves," was the reply of Turks and Arabs to Mr Werne's inquiry who the inhabitants were. "I could not help laughing, and proving to them, to their great vexation, that these men were free, and much less slaves than themselves; that before making slaves of them, they must first make them prisoners, a process for which they had no particular fancy,--admitting, with much _naiveté_, that the 'slaves' hereabout were both numerous and brave. This contemptuously spoken _Kulo Abit_, (All slaves,) is about equivalent to the 'barbarian' of the ancients--the same classical word the modern Greeks have learned out of foreign school-books." "The trees and branches preventing our vessels from lying alongside the bank, I had myself carried through the water, to examine the country and get some shooting. But I could not make up my mind to use my gun, the only animals to aim at being large, long-tailed, silver-gray apes. I had shot one on a former occasion, and the brute had greatly excited my compassion by his resemblance to a human being, and by his piteous gestures. M. Arnaud, on the contrary, took particular pleasure in making the repeated observation that, on the approach of death, the gums of these beasts turn white, like those of a dying man. They live in families of several hundreds together, and their territory is very circumscribed, even in the forest, as I myself subsequently ascertained. Although fearful of water, and swimming unwillingly, they always fled to the branches overhanging the river, and not unfrequently fell in. When this occurred, their first care on emerging was to wipe the water from their faces and ears. However imminent their danger, only when this operation was completed did they again climb the trees. Such a monkey republic is really a droll enough sight; its members alternately fighting and caressing each other, combing and vermin-hunting, stealing and boxing each other's ears, and, in the midst of all these important occupations, running down every moment to drink, but contenting themselves with a single draught, for fear of becoming a mouthful for the watchful crocodile. The tame monkeys on board our vessels turned restless at sight of the joyous vagabond life of their brethren in the bush. First-lieutenant Hussein Aga, of Kurdistan, lay alongside us, and was in raptures with his monkey, shouting over to me: '_Schuf! el naùti taïb!_' (See! the clever sailor!)--meaning his pet ape, which ran about the rigging like mad, hanging on by the ropes, and looking over the bulwarks into the water; until at last he jumped on the back of a sailor who was wading on shore with dirty linen to wash, and thence made a spring upon land to visit his relations, compared to whom, however, he was a mere dwarf. Overboard went the long Kurd, with his gun, to shoot the deserter;