Emin Pasha was hourly expected. On the 13th, however, I received a letter from him at Messelemîeh, four or five hours hence, in which he stated that he should first come to Wed Médineh the next day, and hoped to find us still there. At the same time he informed me that the war in Taka was at an end, and that all had submitted. Some hundred natives were killed in the skirmishes; on the morning before the decisive battle, all the Sheikhs of the Taka tribes came to the Pasha to beg for mercy, which was granted them on the condition, that no fugitive should remain in the forest, which had been their chief resort. Next day he had the forest searched, and as there was nobody found, it was set on fire, and burnt down altogether. He is going on his way back through the eastern districts to Katârif, on the Abyssinian frontier, and thence to the Blue River. Scarcely had we read these news from Taka, ere the cannons at the barracks thundered forth the news of victory to the population. In another letter, which Emin Pasha had received for me, Herr von Wagner gave me the pleasant news that our new comrade, the painter Georgi, had arrived from Italy, and had already left for Dongola, where he would await farther instructions. I shall write him to meet us at Barkal. As we were certain by the letter to find the Pasha still in Messelemîeh, we departed thither at noon; we went by land, as the city is an hour and a half distant from the Nile. The bark was meanwhile to follow us to the port of Messelemîeh, _i. e._ to the landing place nearest to this principal trading place of the whole Sudan. Besides Jussuf we took the _khawass_ and Gabre Máriam with us, who placed himself behind me on the dromedary, where there is always a little place left for an attendant, like the dickey of a coach; he rides on the narrow back part of the animal, and holds on with his hands. The day was very hot and the ground burnt. The few birds which I saw were different from those inhabiting the banks of the river.