We refused the Pasha’s invitation to supper and night’s lodging, and soon rode off to the river, where we hoped to find our bark. As it had not arrived, we passed the night in the open air upon anqarebs. The next morning, the 15th of March, we pushed off for Kamlîn, and arrived there toward evening. The following day we passed with our countryman, Herr Bauer. After we had visited Nureddin Effendi at Wad Eraue, some hours from Kamlîn, we arrived the next day at Soba, where I immediately sent for a vessel found in the ruins of the ancient city, and preserved by the brother of the Sheikh. After waiting a long time it was brought. It proved to be an incense urn of bronze in open work; the sides of the rounded vessel, about three-quarters of a foot in height and breadth, were worked in arabesques; on the upper edge the chains had been attached to three little hooks, of which one is broken away, so that the most interesting part of the whole--an inscription in tolerably large letters running round the top, and worked _àjour_, like arabesques--is imperfect. This is of the more importance, as the writing is again Greek, or rather Koptic, as on the stone tablet, but the language neither, but without doubt the ancient language of Soba, the metropolis of the mighty kingdom of Aloa. Notwithstanding its shortness, it is of more importance than the tablet, that it also contains the Koptic letters [Illustration: Koptic] (sh) and [Illustration: Koptic] (ti), which are not to be found in the other. I bought the vessel for a few piasters. This is now the third monument of Soba that we bring with us, for I must add that we saw at Saïd Hashim’s, in Wed Médineh, a little Venus, of Greek workmanship, about a foot high, which had also been found in Soba, and was presented to me by the owner. On the 19th of March, we at length entered again the house of M. Hermanowitch at Chartûm, at a later date, however, than our former reckoning had settled, therefore I had already announced our being later in a letter to Erbkam from Wed Médineh. LETTER XIX. CHARTUM. _March 21, 1844._