On the way we met Hassan Pasha’s boat, which was going to Méraui. We fired salutes, and ran alongside each other. The Pasha inquired earnestly about the treasures which he supposed would be in the pyramids of Barkal, and with the greatest complaisance promised us anything we desired in furtherance of our journey and object. After he had immediately returned our visit, we parted, firing fresh salutes. On the 10th of June we reached Old Dongola, the former capital of this Christian kingdom. The immense ruins of the town show little more at present than its former great extent. Upon a mountain, near which commands a delightful prospect all round, stands a mosque. An Arabic inscription, on marble, shows that this was opened on the 20th Rabî el anel, in the year 717 (1st June, 1317), after the victory of Safeddin Abdallah e’ Nâsir over the infidels. As we had discovered so few monumental remains since our departure from Barkal, to employ the leisure time which we had in our boat, I busied myself with making every possible research into and comparison with the present language and the Nubian. It offers very remarkable points in the science of language, but does not show the least similarity to the Egyptian. I consider that the whole race must have come at a late period out of the south-west into the valley of the Nile. We have now a servant from Derr, the capital of Lower Nubia, who speaks tolerably good Italian; he is alert and intelligent, and is of great service to me on account of his knowledge of the Mahass dialects. I have sometimes tormented him with questions for five or six hours in a day in the boat, as it is no small trouble to either of us to understand each other upon the forms and changes of grammar. He has, at any rate, acquired more respect for his own language, which everywhere here, when compared with the Arabic, is reckoned bad and vulgar, and people are ashamed of being obliged to speak it. When we arrived yesterday, after three days’ journey from Old Dongola here, in New Dongola, generally called El Orde (the camp) by the Arabs, we had the great pleasure of receiving the large packet of letters, of which we had already been informed by Hassan Pasha on the road. Since then we look forward with fresh courage to the last difficult part of our journey to the south, as we must here, alas! leave our boats, and mount the far more uncomfortable ship of the desert. The cataract district, now lying before us, is only to be navigated at high water, and then not without danger. Our richly-laden stone boat we were obliged to submit to the dangerous trial, as land-carriage for the Ram and the other monuments was naturally not to be thought of.