At two o’clock in the afternoon we went off, and reached Shendi at about ten the next morning. After dinner we went on, stayed the night on the island Hobi, and came the next morning early to Ben Naga. Here we first visited the ruins of two little temples, of which the west one had Typhon columns instead of pillars, but showed no writing on its few remains; in the other eastern one there were a few sculptures preserved on the low wall, and writing on a few round pillars, but too little that anything connected might be gathered from it. Excavations might probably discover royal names; but such an attempt is only possible on our return. Some camels were procured for the next morning, and I rode off with Abeken, Erbkam, and Maximilian Weidenbach at nine o’clock for Naga. So are the ruins of a city and several temples named, which lie in the eastern wilderness, at a distance of seven or eight hours from the Nile. From our landing-place, near the only palm group of the whole region, we only wanted half an hour to the village of Ben Naga, which lies in Wadi Teresîb. One hour eastward, down the river (for it flows from west to east here), the ruins are situated, where we had landed the day before, in the Wadi el Kirbegân; we now passed them on the left, and rode south-east into the wilderness, sparely grown with dry underwood, crossed the valley El Kirbegân, which stretches hither from the river, and in which we found a camp of Abâbde Arabs. After four and a half hours from Ben Naga, we arrived at a solitary mountain in the wilderness, named Buêrib. This lay between the little southwestern wadis (so they call even the most level sinkings of the plain, when the water runs off, and which we should scarcely call valleys) and the great wide Wadi Auatêb, into which we now descended, after we had passed the Buêrib at a little distance to the left. In three and three quarter hours from Buêrib, we came to the ruins of Naga. The enigma which I had vainly endeavoured to unriddle, and which neither Cailliaud nor Hoskins had explained, as to how it was possible to build a city and sustain it in the midst of the desert so far from the river, was first solved in the vicinity of the temple. The whole valley of Auatêb is still cultivated land. We found it covered far and wide with _durra_ stubble. The inhabitants of Shendi, Ben Naga, Fadnîe, Sélama, Metamme, thus of both sides of the Nile, come hither to cultivate the land, and to harvest _durra_. The tropical rain is sufficient to fertilise the soil of this flat but extensive level, and in ancient times it is probable that more was obtained from this region by greater care. For the dry season there were no doubt large artificial cisterns, like those we found at the most distant ruins north of Naga, although without water.