In the meantime our purchases and repairs were completed, and I hastened our departure as much as possible. The house of Hermanowitch remains at our disposal on our return; it is conveniently and airily built, and from my windows I could see the oldest house in the town, the pointed straw roof of which looked over the walls. These pointed thatched houses, called _Tukele_, form the peculiar style of the country, and almost the only erections more to the south. But as Chartûm is a new city, the few old huts have all disappeared except that one, and the houses are built of burnt brick. At noon on the 17th of February we entered our barks. I sailed to the south with Abeken, up the Blue River, partly to learn its nature, partly to see the ruins of Soba, and those of Mandera; the rest of our companions, for whom there was nothing to do in the south, went northward to Meroë, to draw the monuments of that place. Next day we landed on the eastern side, where great stacks of red burnt bricks, prepared for embarkation, informed us that we were not far off the ruins of Soba. In the whole country unburnt bricks are now made, so that all ruins of burnt bricks must belong to an earlier period. From Soba, this building material is transported in great quantities both to Chartûm and beyond it. We landed, and had scarcely left the bushes next to the shore behind us, ere we saw the violated mounds of bricks, which cover a great plain, an hour’s ride in circumference; some of the larger heaps might be the remains of the Christian churches, which are described by Selim of Assuan (by Macrizi) in the tenth century, when Soba was yet the capital of the empire of Alŏa, as magnificently decorated with gold. The place was shown us where, some time ago, a stone lion was discovered, now in the possession of Churshid Pasha, at Cairo. Walls or buildings were nowhere to be recognized, and on the southernmost and somewhat distant hill some sculptured yellow blocks of sandstone, and a low wall were all that we could find; on another mound lay several rough slabs of a black, slatey stone. The country round Soba is level, as everywhere about here, to the foot of the Abyssinian mountains, and the soil, particularly at this season, dried up and black; the thicker vegetation is confined to the river shore, farther on, there are only single trees, now more frequent, now seldom. I promised the sailors a sheep if we arrived early next morning at Kamlîn; for the wind was violent, and allowed us to make but little way. Our ship, too, does not go very fast, the sailors are not adroit, and, with the present low level of the water, the bark easily sticks in the sand-banks. We went almost the whole night, and arrived early at eight o’clock in Kamlîn.