On the right we noticed N.W. by W., at a great distance, a considerable chain of mountains, to all appearance, over the invisible left shore. According to Selim-Capitan’s declaration this must be called Tickem. The crew even think that it is either the Tekeli or the Tira, which, however, is impossible, as we have long ago left them behind in the North. Both mountains are well known by our Kawass Màrian, and belong indeed to the mountain chain of Nuba. This mountain, however, is called, according to Màrian, _Morre_, and its high rocks are inhabited by a valiant, pagan, Negro race; they lie beyond the Nuba chain, and far isolated from it. Màrian had more than once travelled through the country, and had also been into these parts, when Sultan Fadl fled to them from Kordofàn, on the invasion of the Turks. Half-past three o’clock, W.N.W. Still in the grass-sea. We halted at sun-set, where the arm of the Nile goes from E. to W. The far distant and scarcely visible mountain lies now to the N. of us, and appears to be nearly twenty hours’ distant; this agrees with Màrian’s statement. Neither land nor tree to be seen, even from the mast; but back on the right shore, large clouds of smoke, which we have seen in many places throughout the day, and which I rather take to be signal-fires, than kindled for the purpose of driving away the gnats that first make their appearance towards evening. _10th December._—A dead calm throughout the night. Gnats!!! No use creeping under the bedclothes, where the heat threatens to stifle me, compelled as I am, by their penetrating sting, to keep my clothes on. Leave only a hole to breathe at; in they rush, on the lips, into the nostrils and ears, and should one yawn, they squeeze themselves into the throat, and tickle us to coughing, causing us to suffer real torture, for with every respiration again a fresh swarm enters. They find their way to the most sensitive parts, creeping in like ants at every aperture. My bed was covered in the morning with thousands of these little tormenting spirits—compared with which the Egyptian plague is nothing—which I had crushed to death with the weight of my body, by continually rolling about.