In the neighbourhood, we saw far and wide, towards the left side of the village, the smoke assume a magnificent form. We see from the deck flames moving towards us, the wind being favourable, in long battle array, and steam and black ashes spread near us, apparently arising from the dry grass. Thousands of birds driven thence swarm in the air around the vessels. A number of turtle-doves remain quite innocently in our neighbourhood, perched on the ambak-bushes. It may indeed be called fortunate that the wood there was low and generally thin, for, had it been otherwise, this conflagration, probably caused by the frightened inhabitants, might easily have set the sails on fire. The fatalism, however, of the Turks causes us to squat in the very same place till about sunset, in order to fill our ships again with gnats, although we see the vessels, left behind, coming at a distance. The river winds here from E.S.E. to S.S.W. At last they apply themselves to their oars, but we gain very little, for the current amounts to more than one mile, and the wind, which had set in over night, holds scarcely on for a moment. _14th December._—After a restless night, we did not put ourselves in motion this morning till an hour after sunrise. I see that we have scarcely advanced this night two miles, calculating from the trees standing towards N.E., behind us, which I remarked yesterday at the village of the Nuèhrs, who, indeed, had fled from us behind the burning wood. We sail slowly to the west, and we should scarcely distinguish the right shore, if some tokul-tops were not seen peeping out at a distance of an hour and a half. From want of wind we halt for a time, and sail then with the shifting N.E. wind, further westward, till we go, at ten o’clock, S.W., and make two miles. At eleven o’clock the wind becomes so strong that we fly by, as it were, the reeds close at hand, and for the first time make six miles. We went here W.S.W. The right shore was marked out by three or four large trees standing at equal distance from each other, like ancient monuments of the victory gained here with difficulty over the moist element. Twelve o’clock, N.W. by N., four miles: again sky, water, and reeds; in the latter, solitary bunches of ambaks and high reeds. Soon we go gradually S.W. by S., and the stream, although it is only some 200 or 250 paces broad, appears not to have, near this part, any considerable arms, as none such are visible from the mast-head. From this reason the greater current is explained. The white river traverses these reed-lakes in meandering windings, and river buffaloes can break any other road for themselves in this shoreless expanse. The thermometer shews at three o’clock 28°, at noon 25°, and this morning at sunrise 20° Reaumur. It is now nearly a dead calm, and we are scarcely able to move from N.W. to S.W.