Without the knowledge of my parents, who fancied that I would exchange Bonn for another university, I had travelled with my friend, the now Professor Dieffenbach, of Berlin, to Marseilles. George Thibaut had done the same thing, and thrown up his clerkship in Paris. I found my books, the Pandects of Mackeldey, with the Archbishop of Argos, turned into cartridges, in order that I might beat the Turks blue with the Roman _Corpus juris civilis_, &c. It was a dangerous and adventurous undertaking. Thibaut went with the other Frenchmen and Italians to Egypt, to offer the Basha his services. I learnt eventually to find out the fellows, who are even now figuring away as robbers, and returned from Smyrna to my dear native land, like an undeceived Phillhellene who had known, however, how to distinguish the unworthy cause of these _Synclides_. Ten years afterwards I again found the old people in celebrated Hellas, only better laced up and combed, in high Turkish caps. The river makes from this basin a strong bend to N.N.E.; we had sometimes, therefore, to use oars, sometimes the towing-rope. The breadth of the river, including the reeds, is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred paces. The rapidity of the current below that little lake is one mile; it decreases, however, to half a mile in the basin, and amounts now to one mile and a half. Our course was very troublesome, slow, and so irregular, that it would be difficult to calculate the length of this short passage. We sailed then a short tract to the S.W., then S. and E., rowed N.W., and after sunset to the north, without having advanced further to the south. The latitude is 7° 48′, and the longitude 27° 41′ east of Paris. _21st December._—I passed the night on board Thibaut’s vessel, for mine had remained behind. This morning we worked towards the east. We found in the little lake of yesterday such beautiful clear water as only the Blue Nile displays at low ebb. Its dark water is kept back in a sharp cut by the current of the still high Nile. It may be inferred that the goodness of it arises from a neighbouring spring-lake, or from a mountain-river, the blue water of which may flow, even in other places, imperceptibly through the reeds to the Nile: this is the case also with the Gazelle River. It was a pity that, when we drank of the beautiful water, the village of Baiderol lay behind us. My vessel will not even yet work up; I visit, therefore, the Frenchmen, to inspect the hygrometer. It was about eight o’clock, and the hygrometer shewed 70°: at night, however, it had got up to 75°, and usually went back at noon to 20°: which may be taken as the average in these lakes. For a long time there have been only very few streaky clouds in the horizon, which were scarcely to be distinguished from the firmament.