We soon come to a gohr, or canal, apparently feeding the little lake. The current along the shore itself is frequently more unequal in strength than in the centre of the river, owing to such flowings off, and on account of the great depth of three to five fathoms, which is often found directly close to the margin of the new shore, against which the mass of waters is thrown. But notwithstanding this striking disadvantage, we prefer to remain close to the shore, where the crew are obliged to work till they are half dead to gain ground only a little. At five o’clock we come nearer to the great village. My Bonn, with the green of its _vinea Domini_, and its old custom-house, is turned here into high reeds; its university into tokuls concealed behind them; and its houses into reed huts of various sorts. It was only the position and the winding of the stream itself that could awaken this dear remembrance, with a whole host of half-extinguished pictures; and the more so because we had already seen an Ethiopian Bonn, the bare name of which had excited my imagination. On all sides the cattle turn to the smoking pastoral city. I hear and see that the village of the women is always separated from that of the men; that the latter possess only the temporary huts, and the former regular tokuls,—the last being only common to both sexes at the rainy season. We pass slowly by, whilst I stand on the deck and write. This Harim village looks, on the whole, very well: the tokuls, indeed, are low, but well built, and, as I have remarked already, the straw upon the roof is laid round in five or six layers, giving it the same number of stories, without having a steep slope. The old women were the first to gratify their curiosity: they dance and jump before their houses, sing bold songs, and beat their breasts up and down, so that it is horrible to see and hear them. Children and maidens appear to be locked up from fear of the “Children of Heaven;” for it was asserted that the white soldiers in the former expedition were looked upon by the negroes of this country as “Children of Heaven.” I scarcely believe that such a compliment was paid to them, for I saw a black soldier pointing to two Egyptians as having come from Heaven; whereupon the blacks put on a silly laughing countenance, and went away, as much as to say, “Children of Heaven ought to fly lightly, like birds, and not crawl heavily on the earth, and draw ships.” A natural pond was connected by a canal with the river, and closed by a fishing weir of palisadoes. Lumps of earth lay piled up on one another, like pyramids of cannon-balls. They take, perhaps, the slime from the canal with their hands, to plaster round the walls of their tokuls, and also to clean the canal. Even the old women here were ash-grey; therefore it seems as if they make fires in their tokuls, and their beds on the ashes.