We notice a large encampment of herdsmen, somewhat up the country, in the river behind the little pastoral village: I call it an encampment because there are no huts there, but sheds, as a protection against the sun, lying flat upon four stakes, the walls being partly protected by reeds. These straw huts, with flat roofs, which I had seen also besides in the pastoral villages, and which serve in the whole country of Sudàn, during the hot season of the year, for household labours, are called by the Arabs Rekùba. Even the open porches of the clay-houses are so called. Besides these, the reed-walls, protecting the very large fires of the encampment against the wind, stand far and wide around, and glistening herds of cows pasture there on all sides. The abundance of herds might give, indeed, some scale by which we could judge of the population, as I see from the rearing of the beasts that a certain number of hands are necessary. Still S.E., and behind the high reeds of the river another little pastoral village, near which we go to S. Eleven o’clock. On the right a tokul city at the point where we go S.W. Seventy to eighty houses stand along the shore, and we perceive, in a straight line, an arm of the Nile, separating a level island from a large pool. Immediately behind the city a pastoral village extends here and there, with that arm, towards the south. There are many people on the shore, singing their “Abandejok:” the old women are particularly distinguished in this welcoming. We heard, _horribile dictu_, the clattering noise they make by striking their hanging breasts up and down; remaining with closed knees on one spot, they jumped or sprang up, swinging backwards and forwards their elbows and hands in a horizontal direction, and, bringing both hands before them, greeted us, or begged for something. The younger ones stood at a distance, and looked at the play,—kept back, indeed, more by the men than by their own bashfulness. The men swam over the arm of the river, in order to accompany us still further along the shore, or rather to catch a few beads. Opposite this hamlet are some tokuls, with a large pastoral village. We navigate S.S.W., and half past eleven o’clock S.E.