_2nd December._—We set sail before sunrise, towards S.S.W. The rocks of N’jemati lie to the N.N.E. of us, and on the left a mountain elevates itself to the S.S.E. at about six hours’ distance. We soon made three miles and a quarter, and from eight o’clock four and a quarter, and the breadth of the river was generally estimated at two miles. Near the reed or marshy islands, a kind of meadow cat’s-tail grass is prevalent, having a broad flat blade of bright green, in the middle of which runs a white streak lengthways. This grass has thick connecting tubes, from which the fibrous roots depend. The stalk, which is the thickness of a thumb, rises, with knots, to the height of four to five feet, and is surrounded with numerous brown leaves, completely inclosing it. It has ears like wheat, growing in a bunch to the number of five or six, containing grain, which is eaten by the people. It might be called the low-reed, from which the high-reed is distinguished by rising to a height of ten to twelve feet, and having straight knotty stalks, the thickness of a finger, narrow leaves, and on the top a cluster of leaves, from which large bulrush ears project, the seeds of which are scarcely perceptible. Close to this grows the luxuriant water couch-grass, with drooping blades the breadth of a finger, having a delicate blue hue; and a dark green aquatic grass, with narrow horizontal blades, from which branches a rush-like crown of seeds. Feïzulla Capitan has, at last, entirely exhausted, not only his own, but also my stock of spirituous liquors, which he used to partake of in his debauch, as if they had been his own property. His days of atonement have therefore commenced; he takes the Koràn with a long face, and puts on the airs of a great Faki, on account of which Suliman Kashef calls him Hodshà. The great Paradise-Stormer, from Kurdistan, listens to him with profound devotion, and corrects him very zealously, for he really seems to know the whole Koran by heart.