Twelve o’clock, five miles, 22°, and at three o’clock, 26° Reaumur. On the left shore, close to us, is the hill of Giràb el Esh, (sack of corn), which name has also been given to a Sheikh of the Shilluks living there, to denote his corpulence, a very rare thing in that country. We were pretty close to the right shore, the extreme edge of which rises some three feet above the still high water. The earth is dark, and here occurs the first precipitous shore we have seen on the white stream. The marshy world springing luxuriantly on the left shore, checking the stream, appears to press the current to the right side of the river, and by that means the water is always deeper next to the latter side. Marshes, with the usual phenomena, soon shew themselves again in the primitive bed, properly speaking, of the stream, so that we were forced again into serpentine windings. On the right shore, close to the mountain which we had seen on the 2nd of December, at sunrise, and which is the Defafaungh so much spoken of in Sudàn, high dome-palms, with small heads, rise over the tamarind-trees. The mountain itself is bare and rocky, and, except one precipice, descends towards the river without any steep declivity. So likewise the mountains we had hitherto seen had always a gentle descent towards the stream, a proof that the waters have not here undermined or compressed the ribs of the mountains towards the river, as is the case in Nubia and on the Rhine. Defafaungh stands there alone, like the mountains Taka, an island, as it were, in an extensive and dry basin. At noon we sailed past the rocky hill, four or five hundred feet high, and went W.S.W. without my having seen through the telescope the ruins and pyramids (Taralib) of brick (Top ahmer), supposed to be there. At all events, I shall take care to lie to here on our return voyage. Soon after appeared, on the left shore, a hamlet consisting of about twenty huts, shaped of bee-hives. The people did not shew themselves, because the good name of the Turks has spread even thus far. The mountain is seen, from the raised deck of the cabin, rising in the landscape; and we perceive a grassy marsh-island extending from the right shore, in the form of an arch, into the river, and forcing it into a direction W.S.W. In this inlet lies the village I have mentioned, and immediately afterwards a second one. Suliman Kashef had spied out something with his eagle eyes: he went ashore to seize some sheep, whilst shots were fired in the air to frighten the owners. We all followed his good example.