We get on a sand-bank, close to which several crocodiles are encamped. The first of these beasts (in truth a fearful leader) attacks the men who are pushing the vessel off the sand-bank; then a soldier jumps overboard, armed only with a hatchet (Chadàn), boldly meets it, and really drives it back into the water. At this moment shots were fired by the soldiers on board the vessels at the whole congregation, but so badly aimed that not one remained dead on the spot; they all made a slow retreat into the water, and we found afterwards, in the moist sand on the shore, fifty-three of their eggs lying together all of a layer. The shells were a little broken, as if cracked, which may be caused by the sun and the humid sand. At first I thought, indeed, that these eggs might be near hatching; but I was persuaded of their freshness, when the crew eat them, roasted in ashes, with much goût. I tried also a little one, and found the usual taste of eggs, only it seemed to me particularly dry, and the white was more spongy and not compact. My servants had preserved eight of the eggs, which I put among those found in the neighbourhood of the crocodile shot by Suliman Kashef. I see that the latter are smaller, but thicker and rounder than the first-named. In general they do not exceed the size of a goose’s egg, and differ from birds’ eggs, especially by both ends being uniformly arched. When I compared these eggs subsequently, in Khartùm, with another one, found by me lying openly in the sand of the shore of the united stream, on our journey to Sennaar, I found the latter to be considerably larger than those of the White Stream. Without wishing to decide by this on the different species of crocodiles, I remark that the people here well know that there are such distinctions. At one o’clock, we halt at the right shore, near a pastoral village, but do not find the expected oxen. About five o’clock we push off again, and a Nile arm divides to N.E.; then comes another from S.E., and winds E.S.E. This is the arm, according to the general assertion, which we previously ascended.