Thibaut and Sabatier disclosed to me, as usual, their vexation at Arnaud’s assuming conduct, and how they are cut up and calumniated in his journal, which they secretly read, without being able to call him to account for it at the moment. So likewise I am obliged to listen to the loud lamentations of his servant Mustaphà, a Maltese renegade, who always ends with “Credo che sia mezzo matto quest gran signore o baron fututto.” Although he looks very fierce, yet he cannot renounce his nature as a tailor, and is continually asking me whether we are in any danger and begs me, for the holy Madonna’s sake, to take care that we return as speedily as possible, for he would rather a thousand times live with his devil of a wife, than venture again so far among the heathens. Arnaud is jealous at Suliman Kashef having purchased a young girl with his beads, and by the assistance of Duschoïl, the interpreter, prettier than his little sailor’s trull, whom he has hung with glass beads from head to foot. In a fit of madness he writes a long French letter to the Kashef, summoning him to restore the girl immediately, although we are already a long way from her people. Thibaut translates the letter, and looks as if he had fallen from the clouds, for he is in the very same boat with Arnaud himself, respecting the purchase of a girl, that he is going to make a living present to his black Sara, whom he brought back from England to Khartùm. After the letter was read aloud, a rude burst of laughter naturally ensued, and Suliman Kashef said when it was finished, in a pitying tone of voice, “El shems, el shems!” (the sun, the sun.) Certainly it is not the first time that the African sun has produced such an effect on Arnaud; he suffers like all of us, and his arrogance and pride shake him more violently, because they find opposition on every side. _21st January._ I this morning felt myself uncommonly well but had scarcely stepped out of the door to go ashore, when the stream of light—I know not what other name to give it—rushed upon me with such force, and penetrated, as it were, through me, that I was scarcely able to sink back on my bed; and it is only now, when, however, the sun is at its height, that I feel myself at all capable of writing. We have remained since early this morning, in a southerly direction. The sails have been twice hoisted, but on the average we are towed by the rope. We leave an island on our right. There are several red skins among the negroes, who are really handsome men; the tokuls, standing singly, are large, well roofed, and, resting upon strong stakes, open on all sides. The stakes form a peristyle, and the inner wall is smeared inside with clay; perhaps they serve as stables for cattle, and summer tokuls. A small gohr, or river, in the neighbourhood of which we repose at noon, comes merrily in from the right shore, and the stream has a noble breadth, but little depth of water.