A quarter after eight. E.S.E., then E. Some trees before us; two villages seen from the deck, behind the reeds on the left. Nine o’clock. Right round to E.S.E.; here, on the left, a little lake, and three villages near the above-mentioned three or four trees, ten minutes from the shore. The tokuls, which are not so large as those previously seen, and have slightly arched roofs, seem to denote that we have come already to the country of the Shilluks. It does our heart good to see human habitations once again close to us. The Nile has been really very tedious for a long time: I sit here, a “passer solitarius in tecto.” I always thought that we ought to bring every landscape before the reader’s eye, like a row of pictures on the wall; but there is a continual and tiresome repetition of natural objects here: yet I feel it my duty not to spare the reader. Ten o’clock: continually E.S.E., with very inconsiderable declinations. Several people and villages on the left shore, at five minutes’ distance: they are really Shilluks. From the deck we see immediately ten large and small villages. We wind, still rowing, in a flat arch to the right, S.E.; then to the left, E. by N., at half-past eleven; and again slowly to the right. Four villages, the last a large one, at our left: they lie intermixed on the bare high shore, or rather grass and reed-sea, through which the river winds. Some Shilluks, no doubt a very populous nation, greet us from the shore with “Habàba!” (borrowed from the Arabs: in Taka, also, they say habàba—otherwise, mirhabà). Three mountains project on the right. Eleven o’clock, S.E.; three villages on the left. Half-past eleven. Slowly from E.S.E. to the right, S.E. by E.; then to the left, E., and the river immediately makes again a bend to the right, in E.S.E. The wind freshens and detains us; yet we have gained just this moment, for the river goes further to the right, and the wind has changed to N. The high shores, behind which the whole country is bare, with the exception of a few uschàrs, and seems to lie higher, approach again the river on the left; and two villages shew themselves at some hundred paces, on the gently-ascending downs; below them the old river-bed appears on dry ground. The Shilluks, armed with lances, and standing on the shore, shout again their “Habàba!” but we sail now, and they do not offer us anything, much as we should like to make use of their cows and wood; and besides there are two many of them. Groups of tokuls stand in a row. A quarter after twelve, continually E.S.E. Half-past twelve, S.E. by E.; to the left, E. The wind has changed, and is contrary; so we go E.S.E. The Shilluks also have sleeping-places, open at the top, wherein warm ashes form their beds, with which also they powder their hair, thereby making it look grey.