A quarter before one. From E. by N. A gohr on the right, and we go, at one o’clock, E.S.E. Half-past one. The river takes a direction before us to E., with some little inlets, so that we cannot see the lower shore. The wind blows strongly against us from E. We have but scanty fare, being without meat. I cannot deny _kew_ to myself now, for I really want it. Half-past two. E. by S. A Haba on the right, before it a lake connected with the river in front; the forest is upon a gentle declivity, and covered with shrubs, thorns, and dwarf-trees, even to the edge of the water. The shore also falls away gently to the river, near which it only rises a little above the narrow green margin of grass. We halt close to the right shore, owing to want of wood. The shore ascends to about fifteen feet high, where the trees begin, and is composed of nothing but mimosas, although the Nile very certainly does not flow over it; for the river has full play far away to the left. If we call these lakes, marshes, and reed-morasses, a longitudinal valley, enclosed as they are with the Nile between two high shores, which, however, do not ascend to the due height, the original shores perhaps lying still further by the irregular low line of mountains, or rather hills, it is plain that the same is gradually filled by alluvial deposits from the mountains of Bari, or from above, and an accumulation of vegetables, or the momentary sprouting forth of an corresponding kingdom of plants, must have soon followed the more important vegetable matter. As the sluices of the so-called valley pour into the great Nile, it must have falls on a level with the Nile itself, and has, therefore, dug a bed, and made an even slope to this side, after the stream had removed the first barriers or dikes of the high shores, which are now secure from any inundation. A river-bed, indeed, naturally becomes deeper when there is a proper fall and a regular conduit. The lower Nile has elevated its bed, because it has but few vents. Why could not the White River have a similar retrograde connection of water, which is prevented from flowing off, such as is the case, in the first place, near Khartùm? The Nile here might have been previously in majestic fullness, and flowed rapidly between the present old shores to Khartùm, until it created shallows and islands, where reeds and water-plants of every species sprang forth luxuriantly from the nearly stagnant water, and vehemently opposed the natural course of the river, seized the alluvial deposits from above in their polypi-arms, and rose to what we now see to be meadows and marshes.