At half-past one o’clock we navigate again to S.E., and a quarter before two to S. by E. We see that the forest lies lower than the shores, and that the water enters it. This local quality of ground is the case generally, perhaps, in the forests. Either they lie behind the dam of the old shore, which prevents the mass of waters of the periodical rains from flowing into the river, or the Nile enters through the chasms of the shores, if they do not lie in recesses or old river-beds, where the rain water collects and remains on the clayey substratum, which is the very same even as far as the mountains of Bari. How could it be possible else that these vigorous trees (the Tihl or elephant-tree is particularly seen here), should retain their magnificent verdure abstractedly from the atmospheric moisture. Two o’clock. The thermometer this morning 18°, noon 26°, and now 27° Reaumur. From S. to S.S.E. and soon again to S. The north wind has slackened since noon; we navigate slowly, and must even content ourselves with libàhn, for no one has yet thought of taming river buffaloes to tow us in the water itself. Laughable as this may appear at the moment, yet I do not consider it impossible, for according to the crew, a young hippopotamus is as tame as a calf. The apothecary Laskaris possessed shortly before my arrival in Khartùm such a Nile calf. He wanted to make a vast sum of money by it, for they had offered in England a reward of some thousand pounds sterling to any one who would bring a live hippopotamus to London. It is well known that a living species has never yet been seen in Europe. His avarice did not allow him, however, to place the beast in some garden close to the Nile; nor did he provide a cow and fresh milk. He was even foolish enough to lower it into the cold cistern, where it died in a few days. Although this primitive animal was formerly indigenous in Egypt, yet now it very rarely descends over the cataracts to that country. Mohammed Ali had received such a beast as a present from Upper Nubia, which was kept for some years as a curiosity in a reservoir in the Nile at Bulak, the lower port of Kàhira.