I sent the boat to the English shipwrights for repair, and these capital workmen turned it out in a few days nearly as good as new. The success of the dam was most complete. The river rose so as to overflow the marshes, which enabled us to push all the vessels up the channel without the necessity of deepening it by spade labour. "March 14.--Should we succeed in reaching Gondokoro without serious loss, it will be the greatest possible triumph over difficulties, which no one can understand who has not witnessed the necessities of the journey. "A diahbeeah arrived in the lake, breaking her yard in a sudden shift of wind, and giving a man a fall from aloft, which was fatal. "The steamer and fleet are coming through the sudd as fast as the troops clear the channel. "March 15.--The steamer arrived in the lake at 3.30 P.M. "March 16.--Thermometer, 6 A.M., 61 degrees; noon, 82 degrees. Eleven vessels entered the lake last night. The wind has been very variable for the last few days, and the true north wind appears to have deserted us; the absence of a fair breeze delays us sadly in pushing through the narrow channels against the stream. "Dysentery and scurvy are prevalent among the Egyptians. Four Egyptian soldiers and two Soudanis have deserted. Where these wretched fools intend to wander is quite a speculation;--they appear to have yielded to a temptation to run away upon the first dry land that they have seen for months. "The fleet assembled in the lake. The Egyptian troops cut a passage for fifty yards through a sudd in a channel through which the fleet must pass, as there is a shallow that will prevent them from taking the main course of the lake. "To-morrow the whole force will turn out and cut the remaining portion of about 300 yards; there will then be no difficulty except a sudd of about three quarters of a mile between the lake and the White Nile. "March 17.--We cut through the sudd, and all the vessels entered the broad waters of the lake and anchored in the evening opposite some native huts, close to the channel that we must open to-morrow. These huts are the first habitations that we have seen for more than two months;--they are now deserted by the frightened fishermen who had occupied them. "March 18.--The diahbeeah led the way at 7.30 A.M. through the channel that is closed by grass and the Pistia Stratiotes. At 10.15 we arrived in the White Nile. There is plenty of water throughout the closed channel, but there was some heavy work to clear the vegetation. "March 19.--All the vessels came through into the White Nile, and there was great rejoicing throughout the fleet. At length the men really believed that a country of dry land might lie before them, and that they were delivered from the horrible chaos or 'Slough of Despond' in which they had now laboured for sixty days.