From Gondokoro Alexina Tinné returned without delay to Khartûm, where she received the congratulations of the European community; but her rest was not of long duration. She had nothing of the lotos-eater in her temperament, and could find contentment only in action. Hers was the true traveller’s character—energetic, active, daring, tenacious, with an insatiable thirst for new scenes. Thwarted in her first design, she immediately took up another. She would ascend the great western tributary of the Nile, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, explore the streams which feed it, and penetrate into the land of the Nyam-nyam, of whom Doctor Heughlin has furnished so interesting an account. Her preparations were soon completed. This time she and her mother—her aunt remained at Khartûm—did not travel alone; their expedition was reinforced by three experienced travellers, Doctor Heughlin, the naturalist, Doctor Steudner, and Baron d’Ablaing. The first two started in advance, so as to open up the route for the adventurous Alexina, who, with her mother and Baron d’Ablaing, quitted Khartûm at the end of February, 1863, in command of a flotilla composed of a steamer, a sailing-vessel, and several small boats. Heughlin, who had set out some days before, passed, on the 31st of January, the Gebel Tefafan, a lofty mountain which rises at no great distance from the river. He reached Lake Nû—a point from which the voyager has more than two hundred miles to accomplish across the Bahr-el-Ghazal. At that time of the year the river in many places is as narrow as a canal, though on both sides bordered by a swampy plain, which stretches further than the eye can see, and bears a thick growth of gigantic reeds. At other places it deepens into considerable lakes. The natives navigate it in light canoes, which they manage with much dexterity. They sit astride the stem, with their legs hanging down in the water; and if they fall in with no branches capable of being converted into oars, they row with their hands. The Nouers, who inhabit this land of marsh and morass, furnish an apparent exemplification of the Darwinian theory: by a process of natural selection they have become thoroughly adapted to the conditions of a soil and climate which would rapidly kill off an unaccustomed population. Their muscular strength is remarkable; and they are a race of Anaks, averaging from six to seven feet in height. Alexina Tinné records that, in spite of the heat of a tropical sun, and the attacks of swarms of insects, they would stand erect, with lance in hand, on the summit of the mounds thrown up by termites, anxiously watching the steamer and the boats in tow as they passed by swiftly and steadily, against wave and current—a type, shall we say? of the irresistible progress of civilization.