A motley crowd, relieved by many a bright bit of colour, presented itself and formed a lively spectacle such as was scarcely to be expected to break in upon the monotony of an African landscape. We were received with a rattling salute from a number of rusty rifles, and there was every disposition to do the honours of our arrival in a becoming manner. Elegantly attired in an Oriental costume, Ghattas’s agent approached with the gestures of welcome, and proceeded to conduct me to the hut which for some weeks already had been prepared for my reception. For the first time I now observed that the area in the centre of the huts was surrounded by a lofty square palisade; through the narrow gateway of this, with lowered banners and amidst the sound of gongs and kettle-drums, our cavalcade passed on. With this chief Seriba are associated five smaller settlements in the adjoining Bongo country, and four more in remoter spots. It lies on the border-lines of the three races, the Dinka, the Dyoor, and the Bongo. From an insignificant beginning it had, in the course of thirteen years, increased to its present importance. A number of Gellahba, Nubian, and other merchants, had taken up their abode on large estates within its precincts; and here it was that they completed their purchases of slaves in order to carry them on to Darfur and Kordofan. The garrison was composed almost exclusively of natives of Dongola; there were, however, a few Sheigeah and men of Kordofan among them, and these, including the numerous _employés_ of Ghattas, made the resident armed force not much under 250 men. To these should be added some hundreds of slaves reserved for the market, or divided as part of their pay amongst the soldiers, and several hundreds more, male and female, who are in actual service. The aggregate population therefore of this establishment almost equals that of a small town, and amounts to at least 1000 souls. For two miles round the Seriba the land is partitioned into fields. Enclosed by dense bush forests, of which the trees rarely exceed forty feet in height, this wide expanse is industriously tilled by the natives who have settled in the vicinity, and furnishes the greater part of the annual supply of sorghum necessary for the garrison. Numerous little villages belonging to the three adjoining people are scattered all about, the fertility of the soil, so much above the average of the district, causing the proximity to the settlement to be held in high estimation. The surface-soil above the iron ore has a depth of three to four feet. The extreme productiveness of the luxuriant tropics is well exemplified in these fields, which for thirteen years have undergone continual tillage without once lying fallow and with no other manuring but what is afforded by the uprooted weeds. A like luxuriance is characteristic of the forests, which year after year, from the immediate vicinity, continue to supply the spreading colony with abundance of fuel.