After a couple of days I took my departure from the huts of Gurfala, where a number of the Gellahba also have settled themselves, and I made my way over a short two leagues towards the west to Doomookoo, the fifth of the Ghattas Seribas. The route was over a firm soil, alternately bushwood and open steppe. The grass on the rocky level seemed to have a permanent character. All of one kind, and covering large tracts of country, it reminded me of the waving ears of our own cornfields. Although the region seems to be destitute of any continuance of trees, it far surpasses the European plains and meadow lands in the variety of its permanent grasses. About half-way there was a pond made by rain on the rocky ground, which was covered with the large red-headed geese of the Gambia and a number of widow-buntings. Only during the rainy season do these birds quit the waters of the great Nile and find their way to the interior. [Sidenote: MUNDO.] At Doomookoo I found the negroes all astir; an equipment was being made for an expedition to Gebel Higgoo, and, with the co-operation of Aboo Guroon, was to consist of a hundred armed men. Mukhtar, the captain of the troop, repeatedly assured me that he could reach his destination in about five days, and I was much disposed to accompany him. But there was in my way this obstacle, that I was obliged to get my correspondence off-hand; I had to write my letters for a whole year. The mountains Higgoo and Shetatah have been so denominated for some cause by the Nubians; Higgoo signifying a bandbox, and Shetatah being their name for cayenne pepper. They lie in a southerly direction from where we were, only a few leagues distant from that Mundo which is so often mentioned by Petherick; a spot which on every map is notoriously always pushed either backwards or forwards for several degrees, and originally, by those who professed to have visited it, was said to be situated on the Equator. The fact is, that Mundo is the name ordinarily given by the Bongo to a small tribe calling itself Babuckur, which has contrived to wedge in its position between the borders of the Bongo and the Niam-niam. On the eastern limit the Bongo denote the Niam-niam themselves by this name of Mundo. To the isolated hills of this border-land, such of the Bongo as could maintain their independence made good their retreat, and only in consequence of the contemplated expedition of the Khartoomers were they laid under tribute. During the present year the trading companies had established a number of settlements here amongst them, these advanced colonies being necessary for the security of the highways for traffic into the Niam-niam territory. Hitherto all the avenues for transit had been found liable to attack from the uncontrolled Bongo and from the Babuckur; but now the entire region was sequestered, and made a kind of preserve, on which the two companies could meet and monopolise their slave-plunder.