Having crossed the third chain, we reached the great wady Amet, which is bounded on the north by Mount O-Kurr, a colossal mass visible as a landmark in the west for a whole day’s journey. The predominating rocks are greenstone in several varieties, although beautiful serpentine is far from infrequent. In one part of the valley rises a homogeneous mass of splendid porphyry nearly 1000 feet in height, brilliantly marked on its surface with veins of Indian red. From the prevaence in these mountains of greenstone, which no doubt often contains a grass-green stratum, the conclusion must not be drawn that green is at all a prevailing colour of the walls of rock. This is by no means the case; indeed, nearly all kinds of rock, however diverse they may appear when broken, are covered externally with an uniform dark brown, which obliterates all distinctive shades. In its interior the greenstone is unpolished and of bright colour. A superficial accretion, the cause of which remains hitherto unexplained, forms itself on every fragment and gives a coating about a millimeter thick, in colour not unlike a bright brown cake of chocolate. [Sidenote: BISHAREEN GOATS AND SHEEP.] In Wady Amet we lighted upon some sorghum-fields, which seem to have been planted out, like those at O-Mareg and Erkoweet, by way of experiment; but in reality they here represented the whole exertions of the idle inhabitants of the desert. Some primitive huts, heaped up in Cyclopean rudeness, bore witness to the stability of this rendezvous of native shepherds. We were here amply provided with milk and meat, goats and sheep being alike abundant in the neighbouring valleys. Camel-breeding is not carried on here so much as in the northern parts of Etbai, as the whole district of the Bishareen between the Nile and the sea is called; the breeders avoiding the proximity of the great roads through fear of the foraging and reprisals of the military. The goats of the country form a small race of their own and belong to the comprehensive variety which is called the Ethiopian. Differing from those of the Nile valley, they are again found among all the nomad people in the interior; the goats of the Dinka being a larger kind of the same character. The Ethiopian goat may be reckoned among the most agile and elegant of the race, and it might be called the climbing goat, since it prefers to feed on the young shoots of the acacia, and for that purpose often climbs up the slanting stems or low-growing branches. A large flock occasionally groups itself round a tree with pendant branches: in that case, the animals are rarely seen in any other position than standing upright on their hind legs, and give at a distance an impression that they must be a crowd of men. Others may be observed in grotesque attitudes, with legs straddling, hanging in mid-air, and weighing down the boughs of an acacia. [Illustration: A Bishareen Sheep.]