In some places amongst the grass-tangle I made an attempt to botanize, and out of the numerous holes I fished up a variety of most interesting plants. The Gazelle is specially noted for the beauty of its water-lilies (_Nymphæa stellata_ and _N. lotus_). Blossoms of these, in every variety of hue—white, blue, and crimson—well-nigh everywhere adorn the surface of the water; rooted below they project their long stalks and leaves through the apertures, like fishes, in the winter, to catch the air through holes in the ice. Should any one make a grasp at a blossom and fail to make good his hold, it may happen that the entire plant will make an elastic rebound and disappear beneath the grass. During the afternoon our course was N.W. and W.N.W., which is the general direction of the Gazelle throughout its lower half. The stream became wider again, the banks continuing to be lined by an impenetrable grass jungle. Remarkable dark-coloured water-birds (_Plotus melanogaster_) are found in considerable numbers upon the shores, intent upon making prey of small fishes. They settle upon the bushes, and one may every now and then be seen to make a sudden dive into the water, bring up a little fish in its beak, and resume its previous perch. Amongst the people of Khartoom this bird is called the “Ghattas,” a name which invested it with a special interest to me as being the name of my temporary protector. For some few days past, just before sunset, great masses of tiny green flies had made their appearance. Although these were in no respect injurious, yet the buzzing they made and the choking cough which was caused by their numbers were anything but agreeable. Shortly after dark they retreated, only to appear again in the early dawn. Much more pertinacious were the spotty-legged gnats, which now began to torment us when the nights were not cool enough to disperse them. Everybody on board had provided himself for protection with a sack made of calico in which he slept, the result of which was ordinarily a temperature of some 80° Fahr., about the same as a regular vapour-bath. These gnats did not buzz about with so loud a noise, but their sting was much more decided. They might not cause such a lasting itching as some of their northern kindred, but the knack they had of finding a way for their proboscis through the thickest cotton till it reached one’s skin, made it only possible to keep them off by means of mosquito-nets. But altogether I reckoned this visitation as hardly worth the notice of a traveller who had grown up amongst the gnats of the teeming marshes of the north.