The Nile voyage below Shendi was, however, rich in the charms of scenery. This was especially applicable to the views afforded by the river islands. These islands were so many throughout the whole extent of the sixth cataract between the island of Marnad and the lofty mountain-island of Royān, “that no one pretends to know their precise number, and the sailors call them in consequence the ninety-nine islands.” The landscapes on shore afforded the traveller a treat “which no other river voyage could surpass.” Splendid groups of acacias, in three varieties, with groves of ‘holy-thorn,’ overgrown by the hanging foliage of graceful climbers, made the profusion of islands set in the surface of the water appear like bright green, luxuriant, and gay tangles. “Wildly romantic on the contrary, reminding one of the Bingerloch on the Rhine, are the narrow straits of Sablu where the Nile, reduced to a deep mountain stream, flows between high, bare granite walls that rise to several hundred feet. “So much the more surprising appeared the breadth which the Nile exhibited above this cataract, where it displays itself in a majesty which it has long lost in Egypt. Below their confluence, the waters of the Blue and the White Nile are distinctly visible many miles apart. It is highly probable that at certain times the level of the streams might show a difference of several feet; the proposed establishment of a Nilometer should therefore take place below the confluence, in order that with the help of the telegraph accurate intelligence of its condition might be remitted to Cairo.” Schweinfurth reached Khartum on the 1st of November, 1868. He left that place in January, 1869, for the Bahr-al-Ghazal. Of his voyage up the White Nile he writes:-- “As the morning sun fell upon the low, monotonous shores of the flowing river, it seemed at times almost as though it were illuminating the ocean, so vast was the extent of water where the current ran for any distance in a straight and unwinding course.... The districts along the shore mostly retained an unchanging aspect for miles together. Rarely does some distant mountain or isolated hill relieve the eye from the wide monotony.... The attention is soon attracted by the astonishing number of geese and ducks which are seen day after day. The traveller in these parts is so satiated with them, fattened and roasted, that the sight creates something akin to disgust. The number of cattle is prodigious: far as the eye can reach they are scattered alike on either shore, whilst, close at hand, they come down to the river-marshes to get their drink. “The stream, as wide again as the Nile of Egypt, is enlivened by the boats belonging to the shepherds, who row hither and thither to conduct their cattle, their dogs in the water swimming patiently behind.”