We were very early in motion, but a heavy thunder-storm which gathered from the south-east delayed our departure, although, taking into account the slow rate at which I was here obliged to travel, it was a matter of total indifference whether we started early or late, as I was quite in the hands of my friend the Waláti, who stopped wherever he had any business to transact, and did not set out again until he had concluded his bargain. The rain clouds then taking a more northerly direction, we at length set out, pursuing our track over the hilly country, and while we lost sight of the lake of Nyéngay on our left, soon discovered on our right another but smaller sheet of water called Gérru. The Nyéngay is said to be full of water all the year round; but the Gérru becomes dry in summer, when the inhabitants of Sarayámo repair hither in order to cultivate their rice-fields, the rice ripening with the rising waters, and being cut shortly before the river attains the highest state of inundation. Having left these interesting sheets of water behind us, we traversed a district more richly adorned with acacias, and crossed a valley where the siwák, or _Capparis sodata_ (a bush which I scarcely remembered to have seen since my return from Kánem), was growing in great exuberance, besides numbers of gerredh, or the useful _Acacia nilotica_, but we searched in vain for water. The country also which we traversed from here onwards was chiefly clothed with the _Capparis_ and the _Mimosa nilotica_, besides a good deal of dúm-bush; but, further on, we emerged from this undulating tract into an open swampy ground, at present tolerably dry, and covered with rich herbage, while we left on our right the site of the formerly important town Sáma-koira[80], which once lorded it over a considerable territory till it was destroyed by the Tawárek, when the remnant of its population escaped towards Bamba and Ghágo. In these open swampy meadow grounds, girt by a dense belt of gerredh, where no Arab would think of pitching his tent, was the encampment of the chief Somki, with his family and his followers (the tents of the kind I have described being just pitched), and his numerous herds of cattle grazing right and left, besides about twenty camels. We found the chief reclining on his “teshégit” or divan of reeds, and as soon as he beheld us, he rose and saluted El Waláti and me. He was a man of middle stature, and of tolerably stout proportions, his white beard, which looked forth from under the lithám, giving him a highly respectable appearance. He, however, did not show us any signs of hospitality, which vexed me the more, as, besides the considerable presents which I had sent to him a few days before, I had now again to make him another one, consisting of two túrkedís and a háf; but I soon found that he was not aware of the former presents having been sent by me.