AFTER having settled all our accounts at Berber, our caravan, reduced to about two-thirds of its original number, set out again on the afternoon of the 7th of April. Several of the merchants had returned to Egypt, others remained at Berber to sell their goods, as did also many Ababdes, who had their families there, and who intended to remain till the return of the caravan from Shendy. I was not sorry to leave Berber; for the character of the inhabitants is such, that a stranger can never consider himself safe for a moment amongst them. Several of the first people of the town advised me strongly to remain, and wait for the opportunity of proceeding with a Taka caravan; but alone, I should have been entirely at the mercy of the Meyrefab, who, no doubt, intended to plunder me; I therefore resolved to proceed as far as Shendy, where I thought I should be more likely to meet with a safe conveyance towards the Red Sea. We proceeded this evening about two miles through the sands, and stopped at the village of Goz el Funnye (قوز الفنّيه), belonging to Berber. Here we alighted in the court-yard of the house of a Fakir, a trader well known in Egypt, who entertained us hospitably, and asked for no presents. Whenever he visits Egypt, he quarters himself in like manner upon his acquaintance at Daraou. Late in the evening our host Edris paid us a last farewell visit, and insisted upon some further presents. After much disputing, he wrested from the Daraou traders a fine shield, worth eight dollars, the value of which we were obliged to pay him by a general contribution, in order to recover it.