At a short distance from the hamlets, we came to a great number of new tombstones, in the desert, the melancholy proofs of the terrible ravages of the small-pox. According to the Nubian custom, and which I had already observed in the Berábera country, every tomb was covered with white pebbles, and pieces of quartz. The plain of the eastern desert is here interrupted by several sandy and gravelly hillocks. At the end of four hours, after passing through a wood of acacia trees, we reached the river Mogren (مُقرن), not Mareb, as Bruce writes it, a name quite unknown here. After descending a high bank, we passed for at least a mile, over deep sands in the bed of the river, and then came to a pool of stagnant water, about twenty paces broad, where the water reached up to the ankle: in many places there were similar pools, but no where any running stream. I estimated the height of the banks at thirty feet, and I observed the high-water marks to be about twenty feet from the bottom, from whence it is evident that this river can never inundate the adjacent country; indeed this fact was confirmed by my companions, who told me that during the time of high-water they pass the river in a boat brought from Damer for the purpose, and that they had never seen the country on either side of the river inundated, except by the waters of the Nile. The verdant banks of the Mogren, covered with fresh herbage and tamarisk bushes, afforded a delightful scene, which I was permitted to enjoy for a full hour, as many of the camels, in ascending the steep banks on the south side of the river, stumbled, and threw their loads, thus occasioning a delay. The Mogren forms the boundary between the territories of Ras el Wady and Damer. On its southern banks several water-wheels were at work, drawing up the water from some of the pools. The regular distribution of the fields, and the small channels for irrigation, shewed that agriculture is here more attended to than in the districts we had passed. The banks of the Mogren, for about two days journey above its confluence with the Nile, are inhabited by the Arabs, or Bedouins Djaalein (جاعلين); they are quite independent, and their tribes are widely spread over these countries as high as Sennaar. They are the strongest Arab tribe in this neighbourhood; they cultivate some Dhourra fields on the banks of the river, and feed many cattle.