On both sides of tills road was an almost continued succession of villages, which are built here in order to be out of the reach of the overflowing of the river, which almost every year here overspreads the country for one or two miles from its banks.  The land liable to this inundation is in part cultivated as well as any portion of Egypt, and in part devoted to feeding great numbers of fine horses, camels, dromedaries, kine, sheep, and goats, with which the country of the Berbers is abundantly stocked.

We marched on till nearly set of sun, without halting, when we arrived at the encampment of the Pasha; it was on our side [i.e. the west side] of the Nile, which here runs in its natural direction from south to north.  At five or six days march below it, it turns to the left, and describes, from above its turning point and Dongola, a track something resembling the following figure—­which is the reason why, in coming up the river from Dongola, we found it running from the north-east.  The length of this curious bend in the river Nile, never known to the civilized world before the expedition of Ismael Pasha, may be about two hundred and fifty miles long, the greater part of it all rocks and rapids.

The journey from our last encampment on the third cataract to the country of the Berbers, following the direction of the river, takes eight days of forced marches, but that by the desert, i.e. across the peninsula formed by the course of the river between the country of the Berbers and our last encampment, takes four days forced march.

The road from the place where we arrived at the river (in coming from the desert) up the country of Berber, lies generally on the edge of the desert, and outside of the fertile land lying between the river and the desert; of consequence we were rarely led to its banks so as to ascertain its course and appearance.  But from several points where the road approaches the river, I observed that it winded continually and contained many beautiful islands, some of them, particularly that named “Sibne,” cultivated like gardens.  I also observed that the river, at the lower extremity of the country of the Berbers, is much interrupted by rocks, and I have learned, since my arrival, that between the third cataract and the camp, the water is so low at this season that the Canja of the Pasha (probably the first boat that ever passed the third cataract of the Nile) was obliged to be lifted three times over shallow passages.

The natives of this country had never seen a sail boat before the arrival of this Canja.  They called it “a water mare” comparing it, by this appellation, to the swiftest animal with which they are acquainted.  They ran in, crowds to the river’s edge to see it mount the current without the aid of oars.

On the 13th, I had a private audience of the Pasha in the evening.  His Excellence received me as usual, and on my informing him of the circumstance which had prevented my accompanying his march from the cataract, he assured me that he would give orders, that, for the future, I should be furnished from the best of his own camels.  I preferred to his Excellence some requests, which he granted immediately, and on my retiring, requested me to present myself to him frequently.