220 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

After an hour's march through, well-cultivated land, "we entered a splendid forest, through which we marched at a quick pace, until we arrived at the beautiful river Biri, Avhich forms a sharp curve at the ferry where we crossed. It was forty-five yards broad and fifteen feet deep, and has a current of a knot and a half an hour. The banks were fully twenty feet above the water-level, and it is often bankful A good stout rope spans the river, to which is fastened a commodious ferry-boat, to prevent its being carried down the stream by the current. Four of our men were nearly drowned, for the boat was being pushed across on the up side of the rope, and was carried under it, the men being taken off their legs by the force of the water. At the ferry there was a very picturesque view ; gigantic rocks of fantastic shapes rose out of the water, and the brink of the river was fringed by enormoiis trees, from whose overhanging branches creepers drooped till they floated on the stream, and in a little break among the trees nestled the huts of the boatmen. In two hours we passed Gebel Doleb, a curious metamorphic rock, about 200 feet above the level of the plain, and so called from the number of doleb palms (Borassus) which grow here.

This was formerly a seriba, but it was burnt by Suleiman Bey, and all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, killed. Night came on and still we had more than three miles to march to the new