40 ROUTE TO HOUSA.

in the month of August, when it overflows in some places where the banks are low ; the water which overflows is seldom above midleg ; the banks are covered with reeds, with which they make mats. Camels, sheep, goats, and horses, feed upon the banks, but during the inundation are removed to the uplands. The walls of the huts both within and without are cased with wood to the height ofabout three feet, to preserve them from the water ; the wells have the best water after the swelling of the river. The flood continues about ten days ; the abundance of rice depends on the quantity of land flooded. He always understood that the Nile empties itself in the sea, the salt sea or the great ocean. There is a village at the port of Housa where he landed, the river here is much wider than where he embarked, and still wider at Jinnie. He saw no river enter the Nile in the course of his voyage. It much resembles the Nile of Egypt, gardens and lands are irrigated from it. Its breadth is various ; in some places he thinks it narrower than the Thames at London, in others much wider ; at the landing place they slept in the hut of a native, and next morning at sunrise set off for Housa, where they arrived in twelve hours through a fine plain without hills ; the country is much more populous than between Timbuctoo and the Nile. Ferry boats are to be had at several villages.