216 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

that he could not speak. Joseph and I were, most probably, the only ones in all the camp wlio rejoiced tliat such liad Ijeen the dam's fate. The Gisser was done for !

In this way Avere all the fine plans of drying up the highly beautiful lands of the Haddenda and destroying their Silva Hercynia—or, as the Pascha (excusing himself to me) styled it, forming the dam into an immense reservoir, and so, selling the water to the Haddenda—if not for ever totally defeated, at least transferred to futurity.

Very soon the gohr was in flood, and the water extended up to the S. and W. points of the camp, while it overflowed the whole Dompalm forests, and from this arose general illness. The soil here is not so good as in Mohammed Din's country, and even in the lower fields, the duri-a does not reach the same height as in his lands. The Ilallenga have, therefore, less grain, fewer cattle, and camels ; but such of the last as they have, they have wisely hid from our si)oiler's eyes. A horse costs here fifteen or twenty reals or Theresa dollars. The Sugk or Bazaar is in the open streets of the village of Hauathi, on the Gohr-el-Gash, some half an hour's journey distant : milk, butter, honey, meat, and cotton goods are the main articles. Although, in former days, the barter of small articles was chiefly managed by means of durra, men now begin to know the value of Egyptian coin, and are shameless in their demands; for instance, for a bottle of milk, about three quarters of a quart, they will ask sixty fadda or paras, equal to one and a half piastres.

Gold, however, will not be taken, as men will not acknowledge its value, not holding it to be as good as the Okien that rich women Avear in their ears. The mats they make here are seventeen to eighteen feet long, three feet wide, and cost tAVO girsch, or piastres.

An immense quantity of monkeys are among the hills here ; Ave often, at first, counted troops of 200 or 300 of them on the slopes of the dome-shaped Kassela, ere the continued shooting in the camp frightened them ofl"; they are the size of a stout hound, and have shiny, dark broAvn skins and horrible faces. They are called here Chirt, and seem to be a species of k>/nokephalos. At night, is often heard, on the rocks above us, a fearful screaming and hoAvling, Avlien they receive a visit from some panther or leoi)ard. One day,