48 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

from Alexandria, availed me little, and wonld have been useless in Nubia, where either the Berber! language, or a different Arabic dialect is spoken ; and I therefore engaged a dragoman for the journey. This class of persons always swarm in Cairo, and I had not been there a day before I was visited by half a dozen, who were anxious to make the trip to Khartoum. How they knew I was going there, I cannot imagine ; but I found that they knew the plans of every traveller in Cairo as well.

I endeavored to find one who had already made the journey, but of all who presented themselves, only two had been farther than the second Cataract. One of these was a Nubian, who had made a trip with the Sennaar merchants, as far as Shendy, in Ethiopia ; but he had a sinister, treacherous face, and I refused him at once. The other was an old man, named Suleyman Ali, who had been for three years a servant of Champollion, whose certificate of his faithfulness and honesty he produced.

He had been three years in Sennaar, and in addition to Italian, (the only Frank tongue he knew), spoke several Ethiopian dialects. He was a fine, venerable figure, with an honest face, and I had almost decided to take him, when I learned that he was in feeble health and would scarcely be able to endure the hardships of the journey. I finally made choice of a dark Egyptian, born in the valley of Thebes. He was called Achmet el Saidi, or Achmet of Upper Egypt, and when a boy had been for several years a servant in the house of the English Consul at Alexandria. He spoke English fluently, as well as a little Italian and Turkish. I was first attracted to him by his bold, manly face, and finding that his recommendations were excellent, and that he had sufficient spirit, courage and address