78 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

and in his despair would also have purchased a violin, if any could have been found in Siout. I had seen alligators on the Mississippi, and took the disappointment more complacently. The doum palm differs from the columnar date-palm in the form of its leaves, which are fan-like, and in having a branching trunk. The main stem divides a few feet from the root, each of the branches again forming two, and each of these two more, till the tree receives a broad, rounded top. The fruit hangs below in clusters, resembling small coooa-nuts, and has a sort of gingerbread flavor, which is not disagreeable. When fully dry and hard, it takes a polish like ivory, and is manufactured by the Arabs into beads, pipe bowls and other small articles. We approached the mountain of Aboufayda with a strong and favorable wind. Here the Nile, for upward of ten miles, washes the foot of lofty precipices, whose many deep fissures and sharp angles give them the appearance of mountains in ruin. The afternoon sun shone full on the yellow rocks, and their jagged pinnacles were cut with wonderful distinctness against the perfect blue of the sky. This mountain is con-Bidered the most dangerous point on the Nile for boats, and the sailors always approach it with fear. Owing to its deep sidegorges, the wind sometimes shifts about without a moment's warning, and if the large lateen sail is caught aback, the vessel is instantly overturned. During the passage of this and other similar straits, two sailors sit on deck, holding the sail rope, ready to let it fly in the wind on the slightest appearance of danger. The shifting of the sail is a delicate business, at such times, but I found it better to trust to our men, awkward as they were, than to confuse by attempting to direct them. At Djebel Shekh Said, the sailors have a custom of throwing two