259 boat, which, was just about putting off with a heavy load of natives.

We ran the boat to the shore, at a landing-place just above the palace. The banks of the river were covered with fields of cucumbers and beans, the latter brilliant with white and purple blossoms and filled with the murmuring sound of bees.

Achmet, the rais and I walked up to the capital — the famous Shendy, once the great mart of trade for the regions between the Red Sea and Dar-Fur. On the way we met numbers of women with water-jars. They wore no veils, but certainly needed them, for their faces were of a broad, semi-negro character, and repulsively plain. The town is built in a straggling manner, along a low, sandy ridge, and is upwards of a mile in length, though it probably does not contain more than ton thousand inhabitants. The houses are mud, of course, but rough and filthy, and many of them are the same circular to-Jcuh of mats and palm-sticks as I had already noticed in the smaller villages. The only decent dwelling which I saw had .been just erected by a Congolese merchant. There was a mosque, with a low mud minaret, but neither in this nor in any other respect did the place compare with El Mekheyref. The bazaar resembled a stable, having a passage through the centre, shaded with mats, and stalls on either side, some of which contained donkeys and others merchants. The goods displayed were principally blue and white cotton stuffs of coarse quality, beads, trinkets and the like. It was market-day, but the people had not yet assembled. A few screens of matting, erected on sticks, were the only preparations which had been made. The whole appearance of the place was that of poverty and desertion. Beyond the clusters of huts, and a mud wall,