268 JOURNEY TO CENTRA*, AFRICA.

snowy sand, on the island of Aussee. Achmet went to the huts of the inhabitants, where he was kindly received and furnished with milk. I walked for an hour up and down the beautiful beach, breathing the mild, cool evening air, heavy with delicious odors. The glassy Nile beside me reflected the last orange-red hues of sunset, and the evening star, burning with a white, sparry lustre, made a long track of light across his breast. I remembered that it was my birth-day — the fourth time I had spent my natal anniversary in a foreign land. The first had been in Germany, the second in Italy, the third in Mexico, and now the last, in the wild heart of Africa. They were all pleasant, but this was the best of all.

When I returned to the vessel, I found my carpet and cushions spread on the sand, and Ali waiting with my pipe. The evening entertainment commenced : I was listening to an Arabian tale, and watching the figures of the boatmen, grouped around a fire they had kindled in a field of dookhn, when the wind came up with a sudden gust and blew out the folds of my idle flag. Instantly the sand was kicked over the brands, the carpet taken up, all hands called on board, and we dashed away on the dark river with light hearts. I rose before sunrise the next morning and found the wind unchanged. We were sailing between low shores covered with grain-fields, and a sandy island lay in front. The rais no sooner saw me than he called my attention to the tops of some palm-trees that appeared on the horizon, probably six or eight miles distant. They grew in the gardens of Khartoum ! We reached the jjoint of the broad, level island that divides the waters of the two Niles, and could soon distinguish the single minaret and buildings of the city. A boat, coming down from the White Nile, passed