ARRIVAL AT KHARTOUM. 269 as on the right, and another, bound for Khartoum, led us up the Blue Nile. The proper division between the two rivers is the point of land upon which Khartoum is built, but the channel separating it from the island opposite is very narrow, and the streams do not fully meet and mingle their waters till the island is passed.

The city presented a picturesque — and to my eyes, accustomed to the mud huts of the Ethiopian villages — a really stately appearance, as we drew near. The line of buildings extended for more than a mile along the river, and many of the houses were embowered in gardens of palm, acacia, orange and tamarind trees. The Palace of the Pasha had a certain appearance of dignity, though its walls were only unburnt brick, and his hareem, a white, two-story building, looked cool and elegant amid the palms that shaded it. Egyptian soldiers, in their awkward, half-Frank costume, were lounging on the bank before the Palace, and slaves of inky blackness, resplendent in white and red livery, were departing on donkeys on their various errands. The slope of the bank was broken at short intervals by water-mills, and files of men with skins, and women with huge earthen jars on their heads, passed up and down between the water's edge and the openings of the narrow lanes leading between the gardens into the city. The boat of the Governor of Berber, rowed by twelve black slaves, put off from shore, and moved slowly down stream, against the north wind, as we drew up and moored the America below the garden of the Catholic Mission. It was the twelfth of January : I had made the journey from Assouan to Khartoum in twentysix days, and from Cairo in fifty-seven.