280 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

out of the streets. The opposite bank of the river is considered more healthy ; and in the town of Halfay, only ten miles distant, the average mortality is much less.

I was fortunate in reaching Khartoum at a very interesting period. All the principal shekhs of the different tribes between the Nile and the Bed Sea were then collected there, and as Dr. Reitz was on friendly terms with all of them, I had the opportunity of making their acquaintance, and could have readily procured a safe-conduct through their territories, if I had been disposed to make explorations in that direction.

During the summer there had been trouble in the neighborhood of Sennaar, and a general movement against the Egyptian rule was feared. In October and November, however, Moussa Bey made a campaign in the regions about and beyond the Atbara, and returned with the chief malcontents in chains. They were afterwards liberated, but had been retained in Khartoum until some disputed questions should be settled. On the night of my arrival, the consul received a visit of ceremony from the two principal ones : Hamed, the chief shekh of the Bisharees, and Owd-el-Kerim, son of the great shekh of the Shukorees, which inhabit the wide territory between the Atbara and the Blue Nile. They were accompanied by several attendants, and by Mohammed Kheyr, the commander of the Shygheean cavalry employed in the late expedition. The latter was a fierce-looking black in rich Turkish costume.

Hamed was a man of middle size, black, but with straight features and a mild, serious expression of face. He was dressed in white, as well as his attendant whose bushy hair was twisted into countless strings and pierced with a new wooden