VISIT TO THE CATHOLIC MISSION. 283 CHAPTER XXII.

VISITS IN KHABTOUM.

Visit to. the Catholic Mission— Dr. Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar— Moussa Bey-Visit to Lattif Pasha— Reception — The Pasha's Palace — Lions — "We Dine with the Pasha — Ceremonies upon the Occasion — Music — The Guests — The Pranks in Khartoum— Dr. Peney — Visit to the Sultana Nasra — An Ethiopian Dinner — Character of the Sultana.

On the day of my arrival, Dr. Reitz proposed a visit to Dr.

Knoblecher, the Apostolic Vicar of the Catholic Missions in Central Africa, who had returned to Khartoum about twenty days previous. The Vicar's name was already familiar to me, from the account of his voyage up the White Nile in 1850, which was published in the German journals during his visit to Europe, and it had been my design to propose joining his party, in ease he had carried out his plan of making a second voyage in the winter of 1852. He ascended as far as lat. 4° north, or about sixty miles beyond the point reached by D'Arnaud and Werne, and therefore stands at the head of Nilotic explorers.

Preceded by two attendants, we walked through the town to the Catholic Mission, a spacious one-story building in a large garden near the river. Entering a court, in the centre of