WE SET SAIL. . 319 Mahmoud I. for his execution of forty thousand Janissaries in one day.

Finally, on the morning of the 22d of January, my effects were all on board, and my rais and sailors in readiness. Achmet and Ali preceded me to the boat with many misgivings, for we were now going into regions where the Pasha's name was scarcely known — where the Egyptian sway had never reached — a land of Icaffirs, or infidels, who were supposed to he nearly related to the terrible " Nyam-Nyams," the anthropophagi of Central Africa. Achmet could not comprehend my exhilaration of spirits, and in reply to my repeated exclamations of satisfaction and delight, observed, with a shake of the' head : ': If it were not that we left Cairo on a lucky day, 0 my master ! I should never expect to see Khartoum again." Fat Abou-Balta, who had promised to accompany me as far as the first village on the White Nile, did not make his appearance, and so we pushed off without him. Never was name more wrongly applied than that of Abou-Balta (the " father of hatchets "), for he weighed three hundred pounds, had a face like the full moon, and was the j oiliest Turk I ever saw.

Dr. Reitz, whose hospitality knew no bounds, sent his dromedaries up the river the day previous, and accompanied me with his favorite servants — two ebony boys, with shining countenances and white and scarlet dresses.