LOSS OF MY FLAG. 323 cipal village, and approached the territories of the Hassaniyehs.

The wind fell about ten o'clock, and the boat came to anchor. I awoke an hour or two after midnight and found it blowing again fresh arid strong ; whereupon I roused the r'ai's and sailors, and made them hoist sail. We gained so much by this move, that by sunrise we had passed the village of Shekh Moussa, and were entering the territories of the Hassaniyeh Arabs ; the last tribe which is subject to the Pasha of Soudan. Beyond them are the primitive Negro Kingdoms of Central Africa, in almost "the same condition now as they have been for thousands of years past. About sunrise the rais ordered the sails to be furled, and the vessel put about. The men were rowing some time before I discovered the cause.

Whilst attempting to hoist my flag, one of them let it fall into the water, and instead of jumping in after it, as I should have done had I seen it, suffered the vessel to go some distance before he even announced the loss. We were then so far from the spot, that any attempt to recover it would have been useless, and so the glorious stars and stripes whieh had floated thus far triumphantly into Africa, met the fate of most travellers in those regions. They lay imbedded in the mud of the White Nile, and I sailed away from the spot with a pang, as if a friend had been drowned there. The flag of one's country is never dearer to him than when it is his companion and protector in foreign lands.

During the whole forenoon we sailed at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, in the centre of the river, whose breadth varied from two to three miles. The shores no longer presented the same dead level as on the first day. They were