TRAVELS OF BROWNE IN DAR FUR affairs when Mr. W. G. Browne arrived at Aswan in 1792.

This gentleman visited Eoypt with the view of travelling to Abyssinia in order to investigate a number of problems which had arisen in connection with Bruce's assertion that the Blue Nile was the true Nile, and of passing from Sennaar to the kingdom of Dar Fur on the west. He had heard that the slave-raiders of Fur sometimes extended their journeys for forty or fifty days to the south of their chief city, and was anxious to travel with them to the region of the Equator, which no white man had ever visited. At the same time he hoped to take the opportunity ot tracing the course of the Bahr al-Abyad, or "White Nile," which he believed rightly to be the true Nile, to its source, and of thus settling once and for all the vexed question. To do this work, however, Mr. Browne found to.be impossible, for on his arrival at .\swan he saw that the whole country was in a state of war, and the authorities would not allow him to proceed further south.

The following year Mr. Browne decided to visit the Sudan by means of the desert route to the west of the Nile, and as it was impossible for him to enter the kingdom of Sennaar, owing to the civil war which had broken out on the deposition and murder of the last king, he was forced to take the road which led from Egypt to Dar Fur, and hoped to obtain permission to travel to Sennaar later. During the winter of 1793 the Sudan caravan was being made up in Cairo, and on April 21st he left Bulak, the port of Cairo, and sailed to Asyut to join it. There he purchased five camels for £13 each, and on May 25th the caravan left Asyut, and set out on the road, which was practically that taken by Poncet about a century before. The caravan passed through the towns of Kharga. Biilak, Beris, and Mughess, the last inhabited spot in the Oasis of Kharga on the south, and reached Shabb after a journey of five days. The next halting place was the Oasis of Selima. The country between Shabb and Selima he describes as being rocky in places, and of a sombre colour.

At Selima Mr. Browne noticed the small building, made of loose stones, to which Cailliaud subsequently referred, and he mentions an old tradition current among the desert camel-men to the effect that in days of old it had been inhabited by a princess, who, like the Amazons, drew the bow and wielded the battle-axe with her 23