A74 LETTERS TO DR. SCHWEINFURTH.

honey; we make famous candles of wax. In place of coffee we roast the seeds of Hibiscus sabdariffia, and I can assure you that the decoction from them is not at all bad—it may even be more wholesome and beneficial. Shoes are made here, and very elegant ones too. We only want cloth for clothing, for the damur manufacturers of Makraka have just gone over to the saints, that is, have run away. I have asked Mtésa to send us Zanzibar men with cloth, which I would contrive to eet from them by barter. I am still hoping, in spite of all the past events, that we shall at length be released by the arrival of a steamer from Khartiim; it would indeed be a shame if all Junker’s splendid collections were destroyed.

January 2, 1885.

I send you again my best and most hearty wishes for the New Year. Shall we be more fortunate this year than in that just ended? You and all the rest of the world have doubtless long ago counted us among the missing, but we seem to me to be quite invulnerable, and not at all likely to be found dead ; therefore I shall not resign the hope of sending you Junker safe and sound as a present some fine day. It has really gone very ill with him this time: the loss of his collections, a twelvemonth’s useless and unwished-for detention, privations of all kinds, no news from his relations, make up a very pretty list.

And yet I am glad that he came hither from the Bahr-el-Ghazal in time, and luckily escaped from that wasps’ nest, though, indeed, only to suffer and wait. It is a pity that the fine natural history collections from the Nyam-Nyam country are all lost, and cannot by any means be replaced.

I have little to tell you about ourselves. On December 2 there was a hard-fought battle near Amadi, lasting from early morning till noon, in which twelve of our officers and men were killed and eighteen wounded, most of them by spear-thrusts. This shows that the Agar Negroes had been summoned to the assistance of the Danagla, and had come in great numbers. Our men had stormed the camp of the enemy, and spread great destruction among them, but they were forced to give way on account of the superior numbers of the Negroes,