that in liis violent rushes he would take sixty or
seventy yards of line without my permission. I
could not check him, as the line burnt and cut
my fingers to such a degree that I was forced to
let it go, and my only way of working him was to
project the butt of rod in the usual manner; this
was a very feeble break upon the rush of such a
fish. At last, after about half an hour of alternate
bullying and coaxing, 1 got him into the shallows,
and Bacheet attempted to manage him ; this time
he required the assistance of Wat Gamma, who
quickly ran down from the camp, and after much
struggling, an enormous baggar of between seventy
and eighty pounds was hauled to the shore by the
two delighted Arabs.
“ I never enjoyed the landing of a fish more than
on the present occasion, and I immediately had the
flag hoisted for a signal, and sent the largest that
I had just caught as a present to Florian and his
people. The two fish as they lay upon the green
reeds, glittering in silvery scales, were • a sight to
gladden the eyes of a fisherman, as their joint weight
was above one hundred and twenty pounds. I caught
another fish in the evening something over twenty
pounds, au ugly and useless creature, the coor, that I
despised, although it is a determined enemy while
in play.
“ October 10 — Set fire to the low spear grass of
the valley. The river is now very low, exposing in
many places large beds of shingle, and rocks hitherto
concealed. The water level is now about thirty feet
below the dried sedges and trash left by the high
floods upon the overhanging boughs. The bed of
the Atbara, and that of the Settite, are composed of
rounded pebbles of all sizes, and masses of iron ore.
Large oysters, resembling the pearl oysters of Ceylon,
are very numerous, and, from their internal appearance,
with large protuberances of pearl matter, I
should imagine they would most probably yield
pearls.
“ The wild animals have now deserted this immediate
neighbourhood; the only creatures that are to
be seen in numbers are the apes and monkeys : these
throng the sides of the river, eating the tamarinds
from the few large trees, and collecting gum from
the mimosas. These hungry animals gather the
tamarinds before they ripen, and I fear they will
not leave a handful for u s; nothing is more
agreeable, in this hot climate, than the acidity of
tamarind water. I remarked a few days ago, when
walking along the dry sandy bed of the Till about
five miles from the river, that the monkeys had
been digging wells in the sand for water.
“ Many changes are now taking place in the arrival
and departure of various birds according to their
migrations ; immense numbers of buzzards and hawks
have arrived, and keep my fowls in perpetual
alarm. Ducks fly in large flocks up stream Invariably,
every day ; storks of different kinds are arriving.
Among the new comers is a beautiful little bird,