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The next day the Tchocadar Aga of his Highness the Viceroy of Egypt, who had arrived in our camp two months past, embarked in the canja of the Pasha Ismael to carry the documents of this important transaction to Cairo. For several days after our arrival at Sennaar, our camp was incommoded by furious squalls of wind, accompanied with thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain.
But from several points where the road approaches the river, I observed that it winded continually and contained many beautiful islands, some of them, particularly that named "Sibne," cultivated like gardens. The natives of this country had never seen a sail boat before the arrival of this Canja.
On the 17th, the courier carrying the information to Cairo of this expedition and its results, embarked in a canja to descend the river as far as Berber, from whence he would proceed by the desert to Egypt. Agreeably to the promise of the Pasha, I accompanied him. We arrived at Nousreddin in Berber in five days and nights.
Here we revelled in abundance of good fresh milk and eggs; and for dinner we had chicken canja and fat beef roasted on big wooden spits; and we even had watermelons.
17th. I passed over in the canja of the Pasha, to the east side of the river, to visit the capital of Berber, which is nearly opposite to our camp. On reaching the bank, it is a walk of half an hour through immense fields of durra, to come to the road that leads to the residence of the chief.
We saw great numbers of hippopotami, who, in the night, would lift their heads out of the water at no great distance from the canja. They were sometimes fired at, but without apparent effect. We stopped, during the night, for an hour at Shendi, to leave orders from the Pasha to a small garrison of Turkish troops stationed there.
Two of the Brazilian dishes were delicious: canja, a thick soup of chicken and rice, the best soup a hungry man ever tasted; and beef chopped in rather small pieces and served with a well-flavored but simple gravy. The mule allotted me as a riding-beast was a powerful animal, with easy gaits.
There was so much overflowed ground that it took us some little time this afternoon before we found a flat place high enough to be dry. Just before reaching camp Cherrie shot a jacu, a handsome bird somewhat akin to, but much smaller than, a turkey; after Cherrie had taken its skin, its body made an excellent canja.
At one camp Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beautiful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Luger belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook made a delicious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than which there is nothing better of its kind.
A canja, well manned and armed, and accompanied by another boat containing provisions for four or six months, and both furnished with grapnels to enable them at night to anchor in the river, might, in my opinion, ascend and return securely: as the tribes on its borders have great dread of fire-arms, and will hardly dare to meddle with those who carry them.
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