Note 6 — Chapter XXXI · FROM KHARTOUM TO EL METEMMA.

Dr. Constantine Reitz died about a year after my departure from Soudân, from the effects of the climate. He had been ill for some months, and while making a journey to Kordofan, felt himself growing worse so rapidly that he returned to Khartoum, where he expired in a few days. He was about thirty-three years of age, and his many acquirements, joined to a character of singular energy and persistence, had led his friends to hope for important results from his residence in Central Africa. With manners of great brusqueness and eccentricity, his generosity was unbounded, and this, combined with his intrepidity and his skill as a horseman and a hunter, made him a general favorite with the Arab chieftains of Ethiopia, whose cause he was always ready to advocate, against the oppressive measures of the Egyptian Government. It will always be a source of satisfaction to the author, that, in passing through Germany in September, 1852, he visited the parents of Dr. Reitz, whose father is a Forstmeister, or Inspector of Forests, near Darmstadt. The joy which they exhibited on hearing from their son through one who had so recently seen him, was mixed with sadness as they expressed the fear that they would never see him again—a fear, alas! too soon realized.