cavities are seen in those boulders; one contained
sweet pure water in a basin fifty feet in circumference
and six to eight feet deep, which had been worn out
by the crumbling of ages.
During the months of June, July, August, and twelve
days of September, we had but one or two slight
showers of rain (in July), which were preceded by
dull cloudy weather every night, that prevented our
seeing a comet in the constellation of Ursa Major.
The sun rose and set in a haze, which obscured the
sky for 40°. During the day, unless the regular S.S.E.
wind blew very hard, a veil of mist lay about. This
wind from the S.E. was very unhealthy, making every
one sneeze, and giving hard coughs and colds. It
generally began about 8 a.m.; but by the 12th of
September it changed to a more easterly direction,
and brought with it beautiful clear weather. The
June mornings were piercingly cold, and at night the
naked boy who looked after the calves might always
be seen sleeping with his head pillowed upon them to
keep himself warm, and our Seedees would lie out for
the night with a sheet-covering, and a blazing fire at
their backs. By the end of June the trees had shed
their leaves. Nothing but evergreens were interesting
in the forest; the grasses had been burnt; the fields
lay in fallow baked in the sun, or were of powdered
dust, where cattle had trodden: the aspect was decidedly
wintry. In August the trees began to bud,
and the grasses, where they had been set on fire,
were sprouting with fresh leaves. I have alluded to
the S.E. wind being unhealthy'—not a man of us escaped
it. Speke suffered most dangerously from its
effects while separated for three months from me. His
heavy cough had been brought on by constant anxiety,
and by his walking about the country trying to persuade
men to lead, or proceed with us in o u t* journey
northwards. My fever came every second day from
the 29 th of May till the 4 th of July, lasting six hours,
making me feel weak and tottering. In July I had
colds, discharges of mucus from the nose, and a large
abscess burst all of which staved off fever for a time;
and I had only one or two attacks, of nine hours
each, during the two following months. In the intervals
of fever I generally managed to go for a stroll
with my gun to shoot a dove or guinea-fowl for the
sultan or myself. Of ten Seedees who formed my
body-guard, servants, &c., only half were generally fit
for duty, or, perhaps, four in ten, at this S.E. wind
season. Their complaints were of the. chest, cough,
fever, abscess, ulcers, and venereal (the sociccl evil was
evident every evening in the frequented part of the
village). Our medicine - chest was at every one’s
service, but some Seedees applied to an old-lady
doctor, who, instead of cure, brought tears and screams
from them whilst applying her remedies to ulcers,
bandaging them up with cow-dung and leaves to exclude
the air. To cure headaches, the men cut their
temples and rubbed in a paste of gunpowder. Blood
would scarcely appear, but the mark was indelible,
and the cure said to be complete.
The diseases observed amongst the inhabitants were
swollen legs, resembling elephantiasis, itch in children,
scales on the eyes, a few smallpox-marked and blind
people, one harelip, and a shrivelled infant without a
thumb. One blind man used to visit periodically, and,
without even the guide of a dog, knew every turn in