Ill a few minutes the sheik drove the crowd away,
who picked up their man and led him off. The sheik
then -begged us to accept a hut for the night, and he
paid us every attention.
On the following morning, we left shortly after
sunrise; the natives very civilly assisted to load our
camels, and among the most active, was my fighting
friend of yesterday, who, with his nose and mouth
all swollen into one, had been rapidly converted from
a well-featured Tokroori into a real thick-lipped,
flat-nosed African nigger, with prognathous jaw, that
would have delighted the Ethnological Society.
“April 29.—It rained hard during the night. Our
course was due west, along the banks of a hor, from
which the natives procure water by sinking wells
about twelve feet deep in the sandy bed, which is dry
in the hot season. Throughout this country the water
is bad. At 11 a.m. we reached Roumele; this is
the last village between Gallabat and 'the river
Rahad. The natives say that, there is no water on
the road, and their accounts of the distance are so
vague and contradictory that I cannot rely upon
the information.
“ I could procure only one water-skin, and none
of my old stock were serviceable; I therefore arranged
to water all the animals, and push on- throughout the
night, by which plan I hoped to arrive by a forced
march at the Rahad on the following morning, without
exhausting both men and beasts by a long journey
through an unknown distance in the heat of the sun.
Hardly were the horses watered at a well in the dry
bed of the stream, when Aggahr was taken ill with inflammation.
I left two men ter attend upon him, with
orders to bring him on if better on the following day :
we started on our journey, but we had not proceeded
a quarter of a mile when Gazelle, that I was riding, was
also seized with illness, and fell down; with the
greatest difficulty I led the horse back again to the
village. My good old hunter Aggahr died in great
agony a few minutes after our return, and Gazelle died
during the night; the natives declared this to be the
horse sickness that was annually prevalent at this
season. The disease appeared to be inflammation of
the bowels, which I attributed to the sudden change of
food ; for months past they had lived principally upon
dry grass, but within the past few days they had
greedily eaten the young herbage that had appeared
after a few showers ; with this, may have been poisonous
plants that they had swallowed unawares. We had
now only one horse, Tdfcel, that was ridden by my wife;
I therefore determined to start on foot on the following
morning, and to set the pace at four miles an hour,
so as to reach the Rahad by a forced march in one
rapid stretch, and thus to eke out our scanty supply of
water. Accordingly we started, and marched at that
rate for ten hours, including a halt when half-way, to
rest for one hour and a half. Throughout the distance,
the country was a dead flat of the usual rich soil,
covered with mimosa forest. We marched thirty-four
miles, steering due west for a distant hill, which in