In the winter of 1895, though we still wished to continue our investigations in Arabia, we found it impracticable, owing to the warlike state of the tribes there, so we decided to turn our attention to the other side of the Red Sea, and travel once more in Africa.

Parts of Africa have to be discovered and other parts rediscovered. Each little war and each little journey contributes to the accomplishment of both these ends with surprising rapidity, but the geographical millennium is looming in the distance when the traveller will no longer require his sextant and theodolite, but will take his spade and pruning-hook to cultivate the land this generation is so busy in discovering.

That winter we added a few square miles to a blank corner of the map where re-discovery was necessary, and where re-discovery will go on apace and produce most interesting results, when we have finished conquering the barbarous followers of the Khalifa, and restore law and order to that wide portion of Africa known as the Eastern Soudan; for the Soudan, meaning in Arabic 'the country of the blacks,' really extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Little did we think when we started to explore the western shores of the Red Sea that the explosion with the Dervishes was so near, otherwise I think we should have turned our steps in another direction.

We had with us Mr. Alfred Cholmley, who took numbers of beautiful photographs, and Lieutenant, now Captain, N. M. Smyth, D.S.O., Queen's Bays, kindly attached to our expedition by Colonel Sir F. Wingate, and to his exertions we owe the map.

My husband had always thought it foolish to engage an interpreter unknown to him, on his own responsibility, and would only have one recommended by the official of our Government. The choice made for us on this occasion was not at all successful. He tried to make out that he was the principal leader of the party, and his impedimenta far exceeded ours. He may or may not have been sent to keep us from going more than ten miles from the coast, but no explorer would wish to remain within the limits set down in the Admiralty Chart. My husband found it necessary to dispense with his services when we were at Mersa Halaib, and we got on far better without him.

Our first task was to choose a ship; it was exciting work rowing about in the harbour of Suez in order to find one that would suit us.

A letter from our interpreter had told us we could have one at 120l. a month, a sum which our great experience of sailing-boats told us was quite too large. When we started our search, having refused this, we were only shown wretched boats in which we could hardly sit and certainly not stand. We espied one we thought would do, and said nothing at that time, but afterwards my husband and Matthaios went off by themselves and engaged her for 35l. a month, and I do not think that a better ship was to be found in Suez—certainly there was none worth 120l.

Our boat was an Arab dhow of 80 tons, named the Taisir; we at once put her in the hands of a carpenter, who boarded off two cabins for us four whites, in the big, open stern cabin, leaving a sort of verandah in front of them, about 8 feet in depth, where we lived by day. Campbell Bey, who lives at Terre Pleine, pronounced by the English Terry Plain, kindly lent us two water-tanks containing half a ton each.

We embarked late on Christmas night, and by the murky light of lanterns the ship looked most dreary and uninviting; but when we had furnished it, by laying down our tent carpet and beds and hanging sheets of coloured calico over the gaping boards of our walls, and had put up the cabin bags, we were quite snug. We always had to close in our verandah with a sail at night, for when the ship swung round at anchor we were exposed to the north wind.

Our captain, Reis Hamaya, turned out an excellent fellow, as also did the seventeen sailors he had under him; and though at times they would quarrel loudly enough amongst themselves, the only points of discord which arose between them and us always had reference to the length of time they wished to stop in harbour and the length of distance they wished to go in a day. Ill-fed, dirty, unkempt men as our sailors were, we got to like them all, from the elderly dignified Mohammed, who thought he knew more about navigation than the captain, to Ahmet Faraj, the buffoon who played the tom-tom and made everybody laugh; this worthy individual was the recognised leader of all the festivities with which they regaled us from time to time, consisting of very ugly songs and a yet uglier dance, the chief art in which consisted in wagging their elastic tails with an energy which mortals further removed from monkey origin could never hope to approach.

We travelled all the first night, but the second we anchored near Safaia Island, and the third at a place called Sheikh Ganem, in front of the Ashrafi Light, and the fourth day found us at Kosseir, which means 'little castle.' The Government steamer Abbas, which had started one day after us and gone straight down 'outside', had only got in two hours before us, and we had been 'inside', through the reefs, and stopped all night, so we thought we had not done badly.

We stayed two nights in the harbour to make our final victualling arrangements. Kosseir, our last really civilised point, is now a wretched place, though twice in its existence it has been of importance, owing to its road connection with Keneh on the Nile. Five miles to the north of the present town are the ruins of the old Ptolemaic one, Myos Hormos (Kosseir Kadim), where the Red Sea fleets in ancient days assembled to start for India; twenty years ago it was a favourite point for the departure of pilgrims for Mecca, and the P. and O. had offices there, which are now turned into camel-stables. Kosseir is waiting for a railway before it can again recoup its fortunes.

There are two mosques of pretty architecture, with courses of dark red stone from Keneh, and white Kosseir limestone; there are also diaper and fretwork patterns; the pillars are similarly decorated and are quaint and picturesque. The tombs of the Ababdeh sheikhs have melon-shaped domes, and there are endless dovecotes, chiefly made of broken old amphorÆ built into walls.

Along the whole coast-line from Kosseir to Sawakin one may say that there are no permanent places of residence, if we except the tiny Egyptian military stations, with their fort and huts for the soldiers, at Halaib, Mohammed Gol, and Darour; it is practically desert all the way, and is only visited by the nomad Ababdeh and Bisharin tribes, when, after the rains, they can obtain there a scanty pasturage for their flocks. During the Ptolemaic and early Arab periods the condition of affairs was very different; several considerable towns stood on this coast, now marked only by heaps of sand and a few fallen walls. In spite of its aridity, this coast has a wonderful charm of its own; its lofty, deeply serrated mountains are a perpetual joy to look upon, and the sunset effects were unspeakably glorious, rich in every conceivable colour, and throwing out the sharp outline of the pointed peaks against the crimson sky.

The nature of this coast-line is singularly uniform, and offers tremendous obstacles to navigation, owing to the great belt of coral reefs along it, through which the passage was often barely wide enough for our dhow to pass, and against which on more than one occasion we came in unpleasant contact. The bay of Berenice, for example, was for this reason known in ancient times as ἀκἁθαρτος κὁλπος, and is still known as 'Foul Bay'; it can only be navigated with the greatest care by native pilots accustomed to the various aspects of the water, which in many places only just covers the treacherous reefs. All boats are obliged to anchor during the night either just inside the reefs or in the numerous coves along the coast, which are caused by the percolations of fresh water through the sandbeds of rivers into the sea, and these prevent the coral insect from erecting its continuous wall.

The rapidly succeeding little harbours formed in the coral reef are called mersa, or anchorage, by the Arabs, from mersat, anchor.

Sometimes when the coral reef rises above the surface low islets have been formed, with sandy surface and a scant marine vegetation. By one of these, named Siyal, we were anchored for a night, and on landing we found it about three miles in length, some 50 feet in width, and never more than 4 feet above the surface of the sea. On its eastern side the shore was strewn with cinders from the numerous steamers which ply the Red Sea, and quantities of straw cases for bottles, out of which the ospreys, which live here in large numbers, have built their nests. Turtles revel in the sand, and corals of lovely colours line the beach, and at one extremity of the islet we found the remains of a holy sheikh's hut, with his grave hard by. Many such holy men dwell on promontories and on remote island rocks along this coast in sanctified seclusion, and they are regularly supported by the Bedouin and pearl-fishers, who bring them food and water, neither of which commodities is to be found in such localities. Our sailors on New Year's Eve took a handsome present of bread and candles, presented to them by us, to a holy man who dwelt on the extreme point of Ras Bernas, and had a long gossip with him concerning what boats had passed that way and the prospects of trade—i.e. the slave trade—in these desert regions. They burnt incense before his shrine, and the captain devoutly said his evening prayer, whilst he of the tom-tom, Ahmet Faraj, stood behind and mimicked him, to the great amusement of his fellows—a piece of irreverence I have never seen before in any Mohammedan country. Still I think our sailors were as a whole religious; they observed their fasts and prayers most regularly during Ramazan, and their only idea of time was regulated by the five prayers. 'We shall start to-morrow at "God is great," and anchor at the evening prayer,' and so forth, they used to say.

It is difficult to estimate how far these coral reefs have changed since ancient days; there is a lagoon at Berenice which looks as if it had been the ancient harbour with a fort at its extremity. Now there are scarcely two feet of water over the bar across its mouth; but all ancient accounts bear testimony to a similar difficulty of navigation down this coast. At the same time, it is manifest that this coast-line is just the one to have tempted on the early mariners from point to point, with its rapid succession of tiny harbours and its reefs protecting it from heavy seas. More especially must this have been the case when the boats were propelled by oars, and in one's mind's eye one can picture the fleets of the Egyptian Queen Hatasou and of King Solomon from Eziongeber creeping cautiously along this coast and returning after three years' absence in far distant regions laden with precious freights of gold, frankincense, and spices. In later days Strabo and Pliny tell us how flotillas of 120 ships proceeded from Myos Hormos to Okelis in thirty days on their way to India, going together for fear of the pirates who marauded this coast, and in those days the settlements on the Red Sea must have presented a far livelier aspect than they do now.

On both shores we find a curious instance of the migration and adaptation of an entirely foreign kind of boat. Some Arabs who have lived in Singapore—and Singapore is as favourite a point for Arab emigration as America is for the Irish—introduced 'dug-outs' in their native harbours, and these have been found so useful in sailing over the shallow coral reefs in search of pearls, that they now swarm in every Red Sea port, and steamer-loads of 'dug-outs' are brought from the Malay peninsula. The Arabs call them 'houris'—why, I cannot think—for a more uncomfortable thing to sit in, when half full of water in a rolling surf, I never found elsewhere, except on a South-East African river.

At the present moment the coast below Ras Bernas and above Sawakin is the hot-bed of the slave trade, carried on between the Dervishes of the Nile Valley and Arabia. Regular Egyptian coastguard boats keep matters pretty clear north of Ras Bernas, and we can testify to their activity, for we ourselves were boarded and searched by one; but south of this, before the influence of Sawakin is reached, there is a long stretch of country where the traffic in human flesh can be carried on undisturbed. Troops of slaves are sent down from the Nile valley to the Dervish country at certain seasons of the year, and the petty sheikhs along the coast, owing a doubtful allegiance to the Egyptian Government, connive at this transport; and the pearl-fishing craft which ply their trade amongst the coral reefs are always ready to carry the slaves across to the opposite coast, where the markets of Yembo, Jeddah, and Hodeida are open to them. This will, of course, be the case until the Dervish power is crushed, and the Soudan opened out for more legitimate trade. As we sailed along we passed hundreds of these pearl-fishing boats engaged in this dual trade, and nothing could be more propitious for their pursuits than the absolutely lawless condition of the tribes by the coast. At Berenice, for instance, there are absolutely no government or inhabitants of any sort. Nominally, one of our Nile frontier subsidised sheikhs, Beshir Bey Gabran, of Assouan, has authority over all the country between the Nile and the Red Sea, but the coast has been visited more frequently by Dervish emirs than by Beshir Bey. One Nasrai, a Dervish emir, is said to have resided in the mountains behind Berenice for some time past, and, with a small following, collects tithes of cattle from the nomads and sees to the safe conduct of slave caravans. The collecting of yusur, or black coral, as they call it, a fossilised vegetable growth, is a third trade in which these boats are employed. From this pipes are made, and beads, and the black veneer for inlaying tables.

The navigation of an Arab dhow is no easy task, with its clumsy arrangements for sails, when there is a strong north wind behind it and reefs in every direction. Three men are perpetually in the bows on the look out for rocks, and indicate the presence of danger to the steersman by raising their hands. The gear of these boats is exceedingly primitive. They do not understand reefing a sail, hence they are obliged to have no less than five different sizes, which they are constantly changing as occasion requires. They use a clumsy cogwheel for raising and lowering the sails, and do it all by main force, singing silly little distiches and screaming at the top of their voices as they haul the ropes. The arrangement for baling out the bilge water is extremely laborious. A large trough, with channels on either side, is erected in the centre of the boat, into the middle of which the water is baled by skins from below, and the stenches during the process are truly awful, as the water flows out of either channel, according to the roll of the ship. There was always a large surface of wet wood to dry up.

Leaving Kosseir on the last day of 1895, we reached Ras Bernas on the second day of 1896, stopping, of course, each night, always rolling and tossing about, and always keeping a sharp look out for coral reefs, the watchers shouting advice continually to Reis Hamaya.

We were supposed to owe our safety in getting through some dangerous reefs, with not a yard to spare on either side, and escaping our other difficulties, to the lucky fact of Reis Hamaya's having discovered amongst the plants that my husband had collected in our walks ashore one of the order of CompositÆ, which he pounced on gladly and hung on the bow of the Taisir, as a protection to us.

He pointed out another thing, a shrub called tuldum, with tiny yellow flowers on green stalks, good to tie round the arm to make one see far.

Ras Bernas is a long, wandering cape composed of rocky hills of ironstone and silicate curiously blended together, with shoals and rocks, and coral reefs, and sandbanks hanging on to it in very shallow water. It is about twenty-five miles long, and ends in a sandy spit.

We encamped at the head of the lagoon, and spent several days amongst the ruins of this old Ptolemaic town of Berenice, and made sundry excavations there. In its centre is an old temple of the date of Tiberius CÆsar, the hieroglyphs in which are rapidly becoming obliterated. All around is a sea of mounds covered with sand, where the houses stood, mostly built of madrepore, and laid out in streets. On the surface are to be found numerous glass beads, Roman coins, bracelets, &c. and a great number of fragments of rough emeralds. From the celebrated emerald-mines in the mountain behind we picked up fully fifty of these, besides a large quantity of olivines or peridots, cornelians, and crystals, testifying to the wealth of these parts in precious stones in ancient days.

A few startled Ababdeh nomads came to visit us; at first they only inspected us at a distance, but gradually gained courage and came to our camp, and we were able to purchase from them two lambs to replenish our larder.

With its emerald-mines, its harbour, and its great road terminus Berenice must have been one of the most important trade centres of the Red Sea; though, judging from the plans of the streets we made out, the town cannot have been a very large one. In digging we turned up immense quantities of textiles in scraps, fine and coarse, nets, knitted work, as well as weaving, plain and in colours, and bits of papyrus in Greek cursive hand. The wretched Ababdeh tribes were constantly at war with one another, and the Dervish Khalifa could make his authority felt about here with a small handful of resolute men judiciously placed. Nasrai had, I believe, done this for some time past with only thirty men.

The nights here were very cold, the thermometer going down to 46° F. There were a few gazelles about, but we saw no other animals.

The Bedouin brought us large shell-fish in those great shells we see polished at home. When boiled the fish comes out. It is in shape like a camel's foot, and they call it ghemel. In taste it is like lobster and oyster combined, but as tough as pin-wire.

We had a great tossing for three days after leaving Berenice, and stopping every night.

CHAPTER XXIV

HALAIB AND SAWAKIN KADIM

It is hard to imagine anything more squalid than the Egyptian fortress of Halaib, as it is spelt on the map, or Halei as it is pronounced, which was our next halting-place, and from which we succeeded in getting a little way inland. The governor, Ismael, has been there seven years; he and his family inhabit some wicker cages near the small white fort, and gathered round them are the huts of his soldiers and the cabins of a few Bisharin, who live under the immediate protection of the fort. Ismael is possessed of the only patch of cultivated land that we saw during the whole of our expedition, where he grows gourds, peas, and aubergines or brinjols. The man of most authority in the place is Mohammed Ali Tiout, head of the Bisharin tribe of Achmed Orab. He appointed his son, a fine, intelligent young fellow of five-and-twenty, called the batran in the local dialect, to act as our guide and protector during our exploration of the Shellal range, which rises some miles inland at the back of Halaib.

The people of this portion of the Soudan between the coast and the Nile Valley, who do not own allegiance to the Khalifa, belong to the Morghani confraternity of Mohammedans; their young religious sheikh, a self-possessed, clever lad of about twenty, lives at Sawakin, and his influence amongst the tribes not affecting Mahdism is supreme. He is devoted to British interests, and no doubt in the present condition of affairs his co-operation will be of great value. The Egyptian Government instructed him to write to the sheikhs around Halaib and Mohammed Gol to insure our safety, and to this fact I am convinced we owe the immunity from danger we enjoyed, and the assistance given to us in penetrating inland from Mohammed Gol. The Morghani have the three cicatrices on either cheek, and as a confraternity they are not in the least fanatical, and are well disposed to Christians; very different to the Arabs we met in the Hadhramout, and very different to the Dervishes with whom they are on such hostile terms.

While at Halaib I paid several visits to the wife and family of the mamour or governor. They were very civil always, and used to kiss me. They looked quite as unsettled in their airy brushwood arbours as if they had not resided there steadily for seven years.

There were three huts about 12 feet by 8 feet, one being a kitchen. There is a brushwood fence all round, part having a shed for the stores and water jars. The wife is a Turk, and has one plain grown-up daughter. There was an old lady who made coffee, and a black maid slightly draped in a sheet once white, but now of a general deep grey, pure black in some parts. I liked getting coffee and ginger best. The first day I had to swallow, smiling, tea boiled and a little burnt.

All the furniture I saw was a 3-foot bed, three Austrian chairs, a very common wooden table, and a little iron one with a new and tight pink cotton cover and petticoat to the ground. All was very clean but the maid.

The kind lady thought her dwelling so superior to mine that she begged me to come and sleep in the bed with her in shelter from the wind; tents, she said, were only fit for men. I did not envy her her home in the drenching rain we had all night and half one day. She wore a string round under one arm, with seven or eight charms like good-sized pincushions or housewifes of different coloured silks.

We made two expeditions from Halaib; the first was to the ruins now known as Sawakin Kadim, which are on the coast twelve miles north of Halaib. As only six camels could be obtained we went by boat ourselves, leaving the camels for the baggage. For this purpose we deserted the Taisir and hired a smaller kattira, and having gone as near as we could to land, and been in considerable danger from coral reefs, on which we ran suddenly, nearly capsizing, we took to the houri that we had towed astern. It was very like sitting in a bath, and, after the houri, we had to be carried a long way. We encamped not far from the shore, and had to endure a dreadful khamsin and dust-storm from the south, with such violent wind that I was blown down, and Matthaios dug our beds out twice with a trowel; and the next day we found the north wind nearly as bad. Why it did not raise the sand I do not know.

Sawakin Kadim is like Berenice, nothing but a mass of mounds, but it must at some time or another have been a much larger place. We excavated one of these mounds, but found nothing earlier than Kufic remains, unless the graves, which were constructed of four large blocks of madrepore sunk deep into the ground, may be looked upon as a more ancient form of sepulture. We opened several, but unfortunately they contained nothing but bones. Originally this town must have been built on an island, or an artificial moat must have been dug round it to protect it on the mainland side; this is now silted up, but is traceable all along. Three large cisterns for water are still in a fair state of preservation, and I am told that a Kufic inscription was found here some years ago. There seems no doubt that this town is the one mentioned by the Arab geographers, Abou'lfida and Edrisi, by the name of Aydab, which was a place of considerable importance between Ras Bernas and Sawakin. There are no traces elsewhere along this coast of any other town, consequently we can fairly place it here. Abou'lfida says: 'Aydab is a town in the land of Bedja; it is politically dependent on Egypt, though some say it is in Abyssinia. This is the meeting-place for the merchants of Yemen and the pilgrims, who, leaving Egypt, prefer the sea route and embark for Yedda. In other respects Aydab has more the aspect of a village than a town, and it is seven days' march north of Sawakin, where the chief of the Bedjas lives.' Counting a day's march at twenty-five miles, this would place it near Halaib, which is 170 miles north of Sawakin. Hitherto on our maps Aydab has been placed near Mohammed Gol, but, as there are no traces of ruins there except the towers to which we shall presently allude, this position for an ancient town is untenable.

Edrisi tells us: 'At the extremity of the desert and on the borders of the salt sea is Aydab, whence one crosses to Yedda in one day and one night. Aydab has two governors, one appointed by the chief of the Bedja, and the other by the princes of Egypt.' From the fact that Aydab is mentioned by none of the earlier geographers it would appear not to have been one of the Ptolemaic settlements, but a town of purely Arab origin. The people of Bedja, so often alluded to by these Arabian geographers, seem to have had considerable power, and to have occupied all the Soudan and as far north as Berenice, being probably the precursors of the Bisharin Amara tribes, which wander now over this desert country. They were the recognised guardians of the old gold-mines which existed in this district, and concerning which I have more to say presently; and though vassals of the Egyptian kaliphs, nevertheless they seem to have had considerable local authority, and to have carried on wars on their own account.

It is a curious fact that in the Aksumite inscriptions we come across an account of wars and victories by the old Ethiopian monarchs over the peoples of Kasuh and Bega to the north of Abyssinia, which peoples Professor D. H. MÜller identifies with the people of Kush and the Bedja alluded to by the Arab geographers.

In course of time the Bedjas seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth and left nothing but their tombs and a few ruined towns behind them; and for some centuries it would appear that the coast of the Red Sea north of Sawakin was uninhabited until in later years came fresh colonists from the Nile Valley, whose descendants still occupy it.

The tribal traditions of the district are all that we have now to rely upon regarding the immigration of new inhabitants, and they state that two brothers with their families, one named Amer and the other Amar, came from the Nile Valley near Wadi Halfa, and settled along the coast of the Red Sea; from them are descended the Beni Amer and Amara tribes of Bedouin. These brothers were followed in due course by four other brothers, Ali, Kourb, Nour, and Gueil, from whom the tribes and sub-tribes of the Aliab, Kourbab, Nourab, and Gueilior are respectively descended. These tribes have never been anything but pastoral nomads, living in miserable mat huts, and spreading themselves over the district at wide intervals in search of pasture for their flocks. They entirely disown having anything to do with the remains of buildings and tombs found in their midst.

CHAPTER XXV

INLAND FROM MERSA HALAIB

When we returned to Halaib we encamped preparatory to going inland. Great doctoring had to be done over the hand of Ahmet Farraj, our clown. He had held a large hook overboard, with a bait, but no line, and a shark 7 feet long was caught and hauled on board. The shark bit the man's first finger badly. Various remedies were applied by the sailors in turns—tar, grease, earth, and other things—and it was in a very bad state when brought to us. It was quite cured eventually, but we were afraid of blood-poisoning. When I began cleaning it most tenderly he scraped it out with a stick, and his friends dipped stones in the warm water and soundly scrubbed the surrounding inflamed parts. My husband prescribed a washing all over with hot water and stones. He was afterwards quite a different colour.

Our second expedition was to Shellal. We took two days on our way thither, passing through clouds of locusts—that is to say, they were in clouds on our return, but were young and in heaps when we first saw them. We stayed at Shellal several days, for my husband thought as we could get no further in that direction on account of the danger of the Dervishes, it was as well that we, and especially Captain Smyth, should make as many expeditions thence as possible. We heard so many contradictory reports, but little thought how imminent the war was.

After our somewhat long experience of life on a dhow we were delighted to become Bedou once more, and wander amongst the fine rocky range of mountains, but we were disappointed that our guide would not take us far behind this range for fear of the Dervishes; and, as shortly after the outbreak of the war a party of Dervishes came right down to Halaib, there is every reason to believe that had we gone far inland at this point we might have been compelled to pay the Khalifa a not over-pleasant visit at Omdurman.

Wadi Shellal and the adjacent mountains of Shendeh, Shindoeh, and Riadh form a cul de sac as far as camels are concerned, and only difficult mountain paths lead over into the Soudan from here. As far as we could see the country did not look very tempting or promise much compensation for the difficulties of transit. We were taken by the Batran to a few spots where there had been ancient habitations; they probably belonged to the Kufic period, and were doubtless military stations to protect the small hamlets scattered at the foot of these mountains, when Aydab was a place of some importance, from the incursion of hostile tribes from the interior.

Shellal itself reaches an elevation of 4,100 feet; Shindeh, 4,500 feet; Riadh, 4,800 feet; and Asortriba or Sorturba to the south seems, though we did not get its elevation, to be the highest of the group.

ELBA MOUNTAINS FROM SHELLAL

Elba Mountains from Shellal

On our return to Halaib we passed a Bisharin encampment, consisting of half a dozen beehive huts made of matting on rounded sticks. The women were weaving rough cloths at the door of one of them, and were dressed in long sheets which once may have been white, but are now the colour of dirt. They had glass beads and cowries tied to their matted locks, and brass and silver rings of considerable size fastened to their noses; the small children ran about naked, with waistbands of leather straps, on which were strung long agate and carnelian beads, with cowrie danglements hanging down in front. They seemed very poor, and the old ladies to whom my husband gave pinches of tobacco were so effusive in their gratitude that for some moments he feared his generosity was to be rewarded by a kiss.

Our net results from the excursions from Halaib were more or less of a negative character. The mountain scenery was grand, and the climate exquisite, but, from our observations, we came to the conclusion that at no time was this country of much use to anybody, and that it never had been thickly inhabited, the existence of Aydab being probably due to its position as a convenient port opposite Arabia for the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. Water is, and probably always has been, very scarce here, and, except after the rains, this country is little better than a desert.

The Bishari of the Akhmed Orab tribe, who inhabit the mountains, are exceedingly few in number, and the Batran told us that all the way from Ras Bernas to Mount Sorturba, just south of Shellal, over which country his rule extends, the whole tribe could muster only about three hundred fighting men. They have the Ababdeh to the north, and the Amara Bisharin to the south, and apparently their relations with their neighbours are usually strained. These tribes are purely pastoral, and cultivate no land whatsoever. They live in huts in groups of from three to six together, and are scattered over the country at wide intervals. They wear their hair fuzzy at the top, with a row of curls hanging down the neck, usually white and stiff with mutton fat. They are medium-sized, dark-skinned, and some of them decidedly handsome. They are girt only with a loin-cloth and sheet, and every shepherd here carries his shield and his sword. Under a good and settled government they would undoubtedly be excellent members of society, but with the Khalifa on one side and the Egyptian Government on the other their position is by no means an enviable one. Their huts are very small and dingy, being constructed with bent sticks on which palm-leaf matting is stretched; inside they are decorated with their paraphernalia for weddings and camel-travelling, all elaborately decorated with cowrie and other shells, the most remarkable of these things being the tall conical hats with long streamers used for dances at weddings, entirely covered with cowrie shells in pretty patterns. The things they use for hanging up food are also prettily decorated with shells and strips of red and blue cloth. The family occupying a hut sleep on mats in the inner part, with the usual wooden African pillows, and around the outer edge of the hut are collected their wooden bowls for sour milk, their skins for water, their incense-burners, and their limited number of household utensils. Often when he goes off to distant pasturages a Bishari will pack up his tent and household gods and leave them in a tree, where he will find them quite safe on his return. They live principally on milk and the products of their flocks, water being to them a far more precious article than milk. They are very knowledgeable in the mountain shrubs and herbs, and pointed out to us many which they eat for medicinal and other purposes; but the only one of these which we appreciated was a small red gourd climbing amongst the mimosa branches, resembling a tomato, Cephalandra Indica. This they call gourod, their usual word for gourd. Also they are, like the ἀκριδὁφαγοι whom Agatharchides places on their coast, large consumers of locusts when in season; they catch them only when they have reached the flying stage, and roast them in the ashes. We often saw clouds of locusts in this district, devouring all the scanty herbage and literally filling the air.

For many years past the Egyptian authority in these parts has been nil, and confined only to a few wretched forts on the coast. Dervish raids from the interior and the stoppage of whatever caravan trade there ever was have contributed to the miserable condition of affairs now existing.

One can well understand why these miserable hounded tribes are wavering in their allegiance between the Egyptian Government and the Khalifa, whom they dread, and why they countenance the slave-traders, for the reason that they have no power to resist them.

For all practical purposes it is a wretched country, waterless during a great part of the year, except where some deep ancient wells, scattered at wide intervals over the country, form centres where camels and flocks can be watered; and as we travelled along we were struck by the numbers of these wells which had been quite recently abandoned. But the mountains are magnificently grand, sharp in outline like Montserrat in Spain, and with deep and lovely gorges. Formerly they abounded in mines, and were celebrated for their mineral wealth, and if there is ever to be a revival in this country it will be from this source that hope will come.

We had such strong wind when we went to sea again that we feared we should not be able to start, but we got away after all, rising up early to be dressed before we were shaken about; but we forgot to empty our basins, and they emptied themselves into our beds, and all the luggage banged about and the kitchen things went all over the place, including the 'range,' consisting of two little stoves in paraffin-cans, but we got on splendidly till we began to turn into Mersa or Khor Shinab, as the Bisharin call it; the Arab name is Bishbish.

Khor Shinab is a typical specimen of a mersa; it is cruciform, and is entered by a narrow passage between the reefs, about 20 feet across, and runs sinuously inland for about two miles, and is never more than a quarter of a mile wide.

We had the second-sized sail up, but that had to be taken down and a smaller tried; the sheet of this soon gave way, and the sail went up in the air with the block and tore all across. This was a frightful sight, as we were among coral reefs. The sailors flew about, casting off garments in all directions. A smaller sail tore up in a few moments, and we were stuck on a reef. Then the smallest sail of all was taken out of its bag, and that got us off with some grating, the captain and some others standing on the reef on the port side with water half up to their knees, pushing with all their might. There were fourteen fathoms under us to starboard. The little sail soon gave way at the top and fell into the water.

One anchor was sent out in a boat and then another, and when they tried to get up the first it was so entangled that they were a long time over it, and one of the five flukes was broken. We were kept off the reef by poles all this time. That broken anchor was then taken ashore, and we were very thankful to be safe.

The flat ground for miles inland is composed of nothing but madrepore, and is covered with semi-fossilised sea-shells, which have probably not been inhabited for thousands of years. We walked over this for three miles before reaching the first spurs of the mountains, and it is impossible to conceive a more barren or arid spot. Khor Shinab is a well-known resort for slave-trading craft; small boats can easily hide in its narrow creeks and escape observation.

We stayed two days while the sails were mended on the shore, and it was hours and hours before the anchor that was in the reef could be got up and fastened to the dry land. We did try to get out to sea again, but the north wind was raging so we could not do it, and, besides, the sailors were very unwilling to start, as a raven was sitting on the bow.

CHAPTER XXVI

MOHAMMED GOL

At Mohammed Gol, to which port our dhow next conducted us, our prospects of getting well into the interior were much brighter, and our ultimate results beyond comparison more satisfactory than they had been at Halaib. Mohammed Gol is distinctly a more lively place than Halaib, possessing more huts, more soldiers, and actually a miniature bazaar where, strange to relate, we were able to buy something we wanted.

The houses at Mohammed Gol are larger than those at Halaib, and one can stand up in some parts of nearly all of them.

The fort is surrounded by a very evil-smelling moat, and the village situated on a damp plain, white with salt. When we made a camp on shore later we went well beyond this plain.

In the summer season, when the waters of the Red Sea are low, traders come to Mohammed Gol for salt. The salterns are situated on the narrow spit of land called Ras Rowaya; consequently, the people about here are more accustomed to the sight of Europeans, and Mohammed Effendi, the governor, or mamour of the little Egyptian garrison, who is young and energetic, seems far more in touch with the world than Ismael of Halaib. He complained much of the dulness of his post, and passed his weary hours in making walking-sticks out of ibex horns, a craft he had learnt from the Bedouin of Mount Erba, who soften the horns in hot water, grease them, pull them out and flatten them with weights and polish them, using them as camel sticks. The governor gave us several of these sticks, and also presented an ibex-horn head-scratcher to me, remarking as he did so, with a polite gesture, that it was a nice thing to have by me when my head itched. He was a little and very dark man, with a pleasant, honest face, and three transverse scars across his cheeks, each about two inches long. His secretary was yet smaller, and decorated in the same way. The chief of the police was a very fat, good-humoured man, with two little perpendicular cuts beside each eye. These are tribal marks.

There was great palavering about our journey into the interior. Though several travellers had visited the Red Sea side of the massive group of Mount Erba on holidays from Sawakin in search of sport, no one had as yet been behind it, and thither we intended to go. The governor had summoned three sheikhs from the mountains, into whose hands he confided us. The day we first landed I thought I never had beheld such scowling, disagreeable faces, but afterwards we became good friends. My husband and I went ashore the second day, and sat in a sort of audience-arbour near the madrepore pier, and many maps were drawn on the ground with camel-sticks, and we were quite proud that my husband was able to settle it all with no interpreter.

Sheikh Ali Debalohp, the chief of the Kilab tribe, was to take us to his district, Wadi Hadai and Wadi Gabeit, some way inland at the back of the Erba mountains, which group we insisted on going entirely round. He was a tall, fine specimen of a Bishari sheikh, with his neck terribly scarred by a burn, to heal which he had been treated in hospital at Sawakin. He is, as we learnt later, a man of questionable loyalty to the Egyptian Government, and supposed to be more than half a Dervish; this may be owing to the exigencies of his position, for more than half his tribe living in the Wadi Hayet are of avowed allegiance to the Khalifa, and Debalohp's authority now only extends over the portion near the coast. As far as we could see his intentions towards us were strictly honourable, and he treated us throughout our expedition in a much more straightforward manner than either of the other two.

Sheikh number two was Mohammed, the son of Ali Hamed, head sheikh of a branch of the great Kurbab tribe. As his father was too old and infirm to accompany us, he took his place. He was an exceedingly dirty and wild-looking fellow, with a harsh, raucous voice, and his statements were not always reliable. We have reason to believe that his father is much interested in the slave-trade, and therefore not too fond of Europeans; but these sheikhs by the coast are generally obliged to be somewhat double in their dealings, and, when anything can be gained by it, affect sincere friendship for the English.

Sheikh number three bore the name of Hassan Bafori, and is wagdab or chief of another branch of the Kurbabs, and his authority extends over the massive group of Mount Erba and Kokout. He is a man who seems to revel in telling lies, and we never could believe a word he said. Besides these head-men we had several minor sheikhs with us, and two soldiers sent by the mamour from his garrison at Mohammed Gol to see that we were well treated. Hence our caravan was of considerable dimensions when we took our departure from Mohammed Gol on February 6.

He of the Kilab tribe, Ali Debalohp, was the most important of them, and he took one of his wives with him; all had their servants and shield-bearers, and most of them were wild, unprepossessing looking men, with shaggy locks and lard-daubed curls, and all of them were, I believe, thorough ruffians, who, as we were told afterwards, would willingly have sold us to the Dervishes had they thought they would have gained by the transaction. These things officials told us when we reached Sawakin; but, to do our guides justice, I must say they treated us very well, and inasmuch as we never believed a word they said, the fact that they were liars made but little difference to us.

Some of the men had very fine profiles, and one was very handsome. Their hair is done something like the Bisharin's—that is, with a fuz standing up on the top, but the hanging part is not curled; the white tallow with which they were caked, made them look as if their heads were surrounded with dips.

I asked why the tallow was put on. One said to make one strong, another to make one see far, and a third reason was that the hair might not appear black.

We had fourteen camels for ourselves and two for the police who came with us. The mamour was in European uniform, with a red shawl wound round his head, and sat on a very smart inlaid saddle which came up to his waist in front and reached to his shoulder-blades. The chief of the police did not come, he being, as he told us, far too fat.

We were to fill all our waterskins from a remarkably fine well of particularly sweet water at Hadi, so we took only a couple of skinfuls with us.

CHAPTER XXVII

'DANCING ON TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND, PICKING UP GOLD'

Little did we dream when we left Mohammed Gol with our rather extensive caravan that behind that gigantic mountain, which though it only reaches an elevation of 7,500 feet, looks considerably higher from the sea as it rises almost directly out of the level plain, we were to find an ancient Egyptian gold-mine, the ruins in connection with which would offer us the first tangible comparison to the ruins which had exercised our minds so much in the gold-fields of South Africa.

Some miles inland on the plain behind Mohammed Gol are certain mysterious towers, some 20 feet high, of unknown origin. They have every appearance of belonging to the Kufic period, being domed and covered with a strong white cement. They have no doors, but have windows high up: some are hexagonal, some square, and they are apparently dotted all along the coast. Whether they were tombs, or whether they were landmarks to guide mariners to certain valleys leading into the mountains, will probably not be definitely proved until someone is energetic enough to excavate in one. They are found as far south as Massawa, but as far as we could ascertain those we saw were the most northern ones. In one we found two skeletons of modern date, with the scanty clothing still clinging to the bones, as they had lain in the agonies of death, poor sick creatures, who had climbed in to die.

The tower of Asafra, which marks the entrance to the Hadi Valley, is about 20 feet high, and is octagonal. It struck us, from its position at the entrance of the valley system to the north of Mount Erba, that its original object had been a landmark which would be seen from the sea; had it been a tomb it would not have had the windows, and had it been either a tomb or a fort it would have had a door. There we halted, and bade adieu to the governors and officials of Mohammed Gol, who had accompanied us thus far. Our parting was almost dramatic, and the injunctions to the sheikh to see to our safety were reiterated with ever additional vehemence, the mamour holding my husband's hand all the time.

Near the well of Hadi are numerous ancient structures of a different nature and more puzzling to account for. Circular walls, from 10 to 14 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, have been built, some in the valleys and some high up on the hills. The interiors of these have been filled with stones, the largest of which are in the centre, and in the middle of these large stones is a depression a foot or so deep. They certainly looked like tombs of some departed race, especially as they were generally placed in groups of two or three, and they resembled the tombs in the north of Abyssinia, except that those are filled with mounds of small stones, whereas these have larger stones and a depression in the centre. The water turned out to be rather like port wine to look at, full of little fish, tadpoles, and leeches. We put alum in a bucket to precipitate the worst mud, then filtered it without making it clear, but it was a tremendous improvement. I think there really was a better water-place near, but we did not find it. Bad as it was, water was taken for three days, as they said we should see none for that time. As a matter of fact, I think the people did not want us to know the water-places.

We had a very warm night at Hadi, our tent, beds, and even clothes swarmed with beetles.

On February 7 we started for Gumatyewa. All day we went among little pointed hills, some, indeed many, marked with most curious veins of ironstone, sometimes in cross-bars. We soon reached a place in the Wadi Gumatyewa, whence a camel to our surprise was sent for water, and was not very long away, so water cannot have been far off. The rest of the camels were unloaded, and we sat and waited under some trees. In fact, we could have camped near water each of the days which we took getting to Hadai.

The sheikhs generally encamped at a little distance from us, and as they were given to nocturnal conversations and monotonous noises which they called singing, we were glad they were not too near.

We gradually ascended as we followed the valleys inland, after the Wadi Iroquis, until on the fourth day we came to a curious narrow winding pass, about six miles long, which just left room between the rocks for our camels to walk in single file. This pass, which is called Todin, landed us on a small plateau about 2,000 feet above the sea-level, where we found a large number of the circular remains. Todin is one of the most important approaches into the Soudan on the north side of the Erba group, and is practicable the whole way for camels, from which we never once had occasion to dismount, though going down might not be so pleasant. Before reaching the pass of Todin we passed a most curious mountain, seeming to block up the valley. It looked rather like a rhinoceros feeding among the acacia-trees.

Taking this country generally, I can safely say it is as uninteresting and arid a country as any we have ever visited. Our way perpetually led through valleys winding between low brown mountains, the dry river beds of which were studded here and there with acacia-trees. Occasionally one got a glimpse of the majestic spurs of Erba, and occasionally a fantastic rock or a hill-slope a trifle greener than the rest would temporarily raise our spirits.

As for water, we had the greatest difficulty about it, and our guides always enveloped its existence with a shroud of mystery. Men would be sent off to the hills with a camel, and return to the camp with skins of water from somewhere, probably from gulleys where rain-water still lay; but until we reached Wadi Hadai, after a ride of six days, we never saw water with our own eyes after leaving Hadi. More water can be obtained by digging. There is a great deal of Mesembryanthemum about, which probably supplies the place of water to most of the animals living in these regions. A good many doves came to drink at the water in the evening.

Two days more brought us to Wadi Hadai, where we were to halt awhile to rest the camels. On the hill immediately above us was the circular fort, with its door to the east, to which I shall later allude, and on the plain below was another and smaller Kufic tower, several round buildings, and large stones erected on several of the adjacent hills evidently to act as landmarks. Also here we saw many graves of the Debalohp family—neat heaps of white stones, with a double row of white stones forming a pattern around them, and a headstone towards Mecca, on one of which was a rude Arabic inscription. These tombs reminded us very forcibly of the Bogos tombs in Northern Abyssinia, and evidently point to a kinship of custom.

The place where we stayed in a wood of thorny trees was at the branching of two valleys. We always had cold nights, but our widely spread camp looked cheery enough with eight fires; there were so many different parties.

Once we got into Wadi Hadai we were in Debalohp's country. He was chief of the large and powerful Kilab tribe, half of which owns avowed allegiance to the Khalifa, and the other half, with their chief, is put down as wavering by the Government at Sawakin. Luckily we did not know this at the time, or otherwise I question if we should have ventured to put ourselves so entirely in his hands, with the horrors of a visit to Khartoum, as experienced by Slatin Pasha, so fresh in our memories.

At Hadai for the first time during the whole of our journey our interests were keenly aroused in certain antiquities we found—antiquities about which Debalohp had said a good deal, but about which we had never ventured to indulge any hopes.

Hard by the Debalohp mausoleum was another Kufic tower, though much smaller than those we had seen on the coast, and not covered with white cement, and in the same locality were several foundations of circular buildings very neatly executed in dry masonry, which appeared to have at either end the bases of two circular towers and curious bulges, which at once reminded us of our South African ruins. On climbing an adjacent hill we found a circular fort, evidently constructed for strategical purposes, with a doorway, the ends of the wall being rounded, quite a counterpart of the smaller ruin on the Lundi river in Mashonaland. The analogy was indeed curious, and we talked about it hesitatingly to ourselves, as yet unable to give any satisfactory reason for its existence. On various heights around were cairns erected as if for landmarks, and we felt that here at last we were in the presence of one of those ancient mysteries which it is so delightful to solve.

We had as interpreter from Arabic to Hadendowa, as none of our party understood that language, the sheikh whose name was Hassan Bafori. He brought three coursing dogs with him. We had also with us a certain AnnibÀle Piacentini as general odd man. He was really Italian, but had lived so long among Greeks in Suez that he was always called Annibale. He talked Greek with my husband, Mattaios, and me, and English with the others, besides Arabic.

We rested our camels and our men at Hadai, and drank of some fresh water from a little pool, the first we had seen in this barren country, which was supplied by a tiny stream that made its appearance for a few yards in a sheltered corner of the valley, a stream of priceless value in this thirsty land. Debalohp suggested to my husband that he knew of some ruins in a neighbouring valley to which he could take him, but it was not without considerable hesitation that he decided to go. A long day's ride in this hot country, supposed to be almost, if not quite, within the Dervish sphere of influence, was not lightly to be undertaken, more especially as he had been on so many fruitless errands in search of ruins at suggestions of the Bedouin, and returned disgusted, and when he mounted his camel next morning, without any hope of finding anything, and sure of a fatiguing day, had a reasonable excuse offered itself, he would probably not have gone. But the unexpected in these cases is always happening. The long ride turned out only to be one of three hours. Wadi Gabeit was somewhat more fertile and picturesque than any we had as yet seen, and as a climax to it all came the discovery of an ancient gold-mine, worked in ages long gone by doubtless by that mysterious race whose tombs and buildings we had been speculating upon.

Diodorus, in his account of an old Egyptian gold-mine, describes most accurately what my husband found in the Wadi Gabeit. For miles along it at the narrower end were the ruins of miners' huts; both up the main valley and up all the collateral ones there must have been seven or eight hundred of them at the lowest computation. Then there were hundreds of massive crushing-stones, neatly constructed out of blocks of basalt, which had been used for breaking the quartz, lying in wild confusion amongst the ruined huts, and by the side of what once was a stream, but is now only a sandy, choked-up river-bed. On a high rock in the middle of the valley he found a trifle of a Greek inscription scratched by a miner, who had evidently been working the rich quartz vein just below it.

On an eminence behind the valley was another of the circular forts in ruins, similar to the one on the hill above Wadi Hadai, intended evidently for a look-out post to protect the miners at work below. Burnt quartz and refuse of quartz lay around in all directions, and on either side of the valley, stretched for a mile or more, were seams of the auriferous quartz just as it had been laid bare by the ancient workers. There was no question for a moment that he had come across the centre of a great mining industry, lost in these desert valleys behind the mighty wall by which Mount Erba and its spurs shuts off this district from the Red Sea littoral.

Naturally he felt rather startled at being confronted with this unexpected discovery, and in the short space of time then available it was impossible to grasp it all. So he rode back joyfully to tell the news to his party at Hadai. He told Debalohp that he had decided that we should move our camp thither, and stay as long as it was possible.

Difficulties again confronted us. Our two Kourbab sheikhs did not want to go. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hamid was anxious to get on to his own country, and Sheikh Hassan Bafori quite set his face against our going at all, and Debalohp himself had to be firmly spoken to. An extra present to him was what finally helped us, and at length we all made a start on the following day to my husband's new El Dorado.

We had become rather confused as to dates, and there was a difference of two days that we could not be in unity about. Before setting out for Wadi Gabeit we consumed for breakfast the artificial horizon that Captain Smyth had used for taking our latitude the night before. It was very good; it was golden syrup instead of quicksilver.

Wadi Gabeit was just a trifle better than the country we had passed through, having finer trees in the valley beds; and here we saw the first colony of natives since leaving Mohammed Gol, consisting only of three huts of pastoral Kilabs, which will give an idea of how sparsely this country is inhabited. Debalohp's huts were certainly somewhere in the vicinity of Hadai, not more than an hour away, but for some reason known only to himself he would not take us there, though he went there himself every night, and when he joined us on our way to Wadi Gabeit he brought with him another wife, having evidently had enough of the other's company on his journey from Mohammed Gol.

Their camping arrangements were never luxurious. The Mrs. Debalohp used to hoist a mat on a spear, to keep off the wind. Mr. Debalohp used to lie on another mat in the open, surrounded by his weapons.

The huts we saw were made of sail-cloth, and were very neat inside. There is a passage all round where pots and baskets are kept, and within that a square room made of matting with a mat floor. One side of this is the sleeping apartment, and is entirely hung round with meat-safes, dancing hats, and camel trappings, all adorned with shells and beads. The huts are so small that it must be difficult to lie at full length.

I bought a gazelle-trap from these people. It consisted of a circle of thin sticks, 6 or 7 inches across, bound round and round with bark. Between the bindings are set little thin sticks like a wheel, but crossing each other thickly in the middle. This is put under a tree over a hole, the noose of a long rope laid round it and the rope tied to the tree; the whole is covered with earth. When the gazelle comes to eat he steps into the hole. By the time he has disengaged himself from the trap he is caught in the noose, and a cross stick, 3 or 4 feet long, tied about a foot from the end of the rope, prevents him getting through bushes.

A short time before reaching our goal we were met by a small band of natives, who tried to stop our advance with menaces, which we were determined neither to understand nor recognise. Possibly they were some of the Kilab tribe, who owned allegiance to the Dervishes; possibly they were actuated by the inherent dread the Moslem has of Christian enterprise reaching their secluded vales. However, our show of firearms and determination to go on had the effect of intimidating them, and after a somewhat feeble hostile demonstration and many palavers, we found ourselves comfortably established in our tents in the heart of the ancient industry, and peacefully distributing medicines from our chest to our whilom foes.

The encounter was amusing to look back on afterwards, but by no means so at the time; the yelling and brandishing of spears and shields and the parleying of Hassan Bafori and Mohammed Ali Hamid, who went forward, and the earnest wishes for the presence of Sheikh Ali Debalohp, who had gone round by his home to join us later. We and our camels were led back, but we dismounted and went nearer in a body, and then our firearms were distributed, and my husband, saying he would wait no longer, went past them, we all following. He fortunately knew the way. After a bit our camels came, and we were soon in the Wadi Gabeit. Knowing where the water was, in a little rocky pool, my husband went straight over to it, and ordered that the water-skins should be filled at once, in case of any difficulties. My husband and I and Mr. Cholmley went for a little walk round a small hill, and then I said I would go back alone to the small, oval valley. Just round a corner I came face to face with all the enemy, on foot and on camels.

I walked smiling to the worst old man, grasped his hand, and wished him a happy day. He started back, wrenched away his hand, waving me away, though Hassan tried to make him shake hands. The soldiers rushed forward, and I sat on a rock laughing at him, and saying I wanted to look at them. They all seated themselves close by. Captain Smyth, who had gone around making a reconnaissance, now arrived, his servant Hamid having galloped back on a camel to fetch him. He thought I was the only survivor. I told him the story before them, and imitated the old gentleman, pointing him out, and they all laughed when I asked how we could be afraid of them when they were so much afraid of me.

They all shouted 'Peace! peace!' (salaam! salaam!) 'aman! aman!' (mercy!)—and subsequently came in a body to our tent to impress upon me that I need fear no longer—we were friends.

The real truth was that we were now very near, if not quite in, the territory of that branch of the Kilab tribe which owns allegiance to the Dervishes; when Captain Smyth rode ahead next day to take observations from a hill called Darurba, Mohamed Ali Hamed, who accompanied him, made him dress up in a sheet and pretend to be an Arab woman when they came in sight of some people whom he declared to be Dervishes.

We were told of a native who had lately found a gold nugget whilst digging in the sand. The veins of quartz, particularly on the southern side of the valley, are very marked, and the chiselling by which the miners had followed up their veins could easily be seen; it would appear that the workings here had been of a very extensive character, and the output of gold in some remote period must have been very large.

We were conducted to a hill about two miles from our camp, where there are old cuttings in the quartz, some of them going a considerable depth underground, and blocks of quartz were still standing there ready to be broken up; also we saw several crushing-stones here, but there were no traces of miners' huts, so presumably the quartz was removed to the valley below.

On the rocks near the cuttings we saw many rude drawings, one of a parrot and several of gazelles, evidently done by the workmen with their chisels.

In referring to records of the ancient gold-mines of Egypt, we find that a mine existed in the Wadi Allaki, some days south of Komombo, in the Bishari district. This mine was visited and identified by MM. Linant and Bonomi; there they found an excavation 180 feet deep, handmills similar to ours, and traces of about three hundred miners' huts, also several Kufic inscriptions on a rock. The mines, Edrisi tells us, were twelve days inland from Aydab. We must therefore look elsewhere for a notice of another mine nearer the Red Sea. Edrisi makes two mentions of these mines of Allaki, in one of which he says they are in a deep valley at the foot of a mountain; in another he alludes to them as on an open plain. On turning to Abu'lfida, we find him relating 'that Allaki is a town of Bedja; the country of Bedja is in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea. One finds there pearl-fisheries which do not give much profit, but in the mountain of Allaki is a mine of gold, which covers the cost of working. The mountain of Allaki is very celebrated.' Hence it would seem that two different spots are alluded to both under the name of Allaki, from both of which gold was obtained, one inland and one near the Red Sea. Professor de Goeje, of Leyden, the greatest authority on early Arabian literature, pointed out to my husband further discrepancies in the distances from Aydab to the gold-mines of Allaki in early Arab geographers, and suggests that the mines found by MM. Bonomi and Linant and ours, though several hundred miles apart, may have belonged to the same reef, and have been known by the same name.

In M. Chabas' 'Inscriptions des Mines d'Or' we have a very interesting dissertation on an ancient Egyptian plan of a gold-mine on a papyrus in the museum of Turin, of the time of Seti I., which he thus describes: 'Unfortunately, the name of the locality, which the plan gives us under the form Ti, ou, oi, the phonetic signs of which form a confused combination, does not give us any clue. We must therefore limit ourselves to the conclusion that this map, the most ancient that exists in the world, represents to us an auriferous vein in a desert mountain situated to the east of Higher Egypt, and very near the Red Sea. The shells spread on the path leading to it are a proof that the sea is very near; we can only think of the Red Sea, the shores of which abound in coral, in sponge, and shells variegated with the most beautiful colours.'

There seems every probability that the mine discovered by my husband was the one illustrated by the most ancient plan in the world, and, curiously enough, the Greek inscription we found seems to give a combination of vowels closely resembling the name given on the plan. On Egyptian inscriptions we constantly read of the gold of Kush, and that the prince of Kush was always interfered with in his works by the want of water, and from the Arab geographers we learn that they were finally abandoned by the caliphs owing to the want of water for washing purposes, and as far back as the reign of Usertesen we get illustrations of their washing process. Diodorus gives us a vivid description of the gangs of captives and convicts employed in these mines, and the miserable cruelty with which they were goaded on to work until they died of fatigue. He also gives some interesting details as to the processes of abstracting gold, which tally well with what we saw on the spot. 'They burn the quartz and make it soft,' which will account for the quantity of burnt quartz which we saw; and again, 'they take the quarried stone and pound it in stone mortars with iron pestles.' Mr. Rudler examined the specimens of quartz we brought home, and describes it as 'vein quartz, more or less ochreous with oxide of iron suggestive of auriferous quartz,' and told us that, unless we were going to start a company, there was no necessity to get it assayed; for archÆological purposes the presence of gold was sufficiently established.

Will this mine ever be available again for those in search of the precious mineral? is the first question that suggests itself. Unfortunately being no gold expert, I am absolutely unable to give an opinion as to the possibilities of the still existing quartz seams being payable or not, but there is abundance of it both in the Wadi Gabeit and in the collateral valleys, and it is improbable that the ancients with their limited knowledge of mining could have exhausted the place. Specimens of quartz that my husband picked up at haphazard have been assayed and found to be auriferous, with the gold very finely disseminated; an expert would undoubtedly have selected even more brilliant specimens than these. Against this the absence of water and labour seemed to us at the time to negative any possible favourable results; but, on the other hand, the mine is so conveniently near the sea, with comparatively easy road access, that labour might be imported; and such wonderful things are done nowadays with artesian wells that, if the experts report favourably upon it, there would be every chance of good work being done, and these desert mountains of the Soudan might again ring with the din of industry.

The morning after we reached Wadi Gabeit an express messenger reached us from Sawakin, bidding us return to the coast at once, as we were supposed to be in considerable danger. Dervish raids were expected in this direction, and the authorities were evidently afraid of complications. A solemn palaver forthwith took place, at which our three sheikhs showed that they thought little of the supposed danger, and said that, though we were nominally in Dervish country at the time, there was no armed force near of sufficient strength to attack us. So we decided, and backed up our decision with a promised bribe, to stay another night in Wadi Gabeit, and to continue our course round Mount Erba, as we had originally intended, and with us we kept the messenger of woe with his gun and spear as an additional protection.

We left Wadi Gabeit next morning, and on the following day another messenger from Sawakin met us with a similar mandate; but as we were now journeying in a presumably safe direction we annexed him too, and went on our way rejoicing. Personally we felt that we knew the condition of the country better than the authorities of Sawakin, who had never been there. If our sheikhs had meant treachery they would long ago have put it into practice; our two Kourbab sheikhs, whose property is in and around Mohammed Gol, were ample guarantee for our safety; and, moreover, the country was so absolutely destitute of everything that we gave the Dervishes credit for better sense than to raid it.

Our first day's march was dreary in the extreme, over country covered with dark shale, just like a colliery district without the smoke, and with the faintest possible trace of vegetation here and there.

It was at this juncture that we lost our little dog, a pet that had journeyed everywhere with us; when search failed we gave it up for lost, and drew mournful pictures of the dear creature dying in agonies in the desert, foodless and waterless. The clever animal nevertheless retraced its steps, how we know not, to Mohammed Gol in five days, without food and with very little water, over the desert paths we had come—a distance of about 120 miles—and terrified the governor out of his wits, as he naturally thought it was the sole survivor of our expedition. It made its way straight to the jetty and swam to our dhow, the Taisir, and was picked up by our Arab sailors more dead than alive. After resting and feeding on the dhow for two days, the dog jumped overboard once more, and went off by itself to the mountains for three days in search of us; when this failed it returned again, and reached our dhow the night before we did, and was ready to welcome us on our return with a wildly demonstrative greeting. We eventually gave it to a sergeant at Sawakin, and have reason to believe that it is at present taking part with its regiment in the Soudan campaign.

That day, Sheikh Mohamed Ali Hamed, who was riding a loaded camel, came to me so much disgusted with the smell of a box covered with black American cloth, that he asked me if it were not made of pig-skin. The people are so ignorant of what pig-skin looks like that they often handle it without knowing, otherwise they would not touch it.

It was a distinct disappointment to us only to see the mountains of, and not to be able to penetrate into, the Wadi HayÈt, owing to its occupation by Dervish tribes. On excellent authority we heard that there were numerous ruined cities there, especially at a spot called Oso; that it was more fertile than the parts through which we had passed; that the Mogarra mountains were higher than Erba; and that it was well watered. Apparently this important Soudanese valley takes its rise in Bawati, to the south of Erba, and, after making first a bold sweep right through the heart of the Soudan, it reaches the sea to the north of Mount Elba, some twenty miles north of Halaib. This wadi will form an interesting point for exploration when the Soudan is once more settled, and if these statements are correct it will be of considerable importance in the future development of the country. As for the valleys near the coast, unless they prove rich in minerals they can never be of much value to any one. In Wadi Gabeit, the only industry now carried on by the very few inhabitants, except the rearing of flocks, is the drying of senna, which grows wild here in considerable quantities. They cut the branches and lay them out to dry on levelled circles; these they take down to the coast and export to Suez.

We were now sixty miles, as the crow flies, from the sea. We were terribly afraid we should be made to go by a lower way between the mountains and the sea, in which case our journey would not be of nearly such great value in map-making, but at last my husband persuaded the sheikhs, saying he would sign, with all the rest of us, a paper to protect the heads of Sheikhs Ali Debalohp, Hassan Bafori, and Mohamed Ali Hamed, which we did.

They said they did not themselves expect any danger. Had they done so they would never have let our camp extend over so much ground, with no concealment as regarded fires and shouting, nor would they have let their camels wander so far afield.

The first place after Wadi Gabeit that we camped at was Hambulli, four hours distant. The thermometer was down to 50° in the night.

There was another letter from the mamour and another from Sawakin and a most tremendous lot of consultations, and at last my husband sent a letter to the mamour: 'Your Excellency,—I have decided to go by Erba and Sellala and hope to reach Mohammed Gol in a shorter time by that route.'

By this time we were in the Kourbab country, in that part under Sheikh Hassan Bafori, who governs a branch of the tribe. We liked the mamour's messenger, Sheikh Moussa Manahm, who came on with us, very much. Four hours of very desert journeying was our portion the following day. We were a good distance from water, but some was obtained by digging, thick with sand and earth. We had thus far carried water from Wadi Gabeit. We travelled six hours, wandering through desert valleys, in which everything was dried up, with clumps of grass in it as black as if they had been burnt, and as if they had not seen rain for years. All the valleys to the west of Mount Erba seem to be arid except Gumateo or Gumatyewa, a big valley which must have water near the surface, which runs all along at the back of the range, with arid hills from 500 to 1,000 feet on either side of it. Vegetation is more abundant, and masses of arack-trees (salvadora), supposed to be the mustard-tree of the Bible, grow here, the wood of which is much esteemed for cleaning the teeth. Wadi Gumateo seems to be a favourite nursery for camels. On our way we passed many camel mothers with their infants, feeding on the arack and other shrubs. At the upper end of this valley, where we encamped for a night, Mount Erba, with its highest peak, Mount Nabidua, stands out in bold and fantastic outline. It is a remarkable range as seen from this spot, shutting off like a great wall the Soudan from the Red Sea littoral.

It was a most beautiful place and there was plenty of wood, so we could have fine fires at night and burn some charcoal for future use.

On February 18 we had a much more enjoyable day, for we were winding about among the mountains. Twice we had to dismount to walk over passes. One was exceedingly fine, with bold and stupendous cliffs.

There were several groups of huts in the Wadi Khur, which we next reached.

There is much more vegetation here, many tamarisks and other shrubs giving delightful shade. Wadi Khur is the nursery for young donkeys, many of which, we were told, from time to time escape to the higher mountain, and have established the race of wild asses to be found here. The valley has a good many pastoral inhabitants, and in the side gorges are deep pools of lovely water in natural reservoirs, in which we revelled after our somewhat limited supply further inland. Up these gorges we found bulbs, rushes, and water-plants. At our camp here our men busied themselves in decorating their locks prior to reaching Sellala. Mutton-fat is beaten in the hands till it becomes like lard, and this material the hairdresser dabs at the curly wigs of his patients; those whose curls become the whitest and stiffest deem themselves the finest.

As we were going through a very narrow gorge, where Wadi Khur has changed into Khor (gorge) Khur, some stones were bowled down from above, without hitting any part of our caravan. There was a great deal of shouting from the principal sheikhs to the offenders, and they desired one of the soldiers to fire off his gun, which he did. Sheikh Hassan did not half like the laugh that rose against him when I said, 'Last time it was Sheikh Ali Debalohp's men, and now it is yours.'

We encamped while still in the Khor Khur, but the sheikhs would not allow the tents to be put near the rocks, fearing disaster, and in the morning Sheikh Hassan was in a great hurry to be off, coming and shouting 'Al khiem! Al khiem!' ('the tents!') to hasten us out of them and let them be packed. We had had to carry water from the last place. It had been so clear and clean when we had it in our own buckets. It had taken more than four hours to fetch with camels, but what we carried on was put into dirty skins, full of the mud of the place before, so it was horrible and a great disappointment; we had to wait for more.

When we left this camp we were led to suppose we should reach Sellala, said to be an oasis, in about two hours and a half; but it took us an hour to get out of the Khor Khur, winding among high rocks with most beautiful shapes and shadows, rounding Jebel Gidmahm, which was on our left, and then we entered a very hideous wadi called Amadet. The floor of it was very up and down, and high rocks and little hills stood about, whereas the wadis are for the most part flat in the middle. But all round this ugly wadi there were high and fantastic mountains, range behind range.

After that there was a narrow khor called Rabrabda, and finally a great sandy desert, where the hills were comparatively low, through which we marched for several hours, always looking out for the oasis, where we promised ourselves great enjoyment, intending to spend a few days in so nice a place. When at last we reached Sellala, which Ali Hamid's son had led us to believe was a perfect Paradise, instead we found a wretched arid spot, with one deep and well-constructed well, probably of considerable antiquity, surrounded by many mud drinking-troughs, around which were collected a large number of camels.

All our promised verdure resolved itself into a few mimosa-trees and desert plants, and we encamped in great discomfort in a raging sandstorm, quite out of patience with our guide for his deceit. The wind was very wild and cold. We did not enjoy Sellala at all. Our tent had to be tied up in a tiny sandy cleft, and a huge boulder was under my bed. We had only two winds to trouble us there, though, instead of all four, which were raging outside. About 200 yards from the well was Ali Hamid's village, a collection of some six or eight huts, in one of which dwells old Ali Hamid himself, the aged sheikh of this powerful branch of the Kourbab tribe; and the only evidence that we had of greater prosperity was that the women here wear gold nose-rings and have long gold earrings and more elaborate ornaments hanging from their plaited hair.

Ali Hamid looked very old and decrepit. He had a long hooked nose and exceedingly unpleasant face, and when we saw him we quite believed him to be, as they say, a hardened old slave-dealer. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was that he had a mother living, a wizened old crone who inhabited a tiny hut at Mohammed Gol, and reputed to be 135 years old by her friends, though I question if she was much over 90. Old age is rare among these nomads, and hence they make the most of any specimen they can produce.

We sat in the village for some time, and purchased various camel ornaments—tassels which they hang from their necks, and curious adornments decorated with cowries, which they place before the covered awning beneath which great ladies conceal themselves when on a camel journey.

Ali Hamid's son took us the next day on fast-trotting camels to visit some graffiti on basaltic rocks about eight miles distant. Here we found representations of animals chiselled on the hard rocks, similar to those we saw in Wadi Gabeit; we could recognise gazelles, camels, and elephants, and we thought the artist also had intended to depict giraffes, mongooses, and other strange beasts. Scattered amongst these animals are several SabÆan letters, the two [Symbol: See page image] (ya) and [Symbol: See page image] (wa) being very conspicuous. These scribblings were evidently done by the miners who were on their way from the coast to Wadi Gabeit, having landed at a convenient little harbour close by called Salaka. There is also one of the ruined towers not far from this spot, and the letters point to the fact that some of the miners here engaged must have been of SabÆan or Southern Arabian origin.

Sheikh Ali Hamid came often to see us, with many other sons, besides Mohamed, who had travelled with us, and a few of the latter's children, clothed and naked. They used to sit in a semicircle round the door of our tent.

Of course an exchange of gifts took place, and we were sent a sheep and a huge basketful of milk. The basket was shaped like a vase, a foot in diameter. A very nice inhabitant of the forbidden Wadi Hayet came to see us, Sheikh Seyyid Ta'ah. He gave us useful information as to the geography of his neighbourhood and the course of the valley.

Captain Smyth went off from Sellala with Sheikh Mohamed to take a peep into Wadi HayÈt, and on February 22 we left the place without any regret and turned northward. There are five Sellalas, and one is really an oasis. The splendid mountains of Erba had been quite obscured by the sand, though there had been a magnificent view of them when we arrived.

On the way we passed three more of the tall towers similar to those we had previously seen, and felt still more convinced that they were connected with the gold industry in the inland valley, and had been built to mark the roads conducting in that direction.

We tried to find a sheltered nook to encamp in when we reached the mountains, but in vain. We stayed at Harboub, and were nearly stifled by the dirty dust that blew into the tents. The water was very clear and soft.

We continued northward for two hours and a half, and then turned westward up the steep Wadi Ambaya.

Wadi Ambaya is the chief valley of Mount Erba, and it runs right into the heart of the mountain. Up this we were conducted by Sheikh Hassan, in whose territory we now found ourselves. This valley is fairly well inhabited by pastoral people; they live in huts dotted about here and there, which are difficult to recognise from their likeness in colour to the rocks surrounding them, which they would almost seem to have been made to mimic. The slopes of Erba provide pasturage for a large number of flocks at all seasons of the year. Nabidua, the highest peak of the range, reaches an elevation of 7,800 feet; Sherbuk and Emeri are not much lower, and the outline of the rugged peaks is exceedingly fine. Up in the higher parts of this range there are a great number of ibex, several of which fell to Captain Smyth's rifle, but we did not care much for the flesh. The natives hunt them with dogs of a breed said to be peculiar to these parts.

Our camp in Wadi Ambaya was a delicious spot, amid fantastic boulders and rich vegetation. On climbing up the gorge beyond us we came across a stream with running water, forming deep green pools among the rocks, and to us, after the arid deserts we had passed through, this spot was perfectly ideal; and the people, too, who dwell up in the higher ground, look infinitely healthier—lithe, active men, who leap like goats from rock to rock, each with a sword and shield. There are several valleys in Erba penetrating into the heart of the mountains, but Ambaya is the principal one.

In the outer part of the valley, which is rather open, is a way into the Wadi AddatterÈh, where we had already been. It was a tremendous scramble to get up the gorge, and our tents were perched on rocks, and Matthaios was delighted with his nice clean kitchen in the middle of the gorge. He rigged up some sticks to hang a cloak up as a shade. The servants had plenty to do preserving antelopes and ibex heads, and burning charcoal and washing.

We were here made glad by Captain Smyth's safe return, and after staying three days we returned to the mouth of our wadi, and then went on toward the north, and after five hours camped under some large trees near a well of very good water, called Tokwar.

We finished our journey into the Wadi Koukout at 8 o'clock next morning, having to leave the camels and squeeze on on foot. It is a veritable frying-pan. We had hardly room to pitch our tents, or to get into them when pitched, by reason of the big boulders and steep hollows where water swirled about. There was good water quite close.

We had another messenger from Sawakin, Hassan Gabrin, to guide us by land, or, if we went by sea, to say we should go quickly.

The morning after our arrival we started very early to visit Koukout, a mountain really separate from Erba, but looking like a spur of it, the highest peak of which is only 4,000 feet above the sea. Here again one penetrates into the mountain by a curious gorge, with deep pools of water, the rocks about which are, if possible, more fantastic than those of Erba. One comes to chasms, over which the water flows, which look like the end of all things; but by climbing up the side of these one finds the gorge continuing until the very heart of the mountain is reached, where is a little open ground well stocked with water and green. High up here we spent a few hours at a pastoral village, where we found the women busily engaged in making butter in skins tied to a tree; these they shake until butter is produced. They store it in jars, and take it to Mohammed Gol to exchange for grain, but they eat very little except the products of their flocks, and, like the Abyssinians, they do not mind eating meat raw.

We saw some interesting domestic features in this mountain village. The children are given toy shields and spears, with which to practise in early life; and we found here several long flutes with four notes each, the music of which is weird and not unlike that of the bagpipes, and well suited to the wild surroundings.

Here, too, they play the ubiquitous African game, munkala or tarsla. Two rows of six holes are dug in the ground, and in these they play with counters of camel-dung a mysterious game which I never can learn. Here they call it mangola, and it is played all down the East Coast, from Mashonaland to Egypt, and also, I hear, on the West Coast; it seems a general form of recreation throughout the Dark Continent, and has been carried by Africans to all parts of the world to which they have wandered. Here they were playing with holes in the sand, but one often sees them dug in marble blocks, or on rocks, or in pavements.

There are two games—the game of the wise and that of the foolish; the former, like chess, requires a good deal of thought.

FLUTE-PLAYERS IN THE WADI KOUKOUT, SOUDAN

Flute-players in the Wadi Koukout, Soudan

Sheikh Hassan Bafori's mother resided in this village, so old that she looked like the last stage of 'She,' but no one said she was as old as old Ali Hamid's mother.

I think the weaving arrangements were quite the most rude I have ever seen.

The yarn had been wound over two sticks about 20 feet apart, and that stick near which the weaving was begun was tied by two ropes, each a foot long, to pegs in the ground. The other was simply strained against two pegs. At this end a couple of threads had been run to keep the warp in place. There was no attempt to separate the alternate threads so as to raise each in turn. There was a stick raised 4 or 5 inches on two forked sticks to separate the upper and under parts of this endless web of 40 feet. The weaver sat on her goat's-hair web, and never could get the shuttle across all the way. It consisted of a thin uneven stick, over a foot long. She had to separate twelve to fifteen threads with her hand, and stick in a pointed peg about 10 inches long, while she put the shuttle through that far; then she beat it firm with this instrument and went on as before, patiently.

The shepherd boys looked very graceful, playing on the long flutes with four notes. One of these flutes belongs to each hut. We were interested, too, in seeing men making sticks out of ibex horns. They cover the horn with grease, and put it in hot water or over the fire to melt and soften it, and then scrape and scrape till it is thin enough and able to be straightened. The ibex-horn hairpins are made with six or seven bands of filigree round them. The women's camel-saddles have great frameworks of bent sticks, nearly as large as some of the huts, to give shelter, and are very smart indeed on a journey.

On leaving Koukout, Sheikh Hassan took us to his well at Tokwar again, a deep and presumably ancient well, near which he has his huts; and from there to a spot called AkelabillÈh, about four miles from Tokwar, and not far from our original starting-point of Hadi. Here we found slight traces of gold-working. About half a dozen crushing-stones lay around, and a good deal of quartz refuse. Probably this was a small offshoot of the more extensive mines in the interior which had not repaid continued working.

A rapid ride of three hours from AkelabillÈh brought us back again to Mohammed Gol and the close of our expedition, for already the first murmurs of disturbances with the Dervishes were in the air, and the mamour of Mohammed Gol and the officers at Sawakin affected to have been very anxious for our safety. We, however, being on the spot, had been in blissful ignorance of any danger, and further considered that the country we had traversed was not the least likely to be raided by any sensible people, desert and waterless as it was for the most part, and would offer no attractions in the shape of booty, except in the fastnesses of Mount Erba itself. Not one inch of the ground was under cultivation, and the few inhabitants were the poorest of the poor, and I think this is the only expedition we have ever made in which we never once saw such a thing as a hen or an egg.

By the by, at the huts near Tokwar we rejoined Sheikh Ali Debalohp, who had been invited by Sheikh Hassan to stay a night, and with due permission from my husband he was able to do so. We saw the sleeping arrangements. On the ground was a piece of matting large enough for both to sleep on, and another bit a yard high, supported by sticks, round the three windiest sides.

They were busy playing with a large lizard, of which they seemed to be afraid, and which had a forked tongue and very long teeth. It had a string round its neck, and was kept at bay with a sword.

We reached Mohammed Gol the quicker that we had no foot passengers. All had scrambled on to the camels, and so we were by twos and threes on our animals.

The little mamour Mohammed Effendi was delighted to see us, and we were soon drinking tea in his public arbour, surrounded by a crowd of now smiling faces—the very same faces which had scowled upon us so dreadfully when we first landed. We and our little dog Draka were equally delighted at once more meeting.

We found the south wind blowing, if it can be said to do so in a dead calm—prevailing would perhaps be a better word. The madrepore pier had been nearly swept away, and the houses near the water were flooded.

We settled into our ship again that evening.

Next day was pay-day, and my husband and Matthaios went ashore with more than 40l. to distribute. The three big sheikhs, by the advice of the mamour, were given 2l. apiece; the soldiers got ten shillings each—far too much, he said; Mohammed Ismail, Sheikh Hassan Gabrin, Sheikh Moussa Manahm, Mohammed Erkab, and one Akhmet, a great dandy, had five shillings each.

Besides this, other presents were given. Sheikh Ali Debalohp had a quilted cotton coverlet, and Mohammed Ali Hamid the same and a cartridge-belt; Sheikh Hassan Bafori a blanket, a smart silk keffieh and a sword-belt; and the mamour an opera-glass and a silk blanket, besides minor things; all seemed very well satisfied. They certainly were all very nice to us.

The secretary gave me a tremendously heavy curved camel-stick of ebony, and the mamour besides a head-scratcher, which he had made me himself from an ibex horn, a stick of ibex horn, and seven and a half pairs of horns.

We were weatherbound yet another day, everything damp and sticky. The south wind seems to me to have a very mysterious scooping and lifting power; no other wind lifts sand and water along as this one does. The wind began to freshen up towards night and got as far as the east, and by morning was blowing strong north by east.

My husband had, as usual, to go out and stir up Reis Hamaya and tell him we must be off. He seemed as much surprised as he always was. We had a farewell visit from the little mamour, and off we set for a very rolly voyage. The whole day we rolled with the smallest sail, everything banging, beds jostling, but we were glad no longer to feel wet and sticky as regards our clothes, bedding, and the whole ship. Our last night on board was not the least exciting.

We had stopped near Darour amongst reefs of coral.

Every night when we cast anchor the ship used to turn round so that the north wind blew full on us and our cabins, but this night it whizzed round so violently as to drag the anchors, and we went back on to a reef—only a little, though, but enough to alarm all on board. The anchors had to be got up and taken by boat to fix into another reef. It was necessary for all the gentlemen and servants to assist the sailors in hauling us off the reef. It was very hard on the sailors, for their supper was smoking hot, ready for them after their day's fast, and the poor fellows had to work till 9 o'clock, doing the best they could for the safety of the ship.

We went to bed, however, with the unpleasant knowledge that we were not very tightly fastened up, and the uneasy feeling that we might drag in the night, and not without making some little preparation in case of a swim.

We were all safe in the morning, but almost the first thing we did, as we sat at breakfast, was to grind over a reef, more than the length of the keel.

We duly reached Sawakin in the afternoon of March 4, where Hackett Pain Bey, who was acting-governor, kindly lent us two accommodation in the Government House, and we said farewell to the Taisir, its cockroaches, its mosquitoes, and its mouse; and the ship had immediately to be turned over on her side for repairs—needed, as the coral reefs had done a good deal of damage. Reis Hamaya was enchanted with a gift of the cabins with their padlocks, and I am sure they soon became very dirty holes.

Though we were scolded for our pains, our approving consciences told us how pleasing to the British Government those pains had been, and how glad it was of some map beyond the Admiralty chart. Eight days after our arrival the news of the declaration of war came to Sawakin.

We were offered a passage to Suez in the Behera (which means delta), but as an ordinary steamer came in, and we did not know how long the Behera might be waiting for troops, we thought it better to make our way northward at once. We reached Cairo just in time for Captain Smyth to be rewarded for his hard work, while with our expedition, by being ordered off to the war by Sir F. Wingate, who, with the Sirdar, was starting that night; Captain Smyth was to follow in two days.

We felt very proud, and now he has the Victoria Cross, because 'At the battle of Khartoum Captain Smyth galloped forward and attacked an Arab who had run amok among the camp-followers. Captain Smyth received the Arab's charge and killed him, being wounded by a spear in the arm in so doing. He thus saved the life of one, at least, of the camp-followers.'

MAP OF SOKOTRA

Map of Sokotra

to illustrate the explorations of

M^r. J. THEODORE BENT.

Stanford's Geog.^l Estab.^t, London

London: Smith, Elder & Co.