250 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

CHAPTEE XI.

DARA AND DAEFOUE.

OuE nine days' stay at Dara was a very pleasant break in our journey. Slatin Bey entertained us most kindly ; we lived in his kouse, and everything he had was placed at our disposal. Letters arrived from Europe every week, and Vienna papers of November 11 were to us indeed a treat ; some copies of ' Truth ' gave us recent English news and no little amusement. Certainly we were getting nearer to civilisation.

Dara is well fortified by a stone wall, having a tower at each corner ; the walls are massive, and there is a deep trench outside the wall. The fortification forms a square, each side of it being a quarter of a mile long. Inside the fort are the government magazines and barracks ; the townspeople live in straggling lanes of huts, irregularly built, to the south and east of the citadel. The houses were being gradually rebuilt of brick in a more substantial manner. There is a daily market held in these suburbs, where meat, milk, merissa, vegetables, beads, and many odds and ends of hardware are sold.

Great is the bargaining and deafening the noise