CHAPTER XIII.

Aylmer and I start for Ma Ambasah, and find Water.— A Chase after Buffaloes.

Conical versus Spherical Bullets. — A Nasty Recoil. — A Visit from Sheik Kudul.— He departs, promising to return.— The Camp moves to Ma Ambasah. Two Bull Buffaloes killed. — Some of the Camel-drivers sent to Amedeb for Dhurra.

One morning Aylmer and I started off for a kJior called Ma Ambasah, where there was said to be a good deal of water ; it ran into the right bank of the Mareb, about eight or ten miles above our camp. On our way there we each shot a tetely after one of which we had a long chase before finally securing him ; these we shot soon after leaving camp, so we sent them back on one of the two camels we had taken with us for the purpose of carrying game.

On arriving at Khor Ma Ambasah, we found, that, although there were no large pools of water such as we had been led to expect, still a good deal of water filtered up through the sand in several places.

There were plenty of very fresh tracks of buffaloes in the sandy khor and these animals had dug holes in the sand in order more easily to obtain a supply of water to drink.

We had struck this khor at its junction with the Mareb, which we had followed up to this point ; and, after having gone about a mile up its bed from this junction, we set off to shoot our way back to camp, intending to cut off the angle formed by the junction of the two khors. We had only just started, and 107