I20 FRIENDLY APPROACHES.

so that Lort Phillips and Aylmer were at first at a loss to account for their sudden consternation. These were the Base that Colvin and I had encountered flying in the direction of the camp. After going a few steps farther, they saw about a hundred men armed with spears, as all are in these countries, sitting under an overhanging rock, beside a well they had dug in the sand. On seeing Lort Phillips and Aylmer, they ran towards them. Achmet, our head horse-boy, whom we had engaged at Souakim, shouted, Edroop, edroop ! " Fire, fire ! ") ; and it is a pity they did not act upon his advice, as there is little doubt that the enemy would have fled immediately if they had only fired a shot or two over their heads ; it would have been quite enough to scare them away, without the necessity of firing at them. Mahomet, however, who had been in the country before (Achmet had not), and whose opinion might consequently be considered to have more weight than Achmet's, begged them not to do so, and urged them to make amdn, or friends. We had of late frequently heard the word aindn applied to ridiculous ceremonies performed by the sheiks of various Base villages through which wc had passed, and which were supposed to have the effect of making us friends forever with those with whom they had taken place ; and Sheik Kudul had informed us that he was friends with the Abyssinians ; so that Aylmer and Lort Phillips imagined they would only have to go through the same performance again, to make them sworn alUes.

Accordingly, acting on Mahomet's advice, they dismounted when the Abyssinians got up to them ; Mahomet and Achmet then placed the spare rifles they were carrying on the ground, and motioned Lort Phillips and Aylmer to do the same, in order to show that they were peaceably inclined. The Abyssinians