THE GUFFERr 133 is plentiful, will not thrive where it is scarce, but where trees with green leaves abound ; while others, on the contrary, relish green leaves, and will not look at grass. They are very stupid animals, and require to be taken to suitable feeding-ground, as they are not always sensible enough to find it for themselves.

It sometimes happened that there was grass to be found on one side of the river's bed, and green leaves on the other ; and our camel-drivers, unmindful of these peculiarities, would sleep in comfort, leaving these stupid animals to feed off whatever happened to come first.

On some parts of the Mareb, a parasitu plant, which the natives call hikabeet, with a most brilliant green leaf, is very common. It is poisonous, but camels will devour it greedily whenever they get a chance. We lost a good many from this cause ; and others, though they recovered, were for a long time unfit for work. Careless loading, too, caused many of the camels to suffer from sore backs ; and we were constantly at loggerheads with our drivers.

There is a disease, very common amongst them, which the natives call the giiffer. We were never able to clearly make out what this disease was. Some of the Arabs declared it was catching ; others, that it was not ; but all said that a number of the camels we had bought on the Atbara were suffering from it when they were bought. Whenever we had to complain of any of the camel-drivers having, through negligence, allowed a camel to run down, the excuse was, that it was suffering from this mysterious disease, the guffer. We were once asked to look at a camel said to be suffering from this complaint. It was certainly in miserably poor condition, and, at the time, appeared to have a fit or convulsion of some kind.

It rolled on the ground, apparently in great agony, and was only induced to get up after much difficulty. Somehow or