134 OUR START FOR AMEDEB, other, it got through the day's march, but was never afterwards good for much. Some of the natives said this disease was caused by the bite of the tsetse-fly during the rainy season.

We were told that one long day would bring us to Amedeb ; but, although we rose at five o'clock, it was nearly nine before we were fairly off. It is impossible to hurry Arabs ; and, whether we started with a large or a small caravan, getting off was always a very slow process. We took with us Mahomet Salee, and Bayrumphy, who rode on horseback ; one did not like to go \vithout the other, and, moreover, Bayrumphy was our interpreter with the Base. He knew very little Arabic, and had first to translate Base into the language spoken by the Beni-Amer tribe, to Mahomet Salee, who re-translated to us into Arabic ; in this way, when any of the Base wished to communicate with us, their original sentences were sadly mangled and distorted before we could understand them, Suleiman rode on top of the camel that usually carried our luncheon when on the march ; and all necessary provisions, saucepans, etc., for the journey, were stowed away in the panniers on which he was seated. We took two camels, completely laden with heads and skins to be left at Amedeb ; as we all expected to pass by there on our way to the coast, when we could pick them up again.

We carried the European servants' tent to sleep in. At first we thought of going without one, and sleeping in the open air ; but were afterwards very glad we had not done so, as the nights were intensely cold, with fogs in the early morn ing. During my first journey in the Soudan, I slept without a tent of any kind ; and both I and another of the party, who did the same, suffered from fever. I do not know whether we caught it in this way, or not ; but I think it very likely that the cold nights, and often heavy dews, after the intensely hot