OUR PARTY. 3 the service between Suez and the African ports, and she had started before we had collected our party together.

In this dilemma, we fortunately were able to induce the British India Company's steamer "Agra" to stop for us at Souakim, on her way out to India. This was most lucky for us, as we grudged spending more of the cool weather at Cairo than we could help ; the heat in the Soudan becoming very trying by the spring.

The "Agra" was delayed in the canal, and instead of leaving Suez on Dec. 2, as she should have done, did not start until the 7th : this was, however, fortunate, as one of our party (Colvin) was to join us there from Australia; and, had she started on the right day, he would have been too late, as he did not arrive until the 4th, running it rather fine. He had come straight from Adelaide, in the " Chimborazo," one of the Orient line, without touching anywhere : and she had been a few days late in starting.

Before embarking at Suez, I may as well introduce our party to my readers. It consisted of seven, besides servants, — G. Percy V. Aylmer, R. B. Colvin, E. Lort Phillips, my two brothers, the Doctor, and myself. Of these, all except Colvin and the Doctor had made an expedition together, during the previous winter, into the Bogos country, on the Abyssinian frontier ; and my brothers and myself had, four years previous to that, travelled via the Nile and Atbara Rivers, as far as the River Settite : so that we were not novices in African travel, and, moreover, — a most important consideration in undertaking such an expedition, — we felt that we should get on well together.

As we were so large a number of Europeans, we thought that it would be prudent to have a doctor in the party. I undertook the task of finding one, and found it no sinecure.