A QUARRELSOME SERVANT. 187 We had brought Moosa from Cassala ; he was a boy of about fourteen, as sharp as a needle, but a thorough young scamp, with a most violent temper. Salee declared he had tried to shoot him on purpose, but there was no evidence of this being the case. We gave him a good thrashing, which we hoped would be a lesson to him to be more careful in future ; and rated him well for his carelessness, as, in any case, he must have been playing with the locks for the rifle to have gone off at all.

For some time before this, we had thought it prudent to keep our rifles loaded in view of possible contingencies, otherwise Colvin would of course have extracted the cartridges before giving it up to a native.

Not many days later we were obliged to send Moosa away altogether. Having picked a quarrel with another Arab boy of about his own age, he rushed at him with a large pair of sharp-pointed scissors used for skinning birds, and inflicted several severe wounds on his chest and arms. After having administered a sufficient correction with a convenient koorbatc/i, we handed him over to a neighbouring Hamran sheik, to be sent back to his own people at Cassala at the first opportunity.

The place where we encamped was called Om Gedat, or "mother of the guinea-fowl," so named from the immense number of those birds that resorted to the neighbourhood.

After a night there, we moved about ten miles farther down, and pitched our tents on the left bank of the river, at a spot named Om Hagar, or "mother of the rock." The Arabs on the Settite are very fond of such names. A village still farther down, they term Om Brega, "mother of the thorn," also a most appropriate designation, the village being situated in a wood of kiitar-hMs\\Q.s.

Lort Phillips and Aylmer.made the journey together to