Mosquitoes. 263 again to endeavour to shoot an antelope, which we wished to use as a bait for them. Although usually, when wc did not want them, we could obtain one or two without much difficulty, we were on this occasion obliged to return by nightfall without having even had one shot. We thought, that, by leaving a dead antelope near the place where Arthur had seen the lions, one or more might visit it during the night ; in which case, on tl\p following morning, there would be the chance of finding one not far from the carcase, gorged with its banquet. Aylmer had spent the day by the water in the khor, and had shot a doe mddrif, and two fine buck ncllut ; not bad, as all had heads well worth preserving. On his arrival in camp with the spoil, we sent one of the latter to what we hoped would prove the trysting-place of the lions.

" To-day the atmosphere has been clear again ; but the two previous days were so misty that the sun was partly in shade. The temperature, both night and day, has been much cooler ; and we have had very strong gales at night, which tried the tent-ropes.

" The mosquitoes bother us a good deal after the sun has gone down, — a plague we have not experienced before this winter, except to a slight extent at Souakim. These torments need hardly enter into one's calculations in undertaking a journey into these parts ; on the few occasions that one meets with them in any number, they appear to be very local. I found them very troublesome at Sofi, a village on the banks of the Atbara, near its junction with the Settite, although we were encamped very high above the river, and there was nothing to account for their presence in that part more than in any other. This was the place chosen by Sir Samuel Baker in which to spend the rainy season ; and he mentions their extreme virulence in "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia." Of course it was not to