AN OLD FRIEND. 245 Soudan had been lately divided into two, and the eastern part made separate from Khartoum, Berber, the White and Blue Niles, Kordofan, and Darfour. Ala-ed-Deen, as I have already mentioned, had just been made governor of Souakim, Massawa, Sanheit, Cassala, Gedariff, Gallabat, and the intervening country. He was very cordial, and declared he had heard of our affair with the Dembelas, and said he believed the rifles had come into the possession of Ras Aloula. He was on his way to Amedeb, and intended visiting the various towns under his jurisdiction, making Cassala his headquarters, our old friend the Bey there having been dismissed.

Ala-ed-Deen had with him a man who spoke a little English, and who had previously had control of the telegraph at Khartoum, but had been dismissed from there. Now he was to be reinstated, and, moreover, to have the charge of all the telegraph-system in Ala-ed-Deen's province.

The next day took us into Sanheit, which we reached on April 10. A new road, only lately finished, had been built over the mountain, decidedly the best piece of road-making I had ever seen in the country, and nearly good enough for carriages, had there been such vehicles. It was a broad, zigzag road, cut in places through the rock, the work of the soldiers at Sanheit, and due entirely to the energy of the present governor.

In the summer of 1881 the Abyssinians had come down into the country between Ashidireh and this mountain pass, and driven off a great many cattle, as well as killing a number of the Sanheit people, among others Gerghis' father and Ali Bakeet's brother. An old servant of ours of the previous winter, whom we greatly disliked and eventually dismissed, rejoicing in the name of Totel, nicknamed by us ''total failure," had turned renegade, and assisted them against his own people ; a scandalous proceeding, which I believe to be of rare