246 PERE PICARD.

occurrence among these Arabs, As usual on such occasions, the Egyptian soldiers at Sanheit remained in garrison, and did nothing to help them. The garrison consisted of fifteen hundred men, all negroes from the White Nile.

Several wells had been sunk close to the road. The air was fresh and invigorating ; and on reaching the top of the pass, and winding in and out of the hills for a short distance, we were delighted to look down on Sanheit in the valley below us, surrounded by mountains, and situated over five thousand feet above sea-level. It is the healthiest and coolest town in the Eg}'ptian Soudan, and we knew it well. We had ridden on ahead of the caravan, and went straight to the mission-house, where we saw Fere Picard. He said the letter I had written to him from Amedeb on Feb. 17 had been a month and a half on the road, as it had gone by Cassala, Souakim, and Massawa. He had replied at once ; but I had not received it, as it had probably gone by the same roundabout route.

He informed us that he had conversed with two Abyssinians who had seen our stolen rifles, which they declared had been sent to the king, who was now in Shoa. He seemed confident, that by writing to the king, through the French consul at Massawa, we should get them back ; so we determined at all events to try and do so. His informants told him that the Dembelas who took the rifles consisted, as we had imagined, of a party of men out after game, which they hoped to spear by watching near their watering-places, and among them were two men Pere Picard mentioned to us by name, one of whom had spent about two years in the Egyptian Soudan, and spoke Arabic fluently. He thought this man was probably the one who wore the felt hat.

With regard to the children of poor Mahomet, our guide, whom the Dembelas had killed, Pere Picard told us that the