28 FIRST GAME SHOT.

open nature of the ground, which made stalking any thing but an easy process. Aylmer was the first to draw blood, having shot a buck gazelle the day before.

The next day we had some further trouble with our cameldrivers. We had started ahead of the caravan, and shot a couple of gazelles, when one of our native servants suddenly appeared, to tell us that three of the camels were lost. This was all nonsense in reality, and only a ruse in order to give the camels more time to feed, and to let the men dawdle about. We turned back ; and, when we met a number of the laden* camels that had just started, we unloaded some, and overloaded others, so that we got two empty ones ; with these we returned to our late camp, and loaded them with the baggage that was left, and which belonged to the camels supposed to be lost. We started them after the others as soon as possible ; but it delayed us very much, and we only accomplished a sixhours' march. The lost camels were soon found, and the baggage re-arranged.

We passed some huts in the afternoon, near to which water could be obtained, although two or three miles off the road, at a place called Sankcreet : accordingly a camel was left behind to bring a supply, and we travelled on some distance farther, before halting for the night.

Birds of any kind were very scarce ; but Lort Phillips shot a rose-breasted shrike, a kind of butcher-bird I had never met with before.

Dec. 20 was a blazing hot day, and the last on which we had any rain, and that only, a slight shower early in the morning. We marched rather over ten hours to make up for lost time, journeying along a plain from twelve to fifteen miles wide, between the ranges of hills. Khors became rather more numerous, and were wider, showing that we were nearing a