<'SEE MECCA, AND DIEr 31 some land on a nun:iber of years' lease, where they cultivate dJmrra.

The day before, the Takroori band had been joined by two more men of their tribe, whom we had overtaken on the road. We had not noticed them, and knew nothing of their presence, until Suleiman came to tell us about them, as one was ill. The doctor went to see what he could do for him, and found him lying on the ground, smothered in sand, and evidently hi extremis. We administered brandy, and did what we could ; but he only lasted an hour. The man who was with him, and who said he was his brother, borrowed a spade from us, and buried him there and then. He had died, literally, of starvation and fatigue.

It appeared that these people had walked all the way from Gallabat to the coast, a distance of some hundreds of miles. On their return from Mecca, owing to cholera at Jeddah, and in order to escape quarantine at Souakim, they had landed on the African coast, about a hundred miles south of that port.

They were entirely without funds, and had lived on what they could beg from the Arabs, who are often kind to passing strangers. Such deaths in the desert are doubtless of frequent occurrence, and are bound to be so while these long pilgrimages are undertaken, as they often are, by old men and women almost totally unprovided with means, and frequently possessing nothing but the strong wish to see Mecca, and die, which seems to bear them up, and help them through apparently insurmountable difficulties. The dead man's brother we looked after until our arrival in Cassala, where he left us, and continued his journey south to his home. This event brought to light a still more shocking occurrence that had taken place a few days previously.

Among the Takrooris who had joined us soon after leaving