ARRIVAL AT CASSALA. 43 At a place called Miskenab in the kJior, we found deep wells of excellent water sunk in the sand ; and we sent a camel with the water-skins to fetch some. We made a march of nine and a half hours, having an excellent day's shooting on the way.

Another long day's march of eight and a half hours brought us to Cassala, which we reached on the evening of the 7th, twenty-four days out from Souakim. If there had been nothing to delay us, the journey should not have occupied more than twelve or thirteen days. My brother had accomplished the journey in thirteen days, four years before we passed through the country; and that had allowed him a whole day's rest on the way.

Jules was, of course, much exhausted after the long journey; but the doctor declared that the dysentery had stopped, and he hoped with good food and rest he would soon begin to pick up his strength.

The day we arrived, we spent in looking for game to the right and left of the path, but did not meet with nearly so much success as on the previous day. The aspect of the country was different from any we had passed through : it had, in fact, become quite park-like, and was dotted with numerous dark-green bushes, very like laurels, and so neat-looking that they had quite the appearance of having been trimmed, the only drawback being that they sprang from dusty soil instead of from green grass.

We found the rest of our party quite well. They had been four days in Cassala, and had encamped about a mile from the town, in the dry bed of the Gash, where it was some three or four hundred yards wide, close to the shade of a huge fig-tree, covered with dark-green leaves that afforded most grateful shade. We pitched a tent for Jules under it. Close by was a garden containing orange and lime trees, watered all day long from a