ANOTHER DUST-STORM. 55 ant-eater, leopards, wildcats, and various species of antelopes, to say nothing of quite a number of giraffes and ostriches.

The giraffes used to be promenaded about the bed of the Gash very frequently for exercise. We were told they were very troublesome to get to the coast, as they had most decided wills of their own, and required several men to look after each animal. Formerly large sums were made by this trade ; but, like many others, the number of people engaged in it has increased, and the natives who catch the animals expect more for them than used to content them. A few ostriches were kept for their feathers. We saw some that had lately been plucked : they had not a feather on them, and wonderfully ugly they looked.

We were not allowed to proceed on our journey without again experiencing the pleasure of a dust-storm, for which the place is justly celebrated. Beds, baggage, every thing, were covered with a mixture of sand and dust ; eyes, nose, and ears full of it,— the delights of Khor Langeb over again. We had intended leaving a good deal of our baggage behind, to be picked up on our return ; but eventually we decided to take it all on with us as far as Haikota, an Arab encampment on the Gash, — the point from which we hoped to strike into the Base country, — and to leave some of it there, as we thought it very probable that we should not be obliged to return to Cassala at all.

Having bought camels, the next thing to be done was to engage drivers. As head man, we enlisted the services of a native of the town, whom my brother Arthur had found on his arrival in Cassala, and originally engaged as cook : he had accompanied the expedition in search of camels to the Atbara, and his talents evidently pointed more to caring for those animals than to shining in the culinary art, He rejoiced in the