ACHMED AGEER. 67 to ask his aid in the matter; and said that, through a sheik who hved near Amedeb (an Egyptian mihtary station to the north of the Base country), we should be able to penetrate into their territory. We knew, however, that this was the last way to set to work to gain our point, as the sheik in question was friendly to the government, and had nothing to do with the part we were anxious to visit. We told him that he alone could help us ; that we had been in the Soudan before, and had come again on purpose to shoot and travel among the Base, and we trusted to him to aid us. After a very long discussion, and a number of cups of coffee had been drunk, and cigarettes smoked, he acceded to our wishes, and promised to help us. We explained to him, that we were anxious to go along the Gash, or Mareb as it is called farther up, as far as the Abyssinian frontier, and then across country to the Settite, returning along the river, and crossing over to Haikota. He did not absolutely promise that we should carry out the whole of this programme ; but he said we might follow the course of the river's bed as far as the Abyssinian frontier, at any rate, and that then he thought we should have no difficulty in finding some Base who would show us a road across the Settite, as the banks of that river were inhabited by people belonging to that tribe, who, as we had already understood, lived to the east of the Hamrans, and between them and the Abyssinians.

As soon as Achmed Ageer had promised us his aid in travelling through the Base country, he said that in order to go there it was essential we should take some of his horsemen ; after much discussion, we arranged to take four ( he had at first proposed our taking ten ! ), and to pay them at the rate of twentyfive dollars apiece a month. Two or three of these braves were supposed to speak the Base language, but we afterwards found that only one of them could do so ; this man rejoicecl in th