LION CONVERSATION AT NIGHT 93 hears his black brethren sleep soundly, observes the perfect insouciance of camels and donkeys, yet he is stupid enough to feel glad when the fires are bright, and sorry when they are dull, and he follows the movements of Felis leo by his voice from place to place with animated and quite unnecessary interest.

Each remark consisted of from twenty to twentyfour words, the early ones sounding a distinct tone of complaint, declining on two notes and staccato in the finish ; the later ones had less of an interval between them, and were of one gruff note only, subsiding at the last into a heavy sigh or breath.

" Ah," said Abid next morning, " he tell his wife his stomach full, he inabsoud [happy]. If he hungry he no say anyting."

He failed to respond, however, to the strictest search when the daylight came, and may have passed on to join his comrades down-river.

It was strange, on the other hand, that, though night after night the camping-places were haunted in this way, on no single occasion on this river did I fall across one in the daylight, during the scores of miles of every class of country we traversed.

Among the Arabs who followed me for the sake of the meat, now presenting a formidable appearance, was a whilom slave of the notorious Zobeir Pasha, whose influence extended far into the interior of slave-raided Central Africa, and whose services Gordon desired to enlist to preserve Khartoum.

My friend was possessed of a large, round, clean-