A RECOVERED PATIENT 99 none—live in mud cracks when the river falls, developing lungs in place of gills for the time being.

Water, often very muddy, taken from pools so crowded with life is not fascinating, and it was generally obtained by sinking a hole in the riversand, which has thus filtered it to some extent. But none was good enough to dispense with boiling or the Pasteur filter, which only severe measures induced my attendants to employ for me invariably.

By this time we had penetrated well into the loveliest country of the Dinder. Singa lay far behind to the north-west ; Khartoum beyond it, remote as a distant dream ; Kassala, some hundreds of miles north-east, with Gedaref, fertile and prosperous before the blight of the Mahdi fell on it, watched the same Abyssinian barrier, which will soon turn us westward to rejoin the great central waterway of the Sudan. Meanwhile the lack of human society was compensated for by that of beasties and birds.

I had sent Sheikh Ali of the camels back for more animals, the heads having become rather too numerous for my carrying power, and one camel having fallen sick.

On his return, I inquired, with some anxiety, after the Sheikh of Durraba, whom I had doctored unwittingly in so heroic a fashion. I was relieved to find that I had not killed him, as T feared, but that a complete cure had been effected, much to 7—2