144 FROM BINDER, AND NILE TO NILE height, apparently set up on end, called the Marid.

The moon was not due ; the track was quite new, and could not have been followed without a guide from the considerable village at Gule. These men seem to see in the dark almost as well as a cat ; at times the new blackamoor halted and peered round about, but I was too tired to question. The camels were walking dead slow, and my back was half broken, so that when midnight and rest came I could scarcely await the make-up of the bed. From the previous morning we had come sixty-five miles, and the camels were feeling the pressure.

During the following morning a zariba was passed, the thorn - branches being particularly strongly arranged in proximity to an unfinished well. This was evidently a Government under taking, and marked the halfway between Gule and Renk. But it was deserted, and on my arrival at Renk I learned that a fortnight before a lion had actually jumped the zariba, dared the fire, and had seized the poor well-sinker and carried him off, wounded and torn by the thorn. Inexplicably, the lion then dropped him, and the man was taken into hospital, where he recovered.

All of this country is covered with the densest species of thorn the world knows how to produce. The kittir bush-thorn in itself is the worst of its kind. To penetrate even a short distance into it is to run the greatest risk of being " bushed," for it is impossible to see a yard or two in front.

This, then, is a favourite hunting-ground of lions,