ARRIVAL AT RENK 145 and the whole neighbourhood of Renk is renowned for them. By chance I neither saw nor heard one, and as a matter of fact I was glad that my muchneeded sleep was undisturbed, though 1 woke up to find that the tired camel-men had let the fires down.

The track had been cut as a Government road through the kittir bush. One could almost believe that the old Romans had recently arrived, so straight it proceeded over hill and down dale, visible miles in the distance ahead—a rut in a carpet of bush.

Here the plain was abandoned, and the ground was undulating ; the vegetation doubtless felt the influence of water, if only in the atmosphere.

The evening found me within so reasonable a distance of Renk that I could easily have run in ; but it was preferable to sleep away from the river, in freedom from the mosquitoes of the humming river-side. The sight of a bootprint in the dust impressed me almost as vividly as Friday's did Robinson Crusoe.

It may appear strange to those at home that one can smell water, but no signpost was needed to tell me the end of my trek was at hand. Five miles away one breathed great gulps of the waterfreshened atmosphere ; I revelled in it—almost bathed in it. Yet to the traveller fresh from Europe it would have been parching. A gaiety spread over the whole camelcade ; the animals quickened their pace and seemed glad.

So freshened was I that I found walking the 10