48 IN A LAND DESERTED For 100 miles before us, in ante-lNlahdi days, there had been village upon village, the more distant of them, it is true, being retired from on the approach of the wet season. Now all have disappeared, save a police post at Khor Galegu and a slavery post on the Abyssinian frontier.

The Sheikh of Durraba made the inevitable mistake of the African native, and called for my services as a doctor. On receiving sufficient medicine for five white men, impatient for a cure, he disregarded my instructions, and took it all at once, leaving me with an uneasy conscience for many days after.

Poor as they were—perhaps anticipatory of vast loads of dried meat to come to them as a result of my chase—they were painstaking for my comfort, and hospitable.

It had not been brewing-day, and so the usual offering of merissa or um-bil-bil was not forthcoming. Moreover, it was not a land of plenty, but I was provided with a cool, thirst-quenching decoction, consisting of flakes of treated dhurra flour steeped in a great preponderance of water.

At Abu Hashim, the handsome and intelligent Egyptian Mamur, Achmet Khalil, sighing in his loneliness for the fleshpots of Egypt, had laughingly caused one of his subordinates to bring me samples of the already familiar merissa, and of its refinement um-bil-bil, which is manifestly superior, in that it is less disagreeable.

In the weeks to come I was to be made aware