NIGHT AFTER THE ACTION. 141 a very thin serge jacket. I tried to get shelter between two camels, but directly I began to get warm the brutes would feel me and lurch over on top of me, till I was driven into the open again. Hardly a wink of sleep did one of us get that night, and fearfully hungry we were too. Half-a-dozen of us huddled together, giving up sleep as a bad job, and made the time pass by sucking in turns at a solitary pipe a great preventive of pangs of emptiness in the stomach region. At last the cold grey dawn began to break, and, glad of any movement, we stood to our arms.

No enemy had been seen or heard by our outposts, so the column was formed up and the men allowed to fall out. A herd of lean cattle left by the enemy was soon discovered not far off, and all the native drivers were ordered out in pursuit. The niggers kicked up such a diabolical hurroosh in trying to catch them, that they only succeeded in scattering them far and wide, and the Hussars had to ride after them.

The cows went such a pace that the ponies could not keep up, and the only way to get fresh beef was to shoot a few and cut them up on the spot. Many dead Arabs were found in the wadies, and a good deal of