166 . WI7H THE CAMEL CORPS UP THE NILE.

little horses a drink. The whole of them had been fifty-eight hours, and many seventy-two hours, without a drop of water ! The next to be watered were the camels, who had all been very nearly seven days without a drop. It was quite a pleasure seeing the poor brutes make for the river and stand there sucking it up without moving. Potiphar remained fourteen minutes with his nose in the water, and then began eating the green cotton plant all round us as if he would never stop. One of my baggagers was so much affected by the sight of the river, that he took a mouthful and dropped stone dead.

It had now got pitch dark, but numbers of fires had been lighted in the village by the time the camels were all watered, so 1 tethered all my baggagers round a big heap of straw and green stuff, and made my way to the mess. The houses in the village were really quite decent, far superior to the dirty mud hovels which constitute a village in Lower Egypt. They were built of a sort of concrete and surmounted by conical or horizontal roofs of straw and dhurra stalk, the walls averaging about eleven feet