SPIDERS AND INSECTS. 255 red legs, covered with stiff and spiky red hairs, the whole beast barely to be contained in a soup-plate, and you have an idea of the apparitions which made for us that night. They devour little birds, their bite is by way of being poisonous, and they are horrible tolook at. No wonder we bolted.

Insects of other sorts also began to multiply about this time. Every evening we liked to have a swim in the cool waters, but now it was fast becoming an impossibility. Millions upon millions of tiny sand-midges crowded the water's edge, especially in the neighbourhood of green stuff, and made bathing an infliction instead of a luxury. Luckily they disappeared with the sun, but ten minutes of their company every evening was enough to drive one wild with the tickling they did not often bite.

Next morning we arrived in sight of Dongola a good deal sooner than we expected and disembarked at about ten o'clock. Our camp had been fixed for a spot over half a mile above the actual town, in a sort of enclosure formed by two sakiyeh troughs, running up from the river towards a collec-