DONGOLA TOWN. 261 an extra door, and cross-barred it to keep the niggers {and himself) out, and let the air in, and I went the length of cutting a hole in my roof, and building a .sort of lean-to over it ; but the dust didn't seem to mind it came in through the top as well as anywhere else, and so did the sun. We soon found it hopeless trying to keep an even temperature, so we made up our minds and perspired ad lib.

Our chief amusement during the cool of the day lay in exploring the town of Dongola, which, to tell the truth, had very little in it to repay our trouble. Imagine a plain town, about four miles round, and composed of one-storied mud-houses and narrow streets ; round the outside, leaving a good space for cultivation between it and the town, a mud-parapet and ditch by way of fortification ; one side of the town on the river, and on the land side a stretch of short green (?) turf dotted here and there with patches of cultivation, huts, and water-ditches ; behind these again a desert of low, gray hills and nubbly stones, and you will have a good idea of our surroundings for three months. As for fine