32 WITH THE CAMEL CORPS UP THE NILE.

had not turned up at Assouan as soon as was expected, owing to their broken crank, so accordingly we were sent. How far this report was true I never inquired.

Besides our three companies starting from Wady Haifa, we had a small train of baggage camels, a section of the Field Hospital, under a first-rate doctor (Briggs the same who afterwards attended poor Sir Herbert), and a few extras in the shape of Commissariat and Transport men.

At last we felt something like " business," and bade adieu with no regrets to civilisation in the shape of steamers and railways. Our road lay more or less along the Nile the whole way, the detachment encamping on the river at night, at settled stations, and making an average of twenty miles during the day. As one day was very much like another, I will only describe the usual mode of procedure.

Starting at five or six in the morning, according to the distance to be done, we walked, dragging our camels after us, for four or five miles in the cool of the morning. When the sun got hot (which it did