74 WITH THE CAMEL CORPS UP THE NILE.

pointed them out to me as being the very acme of Light Cavalry. Our first halt was only two hours after we started, the object being to give the men their tea, since we were going to march all night. Fires were easily kindled with the dry grass and mimosa bushes which abounded along the track, and the tea having been consumed (very good it was, too), we started ahead again, the darkness being illuminated by a three-quarter full moon.

I had had a vague idea, before starting from England, that it was perpetual summer in the tropics both as regards heat and light, but discovered before long that the sun rises and sets in Africa at more or less the same time as in colder climates, and, this being December, it sank below the horizon at about five o'clock. Luckily for us, the moon appeared shortly after the sun set, and we plodded on all night in a beautiful white light, much stronger than I ever saw in England. I had to make a road-report, and, thanks to the moon, could see every black hill in the distance clearly enough to take a bearing on.