NEW YEARS EVE. 79 Curious insects crawled about the yellow grass, the exact facsimile of the blades ; unless you saw them moving on their cranky swaying legs, you would never imagine them to be other than dry sticks or blades of grass. A merciful dispensation of Providence has ordained that no mosquitoes, bugs, or fleas should live south of Wady Haifa, so the only annoying insects were common flies and sand-flies, which latter only flourish on the banks of the river.

At 3 p.m. we started again, and proceeded in much the same order, with an hour's interval for tea, till 8.30, when we arrived at the first wells, Abu Hashim or Hambok by name. They were simply funnel-shaped holes in the grass, from four to twelve feet deep, with hardly any water in them at all. Accordingly we pushed on for the next wells, El Howeiyat, some thirteen miles further. The ground now got somewhat steeper, and at midnight we emerged on a broad stony khor.

As soon as it became known that we had entered on the New Year, the whole column struck up " Auld Lang Syne," and the echoes of the chorus in the