FROM KAVES TO TIMBUKTU 47 been partially destroyed. We have to call a halt ; to cut wood and grass to mend the bridge, and carry stones and earth to make stepping-stones, etc., so that it is often an hour or two before we can get across.

But now the horizon begins to glow with warm colour. The sun is rising, and as it gradually appears, its rays, which are not yet powerful enough to scorch us, softened as they are by the mists of the early morning, give a fresh impulse to the whole caravan. One of the drivers gives a ioud cry, alike shrill and hoarse : it is the beginning of a native chant, in which the names of chiefs and heroes of the past, such as Sundiata, Sumanguru, Monson, and Bina Ali, occur again and again. The singer's comrades take up the refrain in muffled tones. Then another negro brings out of his goat-skin bag a flute made of a hollow bamboo stem, and for hours at a time keeps on emitting from it six notes, ahvays the same. The porters also have their music, and