CHRISTMAS EVE. 319 one of my companions and I ascended the hills on the banks, and were well rewarded for our toil by gaining splendid views over woods and dales, with fine ranges of distant hills. The view of the Murchison Falls is taken from a hill on the southern bank, at a distance of about a mile, and gives but a very slight idea of the grandeur of the scene. It was unfortunately impossible to obtain a better position for a photograph.

It being Christmas Eve we spent as cheerful an evening as we could, although so far from home, and amid such strange surroundings. We had a large fire made under our tree, and sat round it, singing carols, to the great astonishment of a motley throng who formed a ring round us and listened with evident delight to our amateur concert. Of course many a thought was sent across land and sea to our fardistant English homes, where we pictured our friends spending a very different evening.

On Christmas morning the officers of the station called to wish us the customary " El eed Mabarak," or " May you have a blessed feast."

After our Christmas service we repaired to the house of the Mudir, whose head wife Zenab gave us a capital dinner, of which the following were the chief courses : soup, Irish stew, roast fowl, plumpudding (which we had brought with us from England), and sweets made of honey, butter, groundnuts and semsem seeds. There was also plantain