108 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

The caravan from Sennaar brought twelve giraffes, which had been captured in the forests of the Blue Nile, as a present from Lattif Pasha, Governor of Soudan, to Abbas Pasha.

They were in good condition, notwithstanding the toilsome march across the Nubian Desert. The officer who had them in charge informed me that they made frequent efforts to escape, and one of them, which broke from its keeper's hold, was only recaptured after a chase of several hours. Four large trading-boats were in readiness, to convey them to Assouan, and the graceful creatures stood on the bank, with their heads almost touching the crowns of the date-trees, looking with wonder on the busy scene below. For a long time they refused to enter the unsteady barges, but at last, trembling with fear, they were forced on board and floated away, their slim necks towering like masts in the distance.

There was a small tent on the bank, pitched not far from mine. Its occupant, a one-eyed, olive-faced young man, in Egyptian costume, came to pay me a visit, and I found that he was a son of M. Linant, by a former Abyssinian wife. He was then making his second trip to Soudan, as a merchant, on a capital of twenty-five thousand piastres, which his father had given him. Although he only required twelve camels, he had been eight days in Korosko waiting for them, and was still waiting when I left. He was accompanied by a young Frenchman, who was one of the grandest liars I ever met. He told me with a grave face, that he had travelled from Algiers to Egypt through the Great Sahara, and had on one occasion gone eight days without water, and the thermometer one hundred and twenty-five degrees in the shade ! The son of the former Mek (king) of Shendy — the same fierce old savage who