THE LAST DAT IN THE DESERT. 191 seven fat years, enough wheat and dourra and beans, to last during the seven lean ones." The narrator might have added that the breed of fat kine has never been restored, all the cattle of Egypt being undoubted descendants of the lean stock. • Two hours after sunset, we hilled Djebel Mokrat, as the Arabs say : that is, turned its corner. The weary camels were let loose among some clumps of dry, rustling reeds, and I stretched myself out on the sand, after twelve hours in the saddle. Our water was nearly exhausted by this time, and the provisions were reduced to hermits' fare — bread, rice and dates. I had, however, the spice of a savage appetite, which was no sooner appeased, than I fell into a profound sleep. I could not but admire the indomitable pluck of the little donkeys owned by the Kenoos. These animals not only carried provisions and water for themselves and their masters, the whole distance, but the latter rode them the greater part of the way ; yet they kept up with the camels, plying their little legs as ambitiously the last day as the first. I doubt whether a horse would have accomplished as much under similar circumstances.

The next morning we started joyfully, in hope of seeing the Nile, and even Eyoub, for the first time since leaving Korosko, helped to load the camels. In an hour we passed the mountain of Mokrat, but the same endless plain of yellow gravel extended before us to the horizon. Eyoub had promised that we should reach Abou-Hammed in half a day, and even pointed out some distant blue mountains in the south, as being beyond the Nile. Nevertheless, we travelled nearly till noon without any change of scenery, and no more appearance of river