CAMELS AND BILLS OF EXCHANGE. 379 Many of the Franks and Egyptians were also affected, and Achmet, who felt plethoric symptoms, must needs go to a barber and be bled in the head. He besought me to return to Egypt, and as I had already accomplished much more than I anticipated, I began at once to prepare for the homeward journey.

The route which I fixed upon was that across the Beyooda Desert to Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia thence to Dongola, and through the Nubian kingdoms to the Second Cataract of the Nile, at Wadi Haifa. The first part of the journey, through the countries of the Kababish and the Howoweet, was considered rather dangerous, and as a precautionary measure I engaged three of the former tribe, aj guide and camel-drivers. I purchased two large Shukoree dromedaries for myself and Achmet, at three hundred and two hundred and fifty piastres respectively, and hired three others from the Kababish, at fifty piastres for the journey to Eddabe, on the Dongolese frontier, by way of Napata. The contract was formally made in the presence of the shekh of Khartoum and Dr.

Reitz, both of whom threatened the Arabs with destruction in case they should not convey me safely through the Desert.

The Consul also did me good service in the negotiation of my draft on Fathalla Musallee, a Coptic merchant, who demanded twenty per cent, for the exchange. This, as my funds were getting low, would have been a serious loss, but by some arithmetical legerdemain, which I could not understand, the Consul so bewildered poor Fathalla's brain, that he was finally made to believe that a discount of five per cent, would somehow profit him more in the end than one of twenty per cent. Fathalla paid the money with a melancholy confusion of ideas, and I