THE WELLS OF DJEEKDUD. 413 ing. Djebel Attshan was dimly visible in the starlight, and we saw the light of fires kindled by the Arabs who live at the wells of Djeekdud. Sai'd was anxious to go on to the wells and have a carouse with the natives, and when I refused threatened to leave me and go on alone to Merawe. " G-o ! " said I, "just as soon as you like" — but this was the very thing he did not want. The heat which I had absorbed through the day began to ooze out again as the temperature of the air fell, and my body glowed until midnight like a mass of molten metal. On lifting up my blanket, that night, a large scorpion tumbled out, but scampered away so quickly that we could not kill him.

We were up betimes the next morning, and off for Bir Dje-ekdud. At ten o'clock we entered a wide valley extending to the southern base of the mountains. It was quite overgrown with bushy tufts of grass and scattering clumps of trees. Herds of goats and sheep, with a few camels and donkeys, were browsing over its surface, and I saw the Arab herdsmen at a distance. The wells lie in a narrow wady, shut in by the mountains, about two miles east of the caravan track. We therefore halted in the shade of a spreading mimosa, and sent Said and the guide's brother with the water-skins. I took my breakfast leisurely, and was lying on my back, half lulled to sleep by the singing of the wind, when the Dongolese arrived.

He gave us to drink from his fresh supply of water, and informed us that the wells in the valley were not good, but that there was a deposit in the rocks above, which was pure and sweet. I therefore sent Ali off in all haste on one of my dromedaries, to have my skins filled from the latter place, which occasioned a further delay of two hours. An Arab