WE START FOR WADI-HALFA. 457 CHAPTER XXXV.

JOURNEY THROUGH DAR EL-MAHASS AND SUKKOT.

We start for Wadi-Halfa— The Plague of Black Gnats— Mohammed's Coffin— "The Island of Argo — Market-Day— Scenery of the Nile — Entering Dar El-Mahass — Ruined Fortresses — The Camel-Men — A Rocky Chaos — Fakir Bender — The Akaba ofMahass — Camp in the Wilderness — The Charm of Desolation — The Nile again — Pilgrims from Dar-Fur — The Struggle of the Nile — An Arcadian Landscape — The Temple of Soleb— Dar Sukkot— The Land of Dates— The Island of Sai— A Sea of Sand— Camp by the River— A Hyena Barbecue.

We left El Ordee or New Dongola, before sunrise on the twenty-ninth of February. A boy of about fourteen years old came out from the town, helped load the camels, and insisted on accompanying me to Cairo. As my funds were diminish ing, and I had no need of additional service, I refused to take him, and he went home greatly disappointed. We were all in fine health and spirits, from the two days' rest, and our ships of the Desert sailed briskly along the sands, with the palmy coasts green and fair on our right. For some miles from the town the land is tolerably well cultivated, but the grain was all much younger than in the neighborhood of Old Dongola.

Beyond this, the country was again deserted and melancholy ; everywhere villages in ruin, fields given up to sand and thorns, 20