478 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

drive it loose behind us. This, however, was of no avail, and at last he concluded to wait till it had rested a little. I gave him the water-skin, and we pushed on. Half an hour afterwards, when I was eating breakfast under the lee of a sand-hill, Ali, who had remained behind with him, came up, saying they had examined the camel and decided that it was sick. The shekh thereupon wept most vehemently, fearing it would die, and turned about with it to make his way home.

Ali lent him a dollar and promised to take him the rest of the money due him. The other men were quite downcast by the shekh's misfortune. There was nothing to be done, however, but to push ahead, as the other camels were well nigh worn out.

We kept on all the afternoon, with the cold wind blowing in our faces, and occasionally a shower of colder rain dashed upon us. The road ascended until towards noon, when we passed through a gateway between two peaks of granite, whose loose masses threatened to topple down the sides and crush us. Then for three or four hours we travelled over more elevated ranges, from the crests of which we had wide glimpses over the terrible tract, yet could see nothing but sand and stones — stones and sand. In the east a long mountain-range lay dark and distant, under the shadow of the rain-clouds, and it was some comfort to know that it was beyond the Nile. As night approached, I feared we should be obliged to camp in the akaba, and without water, but after ten hours of most wearisome travel, we reached a ridge, whence we looked into a vast basin of rocky hills, between us and the mountains, whose long chain of jagged peaks, touched with the full yellow light of the setting sun, stood against the black gust that rolled away beyond