134 JOURNEY FROM the only living things we had seen, jackalls, gazelles, and water-fowl excepted, since we quitted the little encampment at Sooleb. Sixteen miles south of Mahad Hassan, the marsh finishes at Giraff ; we arrived there on the night of the 1 1th, and pitched the tents upon some sand-hills bordering a plain thickly covered with low brushwood, which extended as far as the eye could reach, and from its green appearance seemed to promise some signs of habitation. Our journey across the marsh had been monotonous and uninteresting in the extreme ; no objects had appeared to enliven the scene, and no sounds were heard but the voices of our own camel-drivers, and the tiresome unvaried songs of our Arab escort, which usually consisted of no more than three or four words, repeated eternally without any change of tone, and apparently without the consciousness of the performers themselves.

The only sounds which broke in upon the stillness of the night were the prayers of our friend the Dbbbah as he chanted them at intervals in a low and drousy tone, and the howhngs of his namesakes *, who prowled about the tents, occasionally mingled with the shriller cries of the jackalls.

We had passed a tolerably comfortable night at Giraff, and were preparing to proceed early on our journey the following morning, when, to our no small surprise, we found that the camel-drivers refused to load their camels, and, on inquiring the cause of this strange behaviour, we were told they would not proceed any farther, * We have already stated that Shekh Mahommed was called el Dubbah, or the Hyaena.