A STRANGE CREW.

artificers were all divided into companies or gangs under their own ofificers. The commandant was supposed to have control over the movements of the ship and of the soldiers when they landed, but there was an officer commanding the black regulars, who had once been slaves; Bashi-Bazouk officers, who had brought their own slaves; an officer of artillery; an officer of the Shagiyehs; a captain of the crew; chiefs of the sailors, chiefs of the caulkers, the carpenters, and even the wood-cutters; and then the reis or pilot and his assistants, who navigated the vessel, the helmsman, rhe chief engineer and his assistants; and added to these were the black women, who ground the dhurra, slave-girls, who, throughout the subsequent dangers and in the midst of firing from batteries and fusillades from rifles, went on with their work quite calmly, grinding the grain by rubbing it between two straight jDieces of stone ; mixing the meal with water into a sort of porridge or batter, a lump of which, thrown on a large round iron plate, heated by a wood fire, and spread out with a little stick till it covered the iron plate, was converted into a thin pancake something like a "passover" cake, and being stripped off the plate was ready for eating.

What a strange assemblage on those two "penny steamers!"

soldiers, who were all slaves, and all the officers black, except the Egyptian artillery officers; the Bashi-Bazouks, composed of black slaves; Shagiyehs, and half-castes; the Bashi officers, Turks, Kurds, and Circassians; the sailors, blacks; the engineers, Egyptians. Added to these were many men who had hidden themselves among the bags of dhurra,—some of them wounded men,—stowaways who sought to return to their families. The confusion before getting the men to work was disheartening; the turmoil, chatter, laughter, and shouting was deafening; but the blacks were like big good-humoured boys with tempers that even the occasional use of the courbash did not utterly spoil; and they could fight. The soldiers were armed with Remington rifles, but no bayonets. They had spears instead, and some of them carried swords also. Many of the men wore the decoration or medal given them by Gordon for the siege of Khartum. There was