MERAWI IN 1897 the excavations, because nearly all the inhabitants were busily employed in watering the dkurra which had just been planted.

Next came up the knotty question of wages, and after much talk these were fixed at five piastres per day. The shekh was as keen in money matters as any Oriental I ever met, but that he should be so exacting in this case was not remarkable, considering that about a year previously his village was actually in possession of the Dervishes, who forced him to provide them with grain and dates, and tortured him till he told them where his money was buried. The question of wages having been settled, the General gave me authority to apply to Major W. H. Drage for baskets, ropes, planks, picks, crowbars, &c., and this officer rendered me every assistance in his power. We were old friends, for he had helped me at Aswan in 1887, when I was clearing out the tombs in the hill opposite the modern town for General Sir Francis Grenfell, and again in 1SS8, when I made a collection of ancient Egyptian skulls at the same place for Professor A. Macalister, of Cambridge. Besides tools, Major Drage lent me some large Egyptian water-jars and buckets, so that we might attempt to filter the Nile water, and at some inconvenience to himself he arranged to provide me with a boat to take my tools and stores across the river. The crossing of the river was at that time a very difficult matter. Owing to the scarcity of boats, every sailing boat had been seized by the Sirdar, and was employed in transport work, and of rowing boats there was none. There was a ferry at the southern end of the camp, but the ferryman only worked when he liked, and the crossing occupied anything from half an hour to two hours. His method was to tow his boat a considerable distance up stream of the point which he wanted to reach on the opposite bank, and when it was loaded to allow it to drift down stream and to steer it aslant the river to its destination.

This method was theoretically good, but in practice we found that about halfway across the river the current took command of the boat, and carried it along until the ferryman managed to get it under a bank, a mile or more lower down the river than the place where the passengers wanted to land. Two narrow planks served him as oars, and it was a matter of wonder how he managed to bring his boat at all to the other side. The boat was 203