f} THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN broke, and the weight of the boat pulling the rope taut with a jerk, the same two men who had slipped before were again thrown into the river. How they got out was a puzzle, but they were very cold and much exhausted, and we then decided to camp on the bank at the place where a palm trunk in the river had stopped the downward course of the boat. A fire was lit, and after warming themselves the fnfih declared they were no worse, and having brought some ankaribs, or native bedsteads, to sit upon, the party had supper and went to bed. In the darkness no one noticed that the bedsteads had been placed in one of the small patches of ground into which the cultivable land is divided for convenience in watering, and when we woke at dawn we found that, through the water-wheel having been set going during the night, our beds were standing several inches deep in water, and that shoes, socks, the orderly's putties, tarbush, &c., were quietly floating about us. We quickly re-embarked, and in a short time reached the village of Barkal.

We were met by the Shekh Muhammad Wad Ibrahim, his son Osman, his brother, and a few of the " elders " of the village, each of whom was anxious to let me a house. Having stored the picks, shovels, baskets, &c., in the shekh's house for safety, and Tc\y precious water-jar with its iron stand in his "guest-chamber," we set out to examine the mud huts which were to be let. There were at one time some good mud houses in Barkal village, but during the Dervish rebellion they had been allowed to become uninhabitable. Few had a roof of any kind, none had whole walls, and the only room in them all in which one might have lived had no window, and had to be entered by crawling on hands and knees. In most of the rooms donkeys, goats, and sheep had lodged, and had left behind them abundant traces of their occupation. A glance at the thick layers of dust and sand on the floors, and the thought of the creatures which it hid, made one's flesh creep. The natives had long since abandoned the mud houses which were offered to me, and had gone to live in tukuls 1 made of palm-leaf mat-work tied to stakes driven in the * The word fuku/ seems to be the Amharic /e?/ flA: which means in Abyssinia both " tent " and *' tent-pole ; " its primary meaning appears to be a booth made of green leaves.

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