C)-THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN I was held by Providence, and of the luck which the villagers enjoyed in securing my presence among them. There was, of course, nothing more to be said. The next duty was to build a hut for the native servant, and when we had been provided with a mud fire-place our domestic arrangements were complete.

In front of the hut there was a little canal which carried water from the water wheel into the' remote parts of the village, and with all its branches it must have been a couple of miles long.

At first we drew our water for cooking and drinking from this A NATIVE HOUSE IN BARKAL VILLAGE.

source, but subsequently we found that the members of several households whose doors it passed washed in it, and we made other arrangements for our water supply. The natives, however, and the animals drank regularly from it, and seemed none the worse.

A few words may now be said about the shekh of Barkal village and his people. In the days before the Mahdi and Khalifa rose to their evil eminence, the family of Shekh Muhammad Wad Ibrahim had been a power in the land, and he asserted that for ' Wad = weled, i.e., ''Son."

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