I MERAWI IN 1897 and as I had none, I promised to get the helpof the military doctor when I went to the camp. He was disappointed at the answer, and the following morning asi<ed me to come and see his " house," and tell her what to do. When I entered his courtyard, I found it was the shekh's chief wife who was ill, and that she was suffering much from one of her feet. It seemed that one day when she was going to the river she struck her foot against a branch of prickly acacia which was lying on the ground, and cut her big toe. The wound had festered and spread, and she had not been able to walk for two or three weeks. She was lying on an ankartb, covered up with a mass of dirty clothes which her women had heaped on her, and only with the greatest difficulty could she be persuaded to let her foot be looked at. When at length the foot was uncovered it became clear that hers was no case for any but a professional man, and after suggesting that the foot should be bathed with warm water and wrapped up in lint, of which, thanks to Mr. Wellcome, I had a supply, I went over and told General Rundle. With characteristic kindness he spoke to one of the military doctors, who promised to dress the wound if the woman were brought over, and the next day Major Drage sent over a boat, with a staging in it to bring her to the camp. The shekh was overjoyed, but when we went to his house to carry the woman to the boat, we found that she had refused to have anything to do with warm water or lint, and she declined absolutely to let herself be carried to the boat, for she declared that she was going to die, and said she preferred to die where she was. To every entreaty on the part of the shekh she replied, " I have never been to the other "side of the river, and I will never go there. I am afraid of the " boat, and the English doctor will work magic on me. If I die, "it is the business of God, and if I live, it is the business of God ; " but I will not leave this house. If the Englishman in the " village will give me the drink of medicine, let him do it, but I '' will not go over the river." So the boat returned without her. The disease (gangrene ?) spread with wonderful rapidity, and on the fourth day she died soon after daybreak.

The funeral took place the same day, and was very simple. The body was wrapped in some new whitish yellow cotton stuff, the 223