THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN have bad luck or ill-success. The creature was quite harmless, and had only crept to the water-skins for coolness. A few days later our water-skins were besieged by large numbers of gaunt Sudani bees, the largest I had ever seen ; they settled on the dripping skins for hours at a time, and only disappeared in the cool of the late afternoon. The men regarded the bees with favour, for they believed them to bs heralds of good luck, and they felt sure we were going to find some of the treasure laid up in the pyramid by the Mahdi's ancestors ! In their approval of the bee the men followed the example of the Prophet, who called one of the Suras of the Kur'an the "Bee," and said that the "variegated Hquor," i.e., honey, was a " medicine for men." On one occasion the Prophet told a man to give honey to his brother, who was suffering from colic ; the man did so, and reported afterwards that his brother was no better for the honey. On this the Prophet replied, " Go, and give him more honey, for God speaketh truth, and thy brother's belly telleth lies." According to the commentator Al-Bedaw£ the second dose of honey cured the sick man.

In ancient Egypt honey was an ingredient in almost every prescription, and to this da}' it is a favourite medicine all over the Muhammadan East.

Every one who knows the average Siidani man knows that he is not fond of work, and that there is nothing which he hates so much as having to do the same kind of work every day, and at the same time of the day. The men who worked on the excavations were very poor, but though they prized highly the regular wages of five piastres (one shilling) per day, with occasional overtime, very few of them could resist their unconquerable desire for two or three days' " loafing " each week. I am convinced that nothing but the Sirdar's orders to Shekh Muhammad enabled us to get through the amount of work we did, and but for the friendly visits of General Rundle and Slatin Prishu, and the goodnatured pressuie which they put on the men, that work would have occupied as many months as it did weeks. The shekh was in wholesome awe of the Sirdar, who, he said, was " a king, and greater than a king," and he did his best. But it must be admitted that at times the work was hard, for the heat was great and the iron tools were often so hot that they could hardly be 230