MERAWI IN 1897 handled. The second shaft, i.e., the shaft under the pyramid, was dug out by the Hght of candles, and its atmosphere was stifling. The muscular Egyptian soldiers would have thought nothing of the toil, but the native of the Sudan is not muscular, and he likes to be able to work or lie down and sleep, as the humour takes him.

On the whole I found the villagers of Barkal and Shibba a kindly folk, and ready to do anything for the British except work hard. They admired and respected the British officers, of whose ways they had had about a year's experience when I arrived at Merawi, for they knew that from them they would obtain consideration and justice. Many things puzzled them in connection with the soldiers, and they were indignant because money was not spent so freely by them as by the Gordon Relief Expedition in 1884-5. They could not understand why the Sirdar wanted to open the pyramids, or why I went there unless it was to dig up buried treasure. As time went on, however, they learned to trust me, and little by little they brought me many private difficulties to settle. One wanted the help of Colonel Wingate, another wanted a petition about his land given to the General through Slatin Pasha, another wanted the tiipgt (i.e., gunner), Colonel Long, asked to obtain a rifle or revolver for him, another wanted to have sent back to him a wife who had run away with a soldier and was living on the other side of the river, another wanted a slave to be flogged, and so on. They regarded the occupation of digging at the pyramids as a means to an end, and that end was usually the settlement of some long-standing dispute with a neighbour about land, or a proprietorship of slaves. To interfere in matters of this kind was a thing I naturally avoided, but there were several smaller disputes about which I was consulted, and it was surprising to see how readily my decisions were accepted. The people of Barkal were mixtures of shrewdness, cunning, and childish simplicity, but when once they were convinced that their referee had no personal interest in the matter before him, they were usually amenable to common sense.

Owing to some remarks made by one of the newspaper correspondents as to the thieving propensities of the natives of Merawi, it has been thought that these men were greater thieves 231