THE BORDEIN of Bagrawiya as possible. This was a piece of good fortune not to be thought lightly of, and we went to look at the steamer, and to make the best arrangements we could. The steamer was the Bordein, or Burden, and her looks were not inviting. All her deck and cabins, and all her woodwork had been removed, having been used by the Dervishes to feed her fire, and all that remained in her were the iron deckbeams, a narrow iron bridge aft the boiler, and the small iron platform at each end of her. These were all that were required for military purposes, for at that time she was only used for fetching wood, but they were not conducive to the comfort of passengers. A friendly British officer, Captain Hobbs, was, however, equal to the occasion, and he had some planks laid across the deck beams, to form a floor, and then had my tent pitched on them. The centre pole was lashed to a beam, and the ropes were tied to the twisted railing or to anything that came handy. This done, a rug and a sheepskin made a very good carpet, and when a native bed had been taken inside the tent with the rest of the baggage, the general appearance was not unsatisfactory. With the arrival of a large rAr, or water-jar, the equipment was complete.

The day was Friday, or "mosque day," and the captain and crew wanted to go and see their friends and say their prayers before they started, but their devotions took so much time that when they returned the sun was about to set. When it was nearly dark the black engineer reported that he had enough steam to go on with, and we pushed off into the stream. It was necessary to make a circuit in order to reach the main channel, and for about an hour we steamed along fairly well, but in the dark, for there was no moon, the captain did not allow sufficient margin for turning round into the channel, and we ran aground on the mud flat which he had managed to avoid with such success hitherto. The crew jumped into the river with ropes and small anchors, and worked very hard for a couple of hours in hauling the steamer off the bank, but when she floated it was found that there was not enough steam to work the engines ; for the engineer had made up his mind to start in the morning, and, whilst the crew were hauling at the steamer, had gone to bed ! Therefore, dropping out two or three small anchors to keep the steamer from drifting 255