THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN and that it would cost a great deal of money. No antiquarian society could be expected to spend a large sum of money on such a site, and the absence of population on the Island of Meroe would make it impossible for some years to carry out excavations there on any considerable scale, even if the necessary funds were forthcoming.

Meanwhile the shekh, who had sat down at the foot of the hill in the morning, had been joined by the man whom he had sent the night before to borrow a donkey (which he had now brought), and finding that it was very hot there, he came up and rested in the shade of one of the pyramids. As time went on he became very impatient and nervous, and finally declared that he would stay no longer, for he was afraid of what might happen to the donkey if he remained anywhere near the pyramids. We therefore returned to the clearing, after what the shekh regarded as a most dangerous undertaking ! In the late afternoon we went along the river bank and visited one or two of the villages. The shekh showed me the mud huts wherein many of his friends had lived formerly, and in some of them I saw on the ground the stones on which the women used to grind the dhurra and roll the oblong dough into thin flat cakes. Remains of both dough and dhurra were on several, and the shekh told me that they had been left thus by the women who had to flee for their lives before the Dervishes, led by Mahmud, who about a year previously had swept the Island of Meroe from one end to the other, and slain all who would not join him. Not a living thing was to be seen, and the desolation of the place was complete. Many of the huts were in good condition, but all the mud bins in which the natives had stored their grain were destroyed, and in some rooms the ground had been dug through by seekers after buried treasure.

On returning to the clearing, we found a number of men and women, and children, who had walked several miles in order to ask for medicines. Fortunately I had plentiful supplies with me, and I was able to give them away freely. Three of the children had very sore eyes, the result of sand, dust, glare, and want of washing, and both eyes of a fourth were caked over to such a degree that he could not see at all. For some reason the women were very anxious that this boy should be attended to 278