F TRAVELS OF CAILLIAUD including infantry and cavalry. His bodyguard was formed of slaves armed with rifles. The slaves were captured in Dar Fertit, several days to the south of Dar Fur, and brought to Kobi, the capital, where the caravans were started ; such products of the country as could be sold with advantage in Egypt were committed to the. gelldbs, or merchants, who paid the king for permission to trade in them, and then took the wares from Kobi to Sweni, a journey of five days. Each caravan was placed in the charge of a habir, or chief, whose power whilst on the journey was absolute. The poor slaves were driven forward in fetters from halting-place to halting-place, being treated with far less consideration than the camels, and when a caravan arrived at Asyiit, after forty days' journey, it was no uncommon thing to find that at least four hundred of them had perished on the way.

Having assured himself that there were no ancient ruins at Selima, Cailliaud left the Oasis after two days' rest, and returned to Bir Daffer, whence he paid a second visit to the temple of Sulb. Then, marching northwards, he came to Semna, where he stayed four days, and made plans of the temple of Thothmes III., and copied the inscriptions on the walls. From Semna he travelled by a desert route to Der Sullah, where he measured the ruins of a massive brick fortress, and then, taking the direct road to the famous rock of Abusir, he arrived shortly afterwards at Wadi Haifa. On his way through Nubia he visited the temple of Abu Simbel, which was blocked with sand, but he says, " Me couchant a plat ventre, je pus passer sous le fronton du temple et me faire glisser sur le sable dans I'interieur." A little further down the river he met a boat sailing up, and having on board an Englishman called Gorthon, who was travelling to Dongola, with the view of tracing the White Nile to its source. This brave man, however, behaved in a very imprudent manner, for he stinted himself of proper food, wore insufficient clothing, and threw himself into the river for a swim whensoever the whim took him. The result was the natural one: soon after he entered the region of the Third Cataract he fell ill, and he died before he could reach Sennaar.

M. Cailliaud's journey from Aswan to Cairo it is unnecessary to describe in detail, and it will be sufficient to say that he examined 53