104 DUFILE TO FATIKO.

tion a house for ourselves and our baggage. We had hastily put everything under cover, and were seeking the repose we longed for after our long march, when a regular invasion of bugs forced us. to vacate the place as quickly as possible. It is evident that this pest came with the dirty Danagla from Kharttm and Dongola, and thrived here ; but that these vermin kept their ground and flourished in this precise spot without crossing the frontiers of Faloro, while they may be sought in vain in other equatorial regions, is at any rate worth mentioning. The rain lasted the whole night. In the morning I was told that my arrival certainly brought luck, for the rain had come with me.

Close beside the principal zertba of Faloro are situated three other zertbas, enclosing many houses, and between them a path led us to a high rocky ridge, running obliquely across the road, which took us down to the Khor Radzi. Here, in a cleft of the rock, lay a beautifully marked python, some thirteen feet long, benumbed with cold, which the Negroes immediately devoured. After twice crossing this khor, we -ascended to the zeriba Peggo, lying in the midst of crops upon high hills, which extend obliquely across the road from the right. Upon their slope we passed the Khor Siri, a large brook of beautifully cool water, flowing from 8.S.W. to N.N.E. which we forded with some difficulty, owing to an island formed of huge stone blocks which lies in it; the water came up to our thighs. We crossed a few more brooks, and then came upon a motley collection of open woods and fields of durrah, sesame, and hibiscus. The high bluish-green foliage of the Anona senegalensis is found here (northern limit); the waving branches of Grewia mollis hang over the path. All the hill-slopes, where there is sufficient moisture, are clothed with open woods of 'Terminalias, free from underwood. Long stretches are covered by a tall Solanum with yellow fruit; it springs up in large quantities on ground that has been formerly cultivated. Zmetoceras abyssinicus stalked solemnly about in pairs over the corn-fields, their hollow-sounding cry foretelling rain, they say, and high in the air a lark was warbling.

After giving our porters a short rest at the Khor Lazimon,