FROM THE ATBARA TO WAD HAMED 81 | at catching those beasts than I am; give me the bottle.”

' As I had decreed death as the penalty for any. creeping thing which invaded our tent, the noisome creature was, as a rule, gingerly secured and forced into the spirit, where it speedily died of delzrium tremens. Nothing is more unpleasant in tropical countries than to have a winged insect of great size and energy enter one’s tent in the dark. Ommne tgnotum pro terribttz: suddenly the Unknown makes its presence felt by rising up from the ground with a loud buzz; it necessarily strikes against the tent pole or the canvas, and immediately collapses with a thud on one’s bedclothes or one’s face; and then, after a brief interval for recovery, it recommences its clumsy gambols and aérial flights.

Our stock of literature in the Wad Hamed camp was of amazing variety. We established by usage a sort of Desert Circulating Library, and novels, old magazines, and even news papers of venerable antiquity were eagerly sought for and exchanged. My own parcel of books on board the Zammaz consisted of Whyte Melville’s Holmby Flouse, The Juggler and the 6