FROM THE ATBARA TO WAD HAMED 89 thirteen hundred deserters from the Khalifa’s dominions. Many of them came down the river, a motley herd of women and children, with a sprinkling of men all packed together in native barges. What these poor creatures lived on I do not know, but I strolled amongst some hundreds of them one evening, and they all seemed in excellent spirits and quite convinced that this time, at anyrate, they had put their money on the right horse. ‘The presence of these uninvited guests caused considerable embarrassment to the Army Service Corps, but the authorities did the best they could for them, and in a big camp there are always a good many pickings which the refugees and vultures might share between them, though our feathered visitors had rather a pull over the other bipeds, as they rose betimes, and, according to the ancient adage, the early bird got the “bully” beef. This beef, by the way, was-always to be picked up. It was issued to the men, for greater convenience of transport, in 3-lb. tins, which were trisected with a hammer and chisel for three rations. But, as the men soon got tired of the meat, and it speedily, after being opened, became uneatable