” THE WEEK BEFORE THE BATTLE 123 matched, and the “Warwickshire Pet,’ a monstrous spider, appeared to be invincible until it was matched against the ‘Cameron Slogger,” a redoubtable scorpion, who vanquished his opponent after a desperate struggle amid loud cheers from the victorious mess.

In the ordinary course of events we should have moved on from Um Teref at daybreak on the 29th, but owing to a succession of storms on the Nile the full complement of gunboats and ghyassas laden with stores and baggage had not yet arrived, and so the order to march was countermanded, and we remained in the zeriba for another night. The extra day, however, was not as pleasant as it might have been amongst the shady trees, for the violent wind which was retarding the progress of the gunboats swept incessant clouds of dust over the camp all the morning. Later in the day, however, the wind sank, and I enjoyed a delightful ramble along the river beyond the zeriba.

Here I found, amongst other treasures, an enormous brick-red beetle, which clung to a tree with such pertinacity that I had to cut away a piece of the branch and boil it and the beetle