246 THE DOWNFALL OF THE DERVISHES water. As we sat at breakfast, someone told me that a camel had died just near the hotel from the bite of an asp. The snake, a little creature some eight inches long, was lying under the sand, according to its wont, with its head just above the ground. The poor camel trod on it, and was bitten in the foot. It speedily died, swollen to nearly double its ordinary size, and the natives lit a fire over its carcass. The Arabs dread the little asp terribly, and its bite is nearly always fatal. <A special antitoxin has been prepared by the Institut Pasteur from the serum of horses bitten by poisonous snakes. A subcutaneous injection of ten cubic centimetres of this fluid is alleged to be a sure specific against the bite of any known species of venomous land-snake.

But this preparation is practically useless in the Sudan, as it loses its efficacy if much exposed to light or to a high degree of heat. Nor has it, so far as I know, ever yet been tried in the case of any human being bitten by a deadly snake. I took some with me last year when exploring in Sokotra with the late Mr. Theodore Bent, but despite the glowing accounts of the efficacy of dowa Inghzi and offers of large