" FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA a The best thing to do if one cannot secure ice in the Sudan is to put one’s bottles into a canvas bucket, full of water. The sides are slightly porous and the consequent evaporation brings down the temperature of the contents.

Otherwise, merely placing the bottles in straw cases, and then immersing them up to the neck in water, serves to keep the drink fairly cool. The restaurateur, who charged us no less than eight shillings a day for food, really deserved the kicking which he received, for ever since the commencement of the voyage he had consistently dropped one course a day from the dinner, so that if the journey had been prolonged much further, our dinner promised to become a negative quantity.

We were not sorry to leave the Jézs at Wady Halfa, and the Tommies must have been delighted to get, even for an hour or so, an opportunity of stretching their limbs. The train, consisting of a number of horse boxes and open trucks, stood waiting for us, and after a brief delay we steamed off for our thirty-six hours’ run across the open desert to the Atbara. Cross, Major Stuart-Wortley, and I found ourselves ensconced in a covered