104 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

both, and for some time deprived us of all power of writing or thinking, and also caused us to lose our reckoning of time ; so that for the future no more journalising or exact dates can be attempted.

At length the confusion of the camp has been in some degree put an end to; between the seribas and the small huts of the soldiery a free space is now left of some fifty paces brond, the various bodies of cavalry and infantry are separated, and each have certain places allotted to them. Still in the various divisions there is yet much confusion, every one setting down his hut where he pleases, and never heeding in the slightest how it blocks up or impedes the way. The Pascha is perfectly ennuied, seeks to make time pass by, exercising himself in the sports of the jerreed, with his Schaigies, who perform this oriental tournay in all its dangerous irregularities, in the most masterly manner, as if they were real centaurs— or he makes the Dinka practise before his tent the staffthrowing at each other, which causes many bloody mouths and severe contusions for the doctors to attend to. He also laboui-s hard in his own person, at that most important business, the tavela reale, of which he never wearies, and in which in turn Topschi Baschi, Abd el Kader, and Abdin Aga aid and assist him, so that a lively rattling of the dice is ever kept up, the sound of which is plainly audible to all who pass his tent. At first, when thus engaged, Topschi Baschi was so fortunate as to be allowed to sit, but now he must stand the whole time, so that a proper respect may be maintained between hira and his master. As another relief to his overlaboured mind, the great man has caused Mohammed Ehle to procure him an Abyssinian damsel, whom he has quartered in a hut with a high enclosure round it, and for whose amusement he often of an evening orders the heart-delighting band of tlie 8th regiment to perform ; this never fails to call up an accompaniment from every ass in the camp, and it is yet an undecided point whether the band or the asses have the best of it. But these long-eared gentry do not disdain to get up a concert of their own, as hardly a night passes that we are not repeatedly awoke from our sleep by the sweet voices of some 5000 or 6000 asses. Let one only commence, all chime in ; the splendid deep notes of the older males mix with the shrill treble of the young females, and then the more stately