122 AFKICAN WANDERINGS.

The only remarkable quality these fellows possess is a curious power of distinguishing, and this enabled our servants to track our lost camels to Soggilab, following their footmarks among those of hundreds of other animals. It is incredible liow the natives here can distinguish and follow up a lost beast's foottracks, and even the footmarks of a man. Have they merely once or twice glanced at the footmark of man, camel horse, ass, &c., they can with certainty distinguish it from a thousand others, follow the trail any distance, so long as the ground is tolerably favourable, and wind or rain has not obliterated the marks. When need requires it, a professional tracker is called on, shown the foot-print of the lost man or beast, and then he, no further question asked, follows up the track over paths and roads, through streets and towns where daily thousands pass, and seldom fails to hunt out the game ; nor does he move on slowly, or bending down with eye examining the ground, but moves on briskly, at a sharp run, along the quickly spied-out track. We ourselves beheld, near the Armenian Karabet, how one of these men, being shown the track of a runaway slave, followed it up, and, after three days, overtaking the fugitive, returned again with him a prisoner. On one occasion, my brother having, more than an hour before, left the Pascha's dwelling in Chartum, to visit some sick in a distant part of the city, was again wanted by the great man ; the tschausch (orderly) was sent after him, and tracked his footsteps out, job. The love of theft seems to have been an hereditary vice of Arabs from tlie earliest times, as even in the Bible they are described as unsafe companions. However, their thefts are generally those of the pettiest kinds, such as Frank servants would not think of, as they never take more than a small portion of what they steal from, even were this a pile of coin or a heap of sugar. They either truiit that the owner's stupidity will not miss this (and it is true Europeans are very apt in this country to sink into a curious state of careless listlcssness), or they imagine that, in cae of discovery, no great noise will be made about such a trifle. The Barabra are perfect children in their manners. When sent to fetch anything, they never think, full as their hands may be, of first emptying them, ere trying to lift other articles. One of these we, lor our sins, had, while in Chartum, attempted to make a cook of, and instruct him, as far as we ourselves had picked it up, in making our favourite dish of jugged hare ; but all in vain — a nice mess he made ! A cookery book would, indeed have been a treasure here, as the favourite dishes of one's young and healthy days are doubly relished when ailing, or among a people whose food and cookeiy are so <Ufferent to European.