126 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

cured by splints, gradually recovered, and tamed by pain, became first favourite of the cat ; they became inseparable, ate together, and slept arm in arm. nor did the rat ever attempt to avail itself of its perfect liberty and leave us. It is not. as our European rats, ugly or ill smelling, and from its long silvery furred tail, may almost be called handsome.

The Pascha, either to show his good nature, or from some other reason of his own, sent my brother this morning to visit the Sheik Mussa (Moses), who is from Sauakim. My brother found him, outside the camp, lying on the earth in the open air, barely covered by a ferda, and his head resting on a stone, round which stood his followers. He had violent fever, with bloody-flux, and constant vomitings ; the ground was moist from rain, and yet the sick man would hardly allow us to have him removed inside the camp. Joseph felt very doubtful as to his recovery, but the Pascha, who seemed to set much value on the Sheik's life (probably that he might not get the credit of having poisoned him), begged us to take him into our own hut, and do all we could to restore his health. Thus we had the pleasing company of this halfdead man in our small hut, and two of our servants had to watch him day and night, as he never once ordered his own people to come and attend on him, nor indeed had we any wish for them to be in our hut, as their habits of stealing are insufferable. For five or six days the sick man was an intolerable nuisance to us. We had to find him in bed and board, in short, to provide him with everything, nor could we, any moment of these days, call ourselves masters of our own hut, as, from early dawn to late at night, it was constantly crowded by some twenty or thirty Arabs, visitors of the sick man, who kept up a constant chattering with him. The patient, however, at last recovered, and one morning, during my brother's absence, quietly packed up his goods and took himself off, without as much as wishing me good bye, far less thanking us for all our trouble with him. So it is with all this race. Gratitude they know not ; one may show them every kindness, but never will it occur to any of them to make the smallest return for it ; thanks is a word to them unpronounceable, but they have a word, viz.

kata-geirak, in their language, to express the sentiment, though why I know not, as they never use it ; nor does this arise from