16 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

We had, in addition to poultry, bought for eighty piastres, or about 16*., a young ox, had hira killed, salted, and alon"- with a lot of ox-tongues gradually picked up, placed in our chimney to smoke, a simple enough business, but one unknown

here. The naturalist Kotchi, from Austi-ian Silesia, had come with eleven people, from Kordofan, and joined us ; and these for a fortnight kept up such an immense fire on our hearth, that all our smoking meat was singed and burnt so as to be useless, save two tongues, which proved excellent. Our house was ever a per-

fect hospitium ; and now, when I had to look after and pack up

everything, as nothing could be trusted to the servants, I had to run in and out in the sun, till I was completely done up. For some weeks back. Dr. Windgratzhofer, from Austria, had been with us, waiting till a boat was provided by government to convey him to his station at Faszogl, This good-humoured and droll

medico, who had been nicknamed by some of us " Dicksack," and which name he ever insisted on being called, I seated on our divan

as guard over the numerous goods and chattels that lay open and exposed all round, knowing from experience the losses that were

to be feared from the many curious callers, under excuses of

paying farewell visits. Did I go out, there he sat, like a pagoda, on his post, grim, gruff, and surly (as far as his German Avent, for

he spoke no other language) if any one only looked at an article,

and on my return was ever ready with some humorous story, as

to how faithfully and well he had filled his post, and how he had

kept an eye at the same time on both sides, squinting most

fearfully, to display his capability of doing so. But, alas ! his

jovial mood was checked in Faszogl, as his sorrowing letters told

us. He had with hira, as interpreter, the Pole Michel, a tailor,

formerly in the Russian service, but who had been, for a long

series of years, well known in Cairo, and was now a man over

sixty. Besides these, we had also in our inn the unfortunate

goldsmith, Erno, from Swabia, who wishfd to settle at Chartum,

though he had sold all his instruments at Cairo. He, as well as old

Michel, fancied that here, so near the gold hills, they would merely

require to scrape with their hands the gold-dust from the Nile's sand,

and at once be made men. Both afterwards died on the journey

homewards. The dragoman discharged by Dr. Belloti, a Nubian,