46 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

we found all in the fullest activity with hands, bayonets, spear's?, sabres, hooks, axes, sticks, groping in the pits; and as each found anything, in it went to sack, bag, or dresS; and on horse, camel, or ass-back away off with it to camp ; and left there, the finder was instantly back again to try his luck once more. The army might have been subsisted for over two months on this store of durra, although the Haddenda had before carried off all they could. Besides the grain, the soldiers found beans, wood, mats, supports for mat huts, and many such things. As we returned to camp, all the army were going to or coming from the plunder, and again we were in a critical state ; but the Pascha trusted to his lucky star. The Sheiks, put in action by the false alarm, in their full iron panoplies, their swords in hand, and horses covered with ornamental saddlecloths, looked proudly and splendidly out among the thickly dusted and sweat drenched soldiery, laden like mill-asses. We ourselves got back to our huts as if drenched in water, but, in spite of the midday-sun's heat, we were not there long ere we felt a thrill of frost all over our bodies.

Qth April.— All rejoiced that to-day was a day of rest. We learned we were in the neighbourhood of the now deserted tentvillages or camps of the Arabs of Issi and Teschum. The soldiers could now, by aid of their hand-mills (tachuhn), slowly grind their grain ; and the Khaimakan, that they might not altogether want meat, did not fail, in his high humanity, to sell them for QO paras the heads and entrails of every sheep he killed, probably thinking these were too small matters to make a present of. This generous man was the Circassian Sorop Effendi. But even while eating this meat, the purchaser had to keep an eye on his dearly won prize, as the numerous vultures, hawks, and ravens were daring enough to have carried it off from under his very nose, and these bold birds repeatedly succeeded in snatching the flesh away from its possessor, especially from the small slaves of eight and ten years old, a number of whom were in the camp. How these little beinfjs held out under the great fatigues is to me incomprehensible, nor less did the soldiers' power of endurance astonish me, as no arrangements or provisions were made for such as fell sick, neither tents for their reception nor attendants provided, and the medicines laid in were not sufficient for an eighth of them. We rejoiced that