282 WITH KITCHENER IN THE SOUDAN It has taken me five hours to write this, which seems a very long time to spend on details of things not worth recording ; but the act of writing has taken my thoughts off myself, and I intend always to note down anything special. It will be interesting to me to read it if I ever get away; should I be unable to escape, I shall charge Saleh to carry it to Khartoum if he ever has the chance, and hand it over to the Governor there, to send down to Cairo.

“A week later. I am already losing count of days, but days matter nothing. I have been busy, so busy that I have not even had time to write. After I had finished my story so far, Saleh’s slave woman took me to Abdullah’s house. I found that he was in a state of high fever, but all I could do was to recommend that a wet rag should be applied, and freshly wetted every quarter of an hour ; that his head should be kept similarly enveloped in wet bandages; and that his hands should be dipped in water very frequently. When I got back I found several women waiting outside Saleh’s house. His wife had gossiped with a neighbour, and told them that I had got the bullet out of his wound. The news spread rapidly, and these women were all there to beg that I would see their husbands.

“ This was awkward. I certainly could not calculate upon being successful in cases where a bullet had penetrated more deeply, and even if I could do so, I should at once excite the hostility of the native hakims, and draw very much more attention upon myself than I desired. In vain I protested that I was not a hakim, and had done only what I had seen a white hakim do. Finding that this did not avail, I said that I would not go to see any man except with one of the native doctors.

“ There are two here,’ one of the women said ; I will go and fetch them.’

“Ko,’ I said; who am I that they should come to me? I will go and see them if you will show me where they live.’

“ ‘ Ah, here they come ! ’ she said, as two Dervishes ap-