Gordon's swift ride across the desert. 8i opening between rocky hills into a bare sandy waterless plain; through an arid country, miles and miles in extent, with a few conical mounds covered with granite boulders — the Bahar-bela-Moy, or sea without water; past a waterless well dug by Mohammed Ali, and surrounded with stones; and so on through a dry valley at the foot of a low range of hills where a few trees give a temporary shelter, but where the day and night temperature differs from 30 to 40 degrees. Thence the way was through winding stony ravines, and over small plains bounded by low rocky hills with a few clove-palms showing here and there, to Murahd, a halting-place where there was a small Arab camp, a rough house or shed, and a well of water so brackish and bitter (as the name implies) that only camels can drink it, though it is the only water to be procured during the whole of the long and wearisome journey. Travellers must take their own supply. Sir Samuel Baker, in 1S61, was obliged to make a forced march to save the water which evaporated because of the heat of the sun upon the surface of the water-skins.

Hour after hour, mile after mile — the rapid but wearisome march was continued till Abu Hamed was reached. The distance was accomplished in fifty-two hours by an almost uninterrupted ride, that is to say, at about five miles an hour, an extraordinary rate for such a journey. Sir Samuel Baker's forced march occupied ninety-two hours, but his camels were laden and the hot season had commenced, for he had to cross the desert in May, whereas Gordon accomplished the journey just at the end of the cooler season in the beginning of February.

" A small village utterly destitute of everything," is the description given by Baker of Abu Hamed; and the sterile desert extends to the very margin of the Nile. It was in accordance with his old plans that Gordon travelled swiftly and accomplished as much as possible of the journey by night. He liked to be travelling seated on his camel amidst those vast solitudes — but the solitudes of the Nubian desert are awful. Sir Samuel Baker describes part of the journey — a dead level plain of orange-coloured sand, surrounded by pyramidal hills: the surface; strewn with objects Vol. III. 42