HABITS AND CUSTOMS. 99 Kordofan to Sennaar, sleep, during which 8o many cares and troubles are forgotten, frequently failed me ; and what did I not suffer on my return home through the frightful desert, from Abouhamed to Krusko, on the Nile ! I had not the means to purchase a second camel. My solitary beast was laden with my luggage and water-bags ; it was, indeed, overloaded, I could not, therefore, mount it, and I was thus under the painful necessity of following the caravan, during two tedious days on foot, enduring a march of twenty-one hours daily on the sand, under a scorching sun. Man overcomes many difficulties, and will bear more than is generally believed. In eight days I reached Krusko, where I met Mr. Kotschy, the naturalist ; he alone can tell how worn out I was \-ith fatigue, hunger, and thirst, when I arrived at his tent, where he entertained me during three days, for he had just arrived from Grand Cairo.* I may, therefore, say that I have been put to many trials, endured innumerable hardships, and had many hair-breadth escapes with my life. It is not very probable that a traveller, furnished with a passport, would now meet with any misadventure in the interior of the country, for the * It is, of course, understood, that travellers from Cairo are furnished with provisions of all kinds, whereas those returning from the Belled-Soodan are merely provided with red lentils. A singular fate has brought us five times unexpectedly together, within the space of five years, in three different quarters of the globe ; the last time we met in a miserable village, in the Isle of Cyprus, towards the end of last year.

H 2