398 Seven Years in the Soudan.

The only person who appears to enjoy our situation is the captain, who now only busies himself with his sales, asking a hundred times the real value of the goods. He sells doora at a dollar the o/ce, or four hundred and fifty francs the erdep, which at Khartoum only costs ten francs. In other circumstances I should have acted despotically. Certainly, if Gordon Pasha had been still in Khartoum, I should have taken command of the steamer the third day after our departure ; but, surrounded by rebellious soldiers and officers who did not believe in me, how could I undertake such a responsibility ? I believe after the ex})erience I have had up till to-day, that none of us will be saved, November 16th. — This morning T was awakened by two of my ]\[onbuttu, who, with tears in their eyes, told me that some thieves had stolen all my jirovisions except the bottles, which had been in a separate locked box. The news is very discomforting. Yesterday evening, before going to bed, I thought of locking up the flour, and putting all of us on quarter rations, but I decided otherwise. Xow I am as badly off as the others. The worst is that I have finished all the grain, tamarinds, and tea, things Avhich cannot be bought at any price. Though we are thus stranded, I tell my boys not to be discouraged ; we will set to work and do our best to find some sutep.

November 20tJi. — Four of the hoys went and stayed four days on land, returning with sufficient sutep to last other four days. I let them rest, sent them out again, and in this way we are able, not to satisfy our hunofer, but to fiorht death for the moment. Everv day six to ten soldiers die. The corpses are thrown into the water near the steamer, for no one will carry them to a distance. Corpses of women, infants, Soudanese, Arabs, Congolese, are all mixed in horrible confusion, while a terrible stench infects the air. The fever which had left me when I departed