56 Seven Years in tJic Soudan.

of sufficient food, and others perisliat Meshra, where they arrive more like skeletons than human beings, bein emaciated by fatigue and hunger.

" The next day I left this deadly place, and encamped, as I have said, with my men at twenty minutes' distance to the north of the island.

" The water of tlie river, nearly stagnant, and all covered with aquatic plants, was so bad, that we were obliged to boil it, correct it with rock alum, and then filter it. From morning to night I was persecuted by the crews of the nugars begging for medicine. The predominant maladies are malaria and intermittent fever. Whoever is struck by the first has but few hours to live.

" The soldiers of the escort were all ill of intermittent fever.

" The slaves are kept by the soldiers of the Vekil, and em])loyed in killing oxen, and drying the meat for provisioning the nugar, and the soldiers Avho arrive from the seribe. At the time of my stay at Meshra, from twelve to fifteen oxen were slaughtered daily, without taking count of those which were killed in the Vekil camp.

"When the nugars have completed their cargo, the huts are partly destroyed, or occupied by the natives from the villages on the opposite bank.

These people keep the cattle which the Vekil entrust to them, and receive, in exchange, a little meat, and drink the milk of the cows. The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages are very poor, and so thin that one cannot imagine by what miracle they have the strength to move ; they are actual skeletons. They carr}" wood, which they exchange for a handful of doora.

" To the north-west of Meshra an immense forest extends, about sixty miles in length. The natives assure me that no less than five days are necessary to cross it. Game abounds there, and ebony Avood.