eagues--Messrs. Knight,
Gwynne, Scudamore, Maud--and myself, took this opportunity of
traversing a country very little known to the outside world, and a
route which no European had followed for fourteen years, from Berber
to Suakim. Moreover, there was a spice of adventure about it; there
was an uncertainty regarding an altogether peaceful time on the way--a
contingency which always appeals strongly to Englishmen of a roving
and adventurous disposition. Only quite recently raids organized by
the apparently irrepressible Osman Digna had been successfully carried
out a few miles north and south of Berber. At the moment General
Hunter, with two battalions of troops, was marching along the banks of
the River Atbara to hunt for Osman and his followers, but there was
much speculation as to whether five-and-twenty dervish raiders were
still this side of the river, and drawing their water from the wells
on the Suakim road.

I was hardly prepared for this journey--one, probably, of twelve
days--for my campaigning outfit, which I was compelled to leave on
board my nugger on the Nile, had not yet arrived in Berber.
Unfortunately, I could not wait for the gear, as the Sirdar insisted
on our departure at once, for the road would be certainly insecure
directly General Hunter returned from covering our right flank on the
Atbara. I had no clothes but what I stood up in, and I had been more
or less standing up in them without change for the last two weeks.

Our caravan of nineteen camels, with two young ones, quite babies,
following their mothers, and a couple of donkeys, about seven in the
evening of the 30th of October quitted the mud-baked town of Berber,
sleeping in the light of a new moon, and silently moved across the
desert toward the Eastern Star. Next morning at the Morabeh Well, six
miles from Berber, our camels having filled themselves up with water,
and our numerous girbas, or water skins, being charged with the
precious liquid--till they looked as if they were about to burst--our
loads were packed and we started on a journey of fifty-two miles
before the next water could be reached.

We made quite a formidable show trailing over the desert. Probably it
would have been more impressive if our two donkeys had restrained
their ambition, and kept in the rear instead of leading the van. But
animals mostly have their own way in these parts, and asses are no
exception to this rule. The two baby camels commenced "grousing" with