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formation that he has any number of camels to let. The chance has turned out a good one, after all. But then comes along a fair Englishman, on a shaggy grey pony; I was told he was the Director of Transport. That's all right; I'll ask his advice. Only, before I could speak, he suavely drew the attention of correspondents to the rule that any Arab hiring camels already hired by the army was liable to two years imprisonment. The news was not encouraging; and of course the Arabs swore that the army had not hired the best camels at all. I believed it at the time, but came to know the Arab better afterwards. Anyhow here I sat, amid the dregs of my vanishing household, seventy miles from Berber-no rail, no steamer, no horse, no camel. Only donkeys, not to be thought of—and, by George, legs! I never thought of them, but I've got 'em, and why not use 'em. I'll walk.

V.

I MARCH TO BERBER.

THE donkeys had been hired, at war prices, about ten in the morning, delivery promised within an hour. At three in the afternoon two of us sweated over from the rail-head to the village, to try and hurry them up. Fifteen had been ordered; five were nearly ready. The sheikh swore by Allah that all should be ready within an hour. At five we went over again. There were only four by now; the sheikh swore by Allah that the others should be ready within an hour.

On that we began to threaten violence; whereupon round a mud-wall corner trotted eighteen donkeys, followed by eight black men and a boy. Twenty-two! It was late, but it was better than could be expected of any Arab. We kept them sedulously in our eye till we had them alongside the mountainous confusion of three correspondents' light baggage. Arrived at the scene of action, they sat down with one consent and looked at it.

The only way to hurry an Arab is to kill him, after which he is useless as a donkey-driver; so we sat down too, and had some tea, and looked at them. Presently they made it known that they had no rope. A rope was produced and cut into lengths; each took one, and sat and looked at it. Finally arose an old, old man, attired in a rag round his head and a pair of drawers: with the eye of experience he selected the two lightest articles, and slowly tied them together. Example works wonders. There was almost a rush to secure the next smallest load, and in ten minutes everything was tied together and slung across the little pack-saddles, except one load. This they looked at for a good long time, reluctant to get a piece of work finished; at last they felt justified in loading this on also.

We were ready: we were actually about to start. Gratitude and wonder filled my soul.

Three men, nine Arabs, nine more to see them off, twenty-two donkeys-and, Heaven forgive me, I had almost forgotten the horse. That is to say, his owner applied to him an Arab word which I understood to mean horse-plural before he was produced, singular when it was no longer possible to allege that there was more than one of him. Experts opined that he might in the remote past have been a dervish horsea variation from the original type, produced by never feeding the animal. His teeth, what remained of them, gave no clear evidence of his age, but on a

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general view of him I should say he was rising ninety. Early in the century he was probably chestnut, but now he was partly a silver chestnut and partly presented no impression of colour at all: he was just faded. He wore a pessimistic expression, a coat about an inch and a quarter long, an open saddle sore, and no flesh of any kind in any corner. We offered him fodder-something like poor pea-halm and something like string, only less nutritious. He looked at it wearily, smelt it, and turned in perplexity to his master as if asking instructions. He had forgotten what food was for.

The young moon was climbing up the sky when we set off. With chattering and yells the donkeys and Arabs streamed out on to the desert track. The first load came undone in the first five minutes, and every one had to be readjusted in the first hour. The Arab, you see, has only been working with donkeys for ten thousand years or so, and you can't expect him to have learned much about it yet. But we kept them going. I was rearguard officer, with five Arabic words, expressing "Get on" in various degrees of emphasis, and a hunting-crop.

We only marched three hours to camp that night, but by the time we off-loaded in a ring of palms, with the Nile swishing below and the wind swishing overhead, we had earned our dinner and some sleep: had we not induced Arabs to start? And now came in one of the conveniences-so far the only one-of

travelling in the Sudan. "Three angarebs," said the correspondent of experience; and back came the servants presently with three of the stout wooden frames lashed across with thongs that form the Sudan bed: you can get them anywhere there is a village—as a rule, to be sure, there is none—and they are luxurious beyond springs and feathers.

At half-past one I opened my eyes and saw the moon stooping down to meet the fringe of palm leaves. The man of experience sat up on his angareb and cried "Awake." They did awake: three hours' sleep is not long enough to make you sleepy. We loaded up by the last moonlight, and took the road again. For nearly three hours the rustling on our right and the line of palms showed that we kept to the Nile bank; then at five we halted to water the donkeys-they eat when they can and what they can-and started for a long spell across the desert. Grey dawn showed us a gentle swell of stony sand, hard under foot; freshness came with it to man and beast, and we struck forward briskly.

When the sun came up on us, I saw the caravan for the first time plainly; and I was very glad we were not likely to meet anybody I knew. My kit looked respectable enough in the train, and in Berber it went some way to the respectable furnishing of a house. But as piled by Sudanese Arabs on to donkeys it was disreputable, dishevelled, a humiliation beyond blushes. The canteen, the chair and table that had

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