The camp was astir long before sunrise, and by sunrise we were on the move east towards El Kab, |34| which we reached about three o’clock in the afternoon. The “wells,” at the part we arrived at, are upon ascending ground; but the name “well” in this instance is a misnomer. They are shallow basins scooped out with the hands or any rough implement, the water being found about three feet below the surface, shrubs indicating where to scoop. The camels were watered and left to graze on the scanty herbage. Another camel was killed to celebrate the capture of the caravan, and again I was invited to take food with the Emirs. I was asked only the most commonplace questions, but I could not get any reply to those I put, except that Abdel Rahman Wad en Nejoumi would tell me all I wished to know. While still with the Emirs, Farag called up his followers again, and after congratulating them upon the capture of the “English Pasha” and the caravan (though the Emir knew very well who I was, from old days at Korti), he harangued them on the advisability of obeying to the letter the orders of the Mahdi transmitted to the Khaleefa, and by the Khaleefa to him, winding up his oration with threats of punishment and imprisonment to any of the faithful who robbed the Beit-el-Mal by concealing any of the loot, after which he ordered every one to be searched again. I had many opportunities later of seeing evidences of what the Emirs most relied upon, in regard to the handing over of any loot—an exhortation to their followers, and an appeal to their religious scruples—or threats of punishment and imprisonment. Both went together, and were administered in the order I have given them, and there was seldom an |35| occasion when a search did not follow the appeal to their honesty, and when punishment did not follow the search for concealed loot.