The unloading of boats was the hardest work we were set to, and we were kept up to the mark by the ever-present lash; we might only be tired and ill when we could afford the luxury of paying for the complaint, for this labour was the most lucrative task our gaolers could set us to; we had either to work, or pay many times the equivalent of our labour. It was in connection with the unloading of boats, and this, |127| too, when I was slowly recovering from my attack of typhus fever after the death of Ahmed Nur ed Din, that I received my first flogging. A young gaoler had pestered me for money, and as I had none to give him, he ordered me to slave at the unloading of the boats. The only way of exhibiting a real refusal was to sit down upon the ground, which I did, upon which the gaoler commenced to drag me towards the gateway of the Saier. On this I got upon my feet and knocked the gaoler off his. He ran to Idris es Saier, told his own tale, and Idris, approaching me, ordered me to get up—for I had again sat down—and assist in the unloading of the boats. I refused, and accused the gaoler of trying to extort monies from me. Upon this Idris struck me with his “safarog” (an instrument almost the exact counterpart of the Australian boomerang, and used by the Soudan tribes for precisely similar purposes); the blow he gave smashed the safarog and stunned me, and while only partly conscious I was turned over and condemned to receive there and then five hundred lashes. Only sixty or seventy, I was told, were inflicted; the remainder were not given, as Idris, seeing that I was unconscious, believed that I was dead, and in consequence received a terrible fright. I was carried to my place in the cell, while Idris set about clearing himself with the other prisoners, and explaining that it was all the work of the young gaoler. Idris knew what it meant to him had I been flogged to death, and, believing that I would not recover, he, when I did recover, evidently made up his mind to pay out the gaoler who was |128| responsible for his fright in the first place, and for his servility to the other prisoners at the moment when he thought there were good grounds for it. [Illustration: A FLOGGING BY ORDER OF THE KHALEEFA.]