"The 10th December.--A dead calm all night. Gnats!!! No use creeping under the bed-clothes, at risk of stifling with heat, compelled as one is by their penetrating sting to go to bed dressed. Leave only a little hole to breathe at, and in they pour, attacking lips, nose, and ears, and forcing themselves into the throat--thus provoking a cough which is torture, since, at each inspiration, a fresh swarm finds its way into the gullet. They penetrate to the most sensitive part of the body, creeping in, like ants, at the smallest aperture. In the morning my bed contained thousands of the small demons which I had crushed and smothered by the perpetual rolling about of my martyred body. As I had forgotten to bring a musquito net from Chartum, there was nothing for it but submission. Neither had I thought of providing myself with leather gloves, unbearable in that hot climate, but which here, upon the Nile, would have been by far the lesser evil, since I was compelled to have a servant opposite to me at supper-time, waving a huge fan so close under my nose, that it was necessary to watch my opportunity to get the food to my mouth. One could not smoke one's pipe in peace, even though keeping one's hands wrapped in a woollen burnous, for the vermin stung through this, and crept up under it from the ground. The black and coloured men on board were equally ill-treated; and all night long the word '_Baùda_' resounded through the ship, with an accompaniment of curses and flapping of cloths. The _baùda_ resemble our long-legged gnats, but have a longer proboscis, with which they bore through a triple fold of strong linen. Their head is blue, their back tawny, and their legs are covered with white specks like small pearls, Another sort has short, strong legs, a thick brown body, a red head, and posteriors of varying hues." These parti-coloured and persevering bloodsuckers caused boils by the severity of their sting, and so exhausted the sailors by depriving them of sleep, that the ships could hardly be worked. Bitterly and frequently does Mr Werne recur to his sufferings from their ruthless attacks. At last a strange auxiliary came to his relief. On Christmas-day he writes:--"For the last two nights we have been greatly disturbed by the gnats, but a small cat, which I have not yet seen by daylight, seems to find particular pleasure in licking my face, pulling my beard, and purring continually, thus keeping off the insects. Generally the cats in Bellet-Sudan are of a very wild and fierce nature, which seems the result of their indifferent treatment by the inhabitants. They walk into the poultry-houses and carry off the strongest fowls, but care little for rats and mice. The Barabras, especially those of Dongola, often eat them; not so the Arabs, who spare them persecution--the cat having been one of Mahomet's favourite animals--but who, at the same time, hold them unclean."