Together, all ye stars of motion slow! Moon! a poor trophy you may hang me now Upon one horn—Moon! like a fairy’s nail Curved, tilted, thin and delicately pale! You, old Orion, may not lift your brow To where on high the mystic symbols glow Of Cross and Angel’s Car that next I hail; Then Venus—Beauty bathed in lambent stream Of astral milk, outpour’d long ages past From time-worn breasts!—to these, in the first gleam Of morning freshness, from the dreary waste, Whilst as our bark adown the dim stream floats, With rower’s boat-song blends the frog’s last notes. Thus the days went on monotonously, so monotonously that we were often quite feverish with _ennui_! At the beginning, the building of the fort and settling down gave us a little variety, but of course that did not last. Winter in the Sudan would really not be much worse than anywhere else if plenty of occupation and movement could be secured, with occasional change of air; but it becomes simply deadly dull when one is limited to a small space, compelled to inhale the same miasmic exhalations, and absorb the same kind of microbes every day and every night. Yet this was exactly our position. We were a small party in the midst of a hostile population. Even if we had ventured to leave our camp we should have had to divide, one-half of us remaining on guard; but neither division would have been strong enough in any emergency, for those who went could not spare any coolies as scouts, whilst those who remained would have no sentries. When we went to fetch wood, we did not go out of sight of our fort, which was left to the care of the halt and lame, so to speak: the interpreters and the scullions, and I was quite uneasy about them when I saw the men leave of a morning. [Illustration: A TOWER OF FORT ARCHINARD.] Our one safe road, the river, was blocked above and below the camp, for we had a rapid up-stream and a rapid down-stream, so that even quite small canoes could not pass. There has been much talk of winter in the Arctic regions, and of course such a winter is always very severe, but the one we passed at Say was simply miserable. I really do think that the fact of all five of us Europeans having survived it, is a proof that we were endowed with a great amount of energy and vitality. The temperature had much to do with our sufferings. It increased steadily until June, and then remained pretty stationary. The thermometer, which was set up beneath a little wooden shelter daily, reached extraordinary maxima. For one whole month the maximum fluctuated between forty and fifty degrees Centigrade, the atmosphere becoming heavier and more exhausting as the day wore on until sunset. During the night the maximum was generally a little over thirty degrees, and you must remember that I am speaking of the winter, when the air was pretty well saturated with moisture.