Your Arab is picturesque but poisonous: a fine specimen of a man, though his usefulness in the economy of things is not apparent, at least upon the surface. He dislikes steady, hard work, is a dreamer with a deeply religious tinge, but all the same cruel and remorseless in the pursuit of any object. We were well into the region that he had ruled and ruined: a country capable of easily producing wealth, charred and laid waste. The indigenous negro, on the other hand, is not averse to toil,--nay, generally delights in it under normal conditions,--is simple in his tastes, true in his conduct according to his lights, and readily turned to better things. Your Arab seems to be the reverse of all that, and yet he is a delightful person in his way, though a belated savage. Burned villages, blackened hearths, destruction on every hand, these were the telltale evidences before our eyes of what the Khalifa and his hordes had achieved. Behind all that there were the ruins of a great and long departed civilisation that the early flood of Arab invasion doubtless did something to destroy. Once again, as in the Atbara campaign, was the army closely followed by bands of the faithful wives of the black soldiers. These women as aforetime pitched their camp ordinarily half a mile or so in rear of the men's, choosing broken ground and thick bush through which they could escape if attacked by dervish raiders. In rude huts and shelters built with their own hands amid the thorny mimosa and dhoum palms, they washed, ground corn, made bread, cooked food, patched and mended, and waited upon their uxorious soldier lords. "If handsome were what handsome does," these negresses would have been beautiful, but they were very far from it, poor creatures, except as I hope in the eyes of their husbands. Talk of the cares of a young family, not even that vexed their stout hearts and merry natures nor made them lag in marching to war with their spouses. Alas! even the pains and toils of maternity were fought down by young negro mothers, and I had my attention called more than once to women with almost new-born babies in their arms trudging along to keep up with the army. In such cases the women and men generously did all in their power to lighten the burden of the new mothers. Their household goods were borne upon other already overloaded backs, and if a donkey was procurable the mother and child were set to ride upon its back.