After dinner we and Imam Sharif had another serious council, finding ourselves in a regular fix. We determined to stay on one more day at Sa'ah to give the Tamimi a chance to join us, for if we were baffled in getting from here to Bir Borhut, we must get to Sheher as quickly as possible and try from there to reach Bir Borhut. We wished to dismiss our camel-men, but they said they would not let us do so, nor allow anyone else to take the loads. They said they would take us for one rupee a day each camel, but we did not know how many days they would take; they had also said that they would stop where we pleased, or go on all day if we liked, but we had had experience which led us to doubt this. They had now been asked to name their stages; _kafilas_ can go in seven or eight days. We determined that our next attempt to go to Bir Borhut should be with fewer camels. It is a great mistake for explorers in dangerous countries to have collectors with them. They are a great drag and an extra anxiety. The preparations they can make are necessarily all made by guesswork, as no one can tell what is to be found in an unknown country. If we had known we should never have carried the huge spade and fork, which were hated all the way by everyone, or the quantities of cases of spirits of wine and receptacles for large animals, and the dozens of gins, snares, and traps of every description for things that we never found. Of course, in the case of our expedition, there are certain plants and reptiles which would not yet have emerged from their primeval obscurity, and it is a great consolation to feel that something was accomplished in that way. For everyone who is added to such an expedition, the leader has one more for whose life and health he feels a responsibility, one more whose little idiosyncrasies must be studied by all the rest, and who may endanger the safety of all by his indiscretions with regard to the natives, and one more who must be made to pack and be ready in time, or willing not to stray away in times of danger. Mere servants do not so much matter, as they are under control, though the fewer of them the better, as they are human beings who must be fed and carried; but those above them, and who, though not entitled to a seat in the council, feel free to make comments, are the hardest to deal with.