All this change of scene made a deep impression on me; the strain of the last few days, the tiring journey from Delen to El Obeid, the continual uncertainty as to our fate, anguish, fear, din, tumult, bad food, had already considerably affected our health, and now that we were at rest, and that the Arabs had ceased to molest us, the re-action came, and we fell a prey to disease. The infected atmosphere of El Buka--as the Mahdi's camp is always called--brought on a burning fever and constant diarrhoea. Besides all this, when confined with the robbers in Abdullah's house, we had become covered with horrible vermin; it was impossible to get rid of them--they seemed to increase daily. We had no clothes to change, and as we had scarcely enough water to drink, washing was out of the question. With a feeling of utter despair we lay helpless and comfortless on the floor of that miserable black hut. Our maladies became worse, and ere a month had passed, three of our number were dead. Sister Eulalia Pesavento, of Verona, died of fever on the 28th of October; carpenter Gabriel Mariani died of dysentery on the 31st of the same month, and sister Amelia Andreis died on the 7th of November, while we four who still remained, hovering between life and death, lay helplessly side by side with our dead brothers and sisters. It was a terrible exertion to us to sew the corpses in mats and drag them to the door of the hut. At length some slaves--much against their will, and on the promise of good pay--removed the already decaying bodies, and buried them in shallow pits, which they covered up with sand. No one lent a hand to bury these "Christian dogs," as we were called. It was a terrible grief to us not to accompany our poor companions in adversity to the grave, but we were all too ill to move, and so they were carried away to their last resting-place without prayer or chant; and even to this day I cannot tell if the slaves really buried them, or merely dragged the bodies beyond the huts, and left them lying there on the ground. The condition of us miserable wretches who were still alive is beyond description; we envied our companions, who were now beyond the reach of human suffering; but our hour had not yet come. Towards the end of November we were somewhat recovered, but our lives seemed to have been spared only to behold more terrible sights and sufferings than we had previously undergone.