_Wednesday, April 5th._—Up early, and worked hard in the hot sun. Put up the other tent. Our tents, together with the Consul’s and Moussalli’s and the cook’s make quite a little village by themselves. Made arrangements for camels amid much noise and discussion and haggling of prices. There have been some wordy disagreements in camp among our friends. It is finally settled that we are to start on Friday. The doctor is better, and has good courage. To-day the Consul’s cook was stung by a scorpion, and under the doctor’s directions I painted the wound with iodine. The poor fellow suffered severely for a time. A guard of four soldiers has been sent to act as sentry for us during the night. They will probably be sound asleep as soon as we turn in. The river has risen a few inches to-day, owing probably to heavy rains at the South, but will doubtless fall again to-morrow. _Friday, April 7th._—This has been a day of trials. There has been no end of them! Everything was made ready this morning for the start, but we could not get away till afternoon, so we paid a visit in the meantime to Hassan Halifa’s father, the royal old Arab who treated us so handsomely when we first came here. He kindly consented to have his photograph taken. After the delay we thought we should surely get off in good season, or about 3 P.M., but it was not so foreordained. Difficulties seemed to multiply at every move. Everything went wrong. Patience was nearly gone. It was 9 o’clock at night before we fairly started! Rode up and down the line on my camel to see that everything was at last right. There was a delay among the rear camels. Went back to see what the matter was. Some of the camels had run away and smashed up their loads, and others had fallen down, and altogether there were five loads strewn upon the ground. The camels were a bad lot, and the men were as bad a lot. Things were getting rather serious. A free fight was imminent. Moussalli was on the point of returning to Berber and entering a complaint. The rest of the party, however, had gone on, and I thought it was better to patch up the loads the best way we could, go on until we reached the advance party, and then hold a council. A return to Berber would do but little good, and would result in great delay. So on we went the best way we could in the dark, and found the rest at the well. It was 1:30 A.M. when we took dinner! I put up a tent for the doctor, and the rest of us took a nap in the open air.