Several times the party had glimpses of gazelles that abound in this region, but have been hunted so much that they are very shy. Frank and Fred were eager for a gazelle hunt, but it was not deemed advisable to halt the caravan sufficiently long to accommodate them. Their chances of success were very slight, from the wildness of the game and their inexperience, and a very little argument induced them to postpone the chase till they were more certain of bringing something home that would make a good dinner. Abdul told them there were formerly wild asses in the Wady El-Homar; they subsisted on the hard, thorny grass that grows there, but were very fleet and shy, so that they were rarely caught except by stratagem. The wady, or valley, is a pass among the hills which come down to the river in long ridges, and are destitute of water except in the season of rains. As they approached Berber the sterility of the scene diminished, though the travellers were not out of the desert until near the city. On the other side of the river the fields stretched away for a long distance, and Frank remarked that the picture reminded him of the delta of the Nile in the neighborhood of Cairo. They met or passed crowds of people going between Berber and the surrounding villages, many on foot, and others mounted on camels and donkeys, the latter being the most numerous. As they passed the mud walls and entered the city, the attention of our youthful friends was centred on the people rather than on the architecture of the place. The houses were not unlike those of the towns of Lower Egypt, but the inhabitants were quite different in appearance, and both Frank and Fred remarked that they were in a new country. [Illustration: A BERBER ARAB.] The people were of a darker color than those they had seen farther down the river. Three-fourths of them were Nubians and Ethiopians of various tribes and kinds, and the remainder included Arabs from the desert, soldiers from Cairo and Alexandria, a few Copts and native Egyptians, and a small number of individuals whom it was very difficult to classify. Berber is the centre of a considerable trade with the Lower Nile and the coast of the Red Sea on one hand, and the Upper Nile and Central Africa on the other; consequently, its streets are the meeting-place of many tribes that roam over a large extent of country. Abdul told the boys that Berber had a population of about twenty thousand, and was formerly the capital of the Ethiopian kingdom of the same name. It is an important military point, and the government generally keeps a garrison of not less than a thousand soldiers in the fort which commands the town. These troops are intended less for the protection of the place than as a terror to the surrounding tribes, who sometimes show signs of insubordination, and are kept in order by the military presence.