“The Nile sores were the things that troubled us most; any scratches or in many cases ordinary rowing blisters, turned into festering sores which nothing could cure so long as we remained on the river. I took the skin off my ankle shoving the boat off a rock, and tho’ I kept it perfectly clean, and put vaseline on it, it would not heal. The strange thing was that once we got into the desert, tho’ we could not wash, these sores all began to heal at once. “Other regiments suffered terribly from lice, but so far as I know we had none in the Royal Irish. I certainly had none in my company. I attribute this to the fact that our men were always in the water to shove the boat off if she stuck on a sandbank or rock, while I noticed other regiments seemed to dislike getting into the water, and used to try to shove off a boat that stuck with poles and oars, and much bad language. The day’s work did not vary much: we awoke at the first streak of dawn--had some tea or coffee and biscuit--bully beef if you cared for it, and then used to sail if the wind was really strong--which to us seemed very seldom,--to sail and row, if the wind was only moderate. If there was no wind, or an adverse one, it was a case of rowing, or towing if the bank was favourable, the latter being a quicker mode of progression than rowing against the strong current. If we had a really good sailing breeze, we didn’t like to waste it, and had cold bully beef and biscuit at about midday as we sailed along, but if we had had a tough morning’s row or two, we used to halt for about an hour to have a hot meal. At about sunset the leading boat of the company would halt for the night at some suitable spot, and the others if possible closed up. This often was not possible, owing to the numerous mishaps that were always taking place from bumps on rocks and sandbanks. The boats, when the Royal Irish took them over, had done several trips already, and were for the most part in a pretty rotten condition, and the materials for repairing them had run out, so that we had to use any expedients such as biscuit tins, &c., to patch them up. I thought myself lucky if on arrival at the night halting-place there was no damaged boat to mend, and that in consequence I could get a full night’s sleep--such a splendid sleep it was, too, under the clear sky of the Soudan winter! The ordinary monotony of the journey was broken at places like Dal, where one had to pull for four solid hours up a gigantic mill-stream, sometimes only gaining a few feet after half an hour’s pull, when one’s muscles felt as if they would crack. At Dal we took out the rifles and ammunition and a few of the boxes out of each boat, took a picked crew of eight men, and had two half-breed Indians in the boat, one at the helm, the other in the bows with a pole. It was most exciting work, and at first