We have had great trouble to keep our birds. We have now preserved some seventy specimens, from the small black chat to the large crane. The rats will carry them off. So now we suspend them from the centre of the ceiling. The same rat never carries away two birds. I cannot identify each particular rat, and yet I am morally certain of the truth of the above proposition. The skin, when taken off the bird, is covered on the inside with a heavy coating of arsenical soap containing a large amount of arsenic, enough to cut short the career of at least one rat. So if they did carry off our birds, we had the satisfaction of knowing that the birds carried them off in turn. We have been very anxious to kill a crocodile; they are very scarce below the first cataract, but as soon as we passed Philæ we promulgated the following general offer: To the first man who points out a crocodile to any of the howadjii we will give a half-sovereign. If the pilot, or any one in his stead, brings us within reasonable shooting distance, we will present him with one pound; if we kill and secure the crocodile, we will make presents all around. This offer kept them on the alert. Every eye was strained to see the first crocodile—and it takes a practised eye to discern one; for to the uninitiated they appear to be logs of wood lying on the sand. Early on the morning of January 15 the pilot came to us with eyes aglow and pointed out a timsah (crocodile). We were tied up on the west bank, and the reptile was lying on a sand-bank near the eastern shore. There was considerable difference of opinion among the crew, many of them insisting that it was not a timsah. “But,” asks the pilot, “what is it, then? There are no rocks on the sand-banks; it can scarcely be a log, for these are rarely met with in this part of the river.” A council of war was held, and a plan of attack was determined on. Mr. S—— and I, with Ali, the pilot, and four sailors, crossed the river to the sand-bank about half a mile below the spot where slept the timsah in blissful unconsciousness of the fate awaiting him. Bent almost to the ground, we crawled cautiously along. When we had proceeded about a quarter of a mile we found, to our disgust, that the bank upon which we were was separated from the bank on which lay the timsah by twenty yards of water of some depth. The pilot now asked us to fire, but the distance was too great, and we began to be suspicious. The timsah did not move; it was almost too quiet to be real. Mr. S—— and I placed ourselves in the bow of the boat, covered the object with our double-barrelled guns, and ordered the sailors to pull directly towards it. For a few moments the excitement was intense. At the first movement of the timsah four bullets would have shot forth on their death-errand. Nearer and nearer we came. A moment more, and Abiad jumps from the boat, and with a loud shout rushes up the bank and catches hold of the supposed timsah. “Come