who chanced to fall into the hands of the Dervishes at present! The best thing to do would be to empty five chambers of one's revolver and keep the sixth for one's self! One of the suspicious-looking Arabs walked back with us and showed us a dear little hut made of wattled branches, which would shelter us for the night. Our guide turned out to be a native who had suffered at the hands of the cruel Mahmoud just before that scoundrel was defeated and captured at the battle of the Atbara in the spring. He bared his arm and showed us a hideous wound, now healed over, where a Dervish spear had cut through his flesh from shoulder to elbow. The poor man had lost his wife and child--slain, both of them, by the savage Baggaras. This incident, one among thousands of the same kind, may give one some idea of the cruel sufferings to which whole tribes were abandoned by our cowardly evacuation of the Sudan. We had put our hand to the plough, and then drew back. We had a good square meal, washed down by a bottle of claret, the solitary survivor of four. Its three companions had fallen from the camel's back, and lay shattered on the ground, with their life-juice ebbing fast. That night I dreamt that I was shooting rabbits amongst bracken in Essex, and suddenly awoke, to find myself covered with a quantity of vegetable matter. Everyone has experienced the curious feeling of hopeless bewilderment which occasionally comes over a man when he wakes in the dark amid fresh surroundings, and wonders where on earth and what on earth he is; whether he is in this world or the next. I found ultimately that the camel had literally eaten us out of house and home, for it had ambled up in the night and devoured the wattled branches of our hut to such an extent that the sides and roof suddenly collapsed upon our sleeping forms. CHAPTER II FROM THE ATBARA TO WAD HAMED Early on the morning of the 17th our old friend the _El Tahra_ came in sight, and we hailed her and crossed again to the Atbara. Next day, with the rest of the correspondents still remaining in the camp, we embarked on board a native _ghyassa_ which was towed up the river by the gunboat _Tamai_. We were thoroughly crowded and uncomfortable on this miserable barge, and even when we stepped on to the lower deck of the gunboat the dirt and confusion was indescribable. The first night I attempted in the dark to get a little exercise in this way, but I fell over a live goat into the middle of a dead sheep newly slaughtered, and resolved to do without any further exercise until I landed.