The area required for some twenty-two thousand men, with hundreds of camels, horses, and mules, was enormous, and we rode hopelessly about in the gathering gloom, trying to find the space allotted to correspondents. After a couple of hours' search we at length succeeded in finding our camels and getting our tents pitched, and then we did full justice to whatever sort of dinner the ingenuity of our cooks could contrive for their hungry masters. The camp was an extremely pretty one, and in places the vegetation by the river banks was quite luxuriant. Bushes of all kinds, especially the "Dead Sea apple," were dotted about; and as these prevented one from seeing more than a hundred yards around, it was difficult to realise the vast size of the camp. A zeriba had, of course, been formed, and just behind it thousands of troops lay all night under arms, ready to repulse any Dervish attempt to surprise the camp by a sudden rush. Next morning a rumour got about that during the darkness a Dervish had crept up to the zeriba and thrown his spear over with a shout of defiance, and the veritable spear was produced by a sentry of the Lancashire Fusiliers as a proof of the story's genuineness. The story was substantially true, for whilst the troops were engaged in forming the zeriba a Baggara cavalry scout, who, for some reason or other, found himself within the enclosure, suddenly dashed at a gallop out of the bush, knocking over several astonished Fusiliers, and hurling his spear at them as he disappeared in the darkness. Scorpions proved most troublesome in all our camps, but they were especially numerous at Um Teref. In some places they simply swarmed, and both officers and men, and, still more, native servants, suffered from their painful stings. Those, like myself, who slept on a raised bed--_e.g._ the "Salisbury" bed, made by Silvers--were not so much exposed to risk as the possessors of the "Wolseley Valise"--a mattress which lies on the ground, and forms a most inviting hiding-place for creeping things innumerable. The pain experienced by a European from a scorpion's sting is very acute while it lasts, but passes off in a few hours. The natives were continually stung, and one of the correspondents had attained a great reputation from the skill with which he scarified the affected portions of native bodies, prior to the application of Scrubb's Ammonia. One poor fellow--a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers--was stung by a scorpion in three places along his spine, and speedily died in a state of coma.