coughing and sneezing making all sleep simply impossible. [Sidenote: VILLAGE OF TAKE.] On the following day we had to march for five hours without a draught of water, until a hospitable asylum was opened to us in a village of Take. We were now in the district of the Rek, a locality which formerly made a hitch in the traffic with the natives, before Petherick broke a way to the south through the Dyoor and Bongo, and opened a trade with the Niam-niam. This Take was an old friend and ally of the Khartoomers, and had attired himself in honour of the occasion in a figured calico shirt, without regard to the prejudices of his countrymen, who despise all clothing as effeminate. Near this village in 1858 there existed a temporary establishment from in which the brothers Poncet started on their elephant hunts the Dinka territory. They called the place Mirakok, but Mirakok and its elephants are now alike unknown in this land of the past, where (transient as a shower or a tide) all the lives and deeds of men have been long forgotten. It has been a land without chalk or stone, so that no permanent buildings could be constructed; it has consequently only reared a people which have been without chiefs, without traditions, without history. Detached fan-palms (_Borassus_), 100 feet high, in default of anything more lasting, mark the abode of Take, a shelter which was destined to have its sad associations for the travellers. Ghattas’s standard-bearer, a most courageous fellow and the best shot among all our Nubians, killed himself on a hunting excursion, which he had undertaken with me and my servant. I had contented myself with bagging a lot of remarkably plump wild pigeons, but he was resolved to get at some guinea-fowl; for this purpose he made his way into a thicket, where, as he was loading his piece, it accidentally went off, the charge entering his breast. This accident befell the one who was supposed to be incomparably the most skilful of our party in handling his weapons, and it may be imagined what was to be expected of the rest. Blundering accidents and wounds were of perpetual occurrence, so that I should only weary the reader by recounting them. The traveller who has to march with these so-called soldiers must be content to know that he could not anywhere more thoroughly be exposed to the danger of being killed by a chance shot; and I do not exaggerate the truth when I affirm that my life was over and over again seriously threatened.