In productiveness the land around Sabby was not inferior to the environs of Ghattas’s Seriba. The ears of sorghum here, as frequently as there, reached to a weight of six pounds; but at the same time the level tracts under cultivation were far less extensive, and in all the rocky places could only produce a smaller yield. The natives, however, never ventured to bring any of their grain to market, as I had been accustomed to see them: whatever anyone possessed, he cautiously kept out of the sight of the stranger. From all regular and systematic agriculture, the natives were as a rule debarred, because in the course of the year nearly every able-bodied man was compelled to go and do duty as a bearer, and consequently for months together was a stranger to his homestead, whilst he either plodded backwards and forwards to the Meshera, or was engaged upon the Niam-niam expeditions. Of copper, beads, and knick-knacks of every sort they managed to increase their store, but in agriculture they decidedly were retrograding. It was with them precisely as with their oppressors from afar: just as in Nubia, there was a destiny of evil being fulfilled upon the land, so here was the spectacle of a region degenerating from prosperity into neglect and woe. [Sidenote: GOAT-SUCKERS.] Repeatedly in the evening hours I watched the ghost-like fluttering of a long feathered goat-sucker of the species _Cosmetornis Spekii Sclater_, observed by Speke[37] in Uganda, and which was to be recognized by the astonishing elongation of the seventh and eighth wing-quills, the latter of which reaches over twenty inches in length. There was a second species of this genus, of which the male had the same kind of prolonged shaft-feathers expanded at the end and fluttering in the air like a peacock’s tail. This was the _Macrodypterix longipennis_, a remarkable bird which the Arabs call the “father of four wings,” because, as it chases the mice, it looks as though it had a couple of satellites in attendance. Both these make their earliest appearance about a quarter of an hour after sunset and as the twilight passes rapidly into thorough night; I had, therefore, only scanty opportunities of sending what were at best only stray shots to bring them down. For the purpose of catching insects they generally wheeled in circles at no great distance from the ground, but as the range of their flight was very circumscribed and its rapidity extremely great, it was somewhat difficult to get a good aim. However, as the practice was repeated daily, I succeeded in securing a considerable number of Speke’s interesting _Cosmetornis_. I should mention that while I had been in Ghattas’s Seriba, sport of this kind had very frequently been an evening recreation. The antipathy of this aëronaut of the dusky evening to the clear light of day, seemed very remarkable: it kept itself to the seclusion of the low bushwoods, and when roused up would disappear again at the first ray of light; often