Next morning, shortly after 4 a.m., we were wakened from a sound sleep by the roll of drums and the shrieking of half-a-dozen fifes: it was the Houssa “band” playing an untimely _réveille_. They were supposed to be playing that old point of war which begins “Old Father Paul came from the Holy Land,” but their acquaintance with it was limited to the first two bars, which they repeated over and over again. As the sound first penetrated our half-awakened senses we tried to keep it out and go to sleep again; then, finding that that was useless, we waited in expectancy for them to go on with the rest of the tune, and after the first two bars had been played over and over again for about ten minutes we were in a very fair state of nervous excitement. Soon the effect of this began to grow irritating; we commenced saying “Tum tumti tumti, tumti tumti tum,” to ourselves time after time; then we tried to shake that off and count; but we counted the thing ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty times, and still the infernal tum tumti tum went on in the same endless monotony, while we dressed by fits and starts in the dark, hoping and praying that the Houssas would either go on to the next bar or leave off altogether. The torture rapidly grew worse and worse: it seemed to rake up all our nerves, and every repetition went through us like a galvanic shock, while we could not go and implore the Constabulary officer to put a stop to it because we knew that it was as balm and consolation to his wounded military spirit. We tried to give our minds to other subjects, but it was out of the question, and conversation was impossible; our eyes became wild, our brows haggard, and we were rapidly approaching a state of frenzy, when, after half-an-hour’s torture, we fled from the demoniacal sounds. We passed the Houssas, marching up and down outside our habitation, blowing away vigorously with their cheeks distended to their utmost capacity, with our fingers in our ears, and rushed off into the damp forest path. What a universal sigh of relief we gave when we were out of hearing, but the diabolic rhythm went on in our minds long after that, and by 10 a.m. one of our number was down with fever. If any one should think that our nerves were unduly sensitive, let him get somebody to play on the piano, for half-an-hour without a single pause, [Illustration: Music] and then see how he feels at the end of the performance.