Our daily routine along the river began at 4.30: all hands turn out, make up tent (if there were one), breakfast, and start, sailing or tracking or rowing according to the state of the river. But whether you sailed or tracked or rowed, before long the river changed and you must row instead of track, or sail instead of row. Then you would come to a difficult place, and you would heave the cargo on shore, and get the empty boat up a fall or a heavy rush of water, and portage the cargo on to the boat. So on to midday, when an hour was allowed for dinner; then at it again, sailing, tracking, rowing, in and out cargo, till sundown. Then haul into the bank and eat bully beef without vegetables. After supper, roll in a blanket and sleep on the soft sand the profound and delicious slumber of weary men. Occasionally a boat would strike a rock; or at rare intervals an accident would happen, and part of a crew would be lost, and the boat's gear swept away; or a hole would be knocked in the boat, when she would be emptied of gear and cargo, hauled up, and patched. Under these circumstances, {242} the boats often made no more than three or four miles' advance in a day. Overloaded as were many of the boats, they served their purpose admirably well. At the big Cataracts were stationed working parties, which emptied the boats of gear and cargo, portaged them overland, and hauled the boats through the rapids. So we struggled up the broad and rushing river from Gemai to Dal, sailing and towing and rowing, capsized and righting again. And one night a sandstorm waltzed out of the desert and blew away our tent and with it knives, forks, slippers, lamp, candles, matches and everything. And the next morning Peel dropped his knife, and in trying to save it he upset our whole breakfast of sardines and coffee into Colbourne's boots. And half my kit was stolen, and I was reduced to one broken pair of boots, and the natives stole my tooth powder and baked bread with it. And we had boils all over us like the man in the Bible, because every little scratch was poisoned by the innumerable flies of Egypt. But we were so busy that nothing mattered.