So I remained yet a little while at Dal, helping the boats through the Cataract, and camping in the sand. I found a baby scorpion two and a half inches long in my {244} handkerchief. The officer whose tent was next to mine, shared it with a sand-rat, which used to fill his slippers with _dhura_ grains every night, and which jumped on and off my knee when I breakfasted with my friend. Actually there came two or three days when I had nothing to do; and when I could take a hot bath in peace, with the luxury of a cake of carbolic soap, and sit in my little canvas chair, which was, however, speedily stolen. My poor servant José was suddenly taken with so sharp an attack of fever that he was stricken helpless and could hardly lift a cup to his lips. His pulse was going like a machine gun. He was too ill to be moved on mule-back to the hospital, which was eight miles distant; and I had to doctor him myself. I gave him castor-oil, deprived him of all food for twenty-four hours, gave him five grains of quinine every two hours, and plenty of lime-juice to drink; and he was soon well again. Lord Avonmore, Lieutenant-Colonel J. Alleyne, Captain Burnaby and myself subscribed to a Christmas dinner of extraordinary charm, eaten with the Guards. The menu was:--soup made of bully beef, onions, rice and boiled biscuit, fish from the Nile, stewed bully beef and chicken _à la_ as-if-they-had-been-trained-for-long-distance-races-for-a-year, _entremet_ of biscuit and jam. Rum to drink. I should have missed that feast, and should have been on the way to Korti post-haste several days before Christmas, had it not been that a telegram sent by Lord Wolseley to me had been delayed in transmission. On 27th December I received an urgent telegram from General Buller, asking where I was and what I was doing. A week previously Lord Wolseley had telegraphed instructions that I was to proceed to Korti with all speed to arrive with the first division of the Naval Brigade. Having received no orders, I was waiting for the second division so that I might see that it was complete and satisfactory. (It arrived at Dal the day after I left that place in obedience to General Buller's orders.) {245}