On the following day we reached the banks of the River Gerar, on which there is a thick growth of bamboos. Many of these had fallen across the track. We were not so much impeded by them as we should have been but for our previous experience of this part of the road. We sent men ahead with axes to clear the path as well as they could. In the evening we lost one of our baggage animals for the first time; two donkeys fell on the road exhausted. We left them while we moved on into camp, in the hope that they would recover. One was brought in later, but the other was found to be in such a helpless and pitiable state that nothing remained but to put it out of its misery, and it was shot. Our camp was beside the hot springs which have already been mentioned. We found in the neighbouring huts apparently the same company that we had seen on the upward journey. I was not able to learn anything about the people. On the following day we left the valley of the Gerar, crossed a high ridge, and then followed the course of the Shemal Warhar. When we reached the place where we had pitched our camp before, we found the trees charred and the ground blackened by fire. There was no shade, and the water in the pools was very low. So we marched about three miles to another camping-ground called Ananta. Here water and shade were plentiful. On February 16 we reached the bank of the Gundar Warhar. From midday till three o’clock the thermometer showed a temperature of 98° F. We had now entered the region in which robber bands are active. On the 17th we passed two parties of traders and heard from them our first news of the world outside Abyssinia. This was that Slatin Pasha had arrived at Gallabat on a tour of inspection. We thought of Gallabat—by contrast—as a centre of civilization. Our halting-place was a pleasant, shady spot beside the river-bed, in which water was abundant. In the afternoon Crawley shot a water-buck. I secured a much smaller prize in the form of another civet-cat. We heard that a large crocodile had been seen in a pool about two hundred yards from camp, but saw nothing of the beast. At night we were much plagued by mosquitoes and the beetles which swarm on one and do not bite, but are malodorous in death—a most perplexing pest.