The heat was overpowering, and at lunch-time we had no rest. Bees abound in this region, and get their honey from the flowers of the mimosa trees. As the land is almost waterless in the dry season, these insects suffer much from thirst. Even the moisture of perspiration attracts them in their parched state, and, in addition, there was the smell of water from our drinking-supply. The result was that they swarmed upon us; in fact, they mobbed us. Every drinking vessel was crowded with them. Our boys drank from calabashes; when these were put upon the ground, bees clustered on the edges and crawled towards the liquor. Impatient successors thronged upon the first comers and pushed them into the water, so that in a few minutes the surface was a mass of “struggle-for-lifers.” In spite of the heat we had to keep moving; for when we settled, so did the bees—all over us. That night we pitched our camp in the mimosa forest, six miles from the village and watering-place called Doka. Next day—Christmas Eve—we started at seven, carrying our guns, and had not walked a mile when we disturbed a flock of guinea-fowl. Away they sped through the tangle of dry grass, and we after them. We blazed away here and there, but the birds, hit or not, were out of sight in an instant amidst that cover, and we missed in this way many that we had not missed in the other. Our bag consisted of four. When a bird dropped, the Soudanese “gillies,” who were carrying our rifles in case big game should be seen, pounced upon it and decapitated it. Otherwise it would not have been clean meat for a Mohammedan. The land around Doka is hilly, and the ground rises to a height of which Primrose Hill would be a good example. We reached the village about nine o’clock. Here we found, to our surprise, that the camel-men wanted to water every beast in our convoy. We were but a few miles from another watering-place, where the business could have been done in the evening without wasting the hours of daylight in which we were able to travel. We compromised by hurrying up the animals as soon as we had filled our tanks, and when half a score had drunk, the well ran dry. We pushed on through the mimosa country. The temperature was about 102°, and I found the heat extraordinarily oppressive. The trees around us and overhead—they grow thickly in parts of the forest—seemed to shut out every movement of air, such as had always relieved us a little in the open tracts. Our extreme thirst constantly tempted us. We had made it a rule not to draw upon our ration of water till eleven in the morning, and abstinence till then was Spartan discipline. If one began to drink, it was a sheer impossibility to leave off, and the supply did not hold out. On calm reflection at a distance, I doubt whether our normal breakfast of tinned sausages and tea was wisely selected under the circumstances. But it could be quickly prepared, and we seldom had time to be leisurely.