asses are no exception to this rule. The two baby camels commenced "grousing" with their elders directly we halted or made a fresh advance; they probably had an inkling of what was in store for them. After all, the world must seem a hard and unsympathetic place when, having only known it for two or three weeks, you are compelled to make a journey of 240 miles to keep up with your commissariat. One of these babies was only in its eighteenth day. In spite of its tender youth the little beast trotted by the side of its mother, refreshing itself whenever we came to a halt with a pull from her teats, and, to the astonishment of all, arrived in Suakim safe and sound after twelve days' marching.

To the uninitiated regarding the "grousing" of camels, I should explain that it is a peculiar noise which comes from their long funnel necks early or late, and for what reason it is difficult to tell. Sometimes the sound is not unlike the bray of an ass, occasionally it reaches the dignity of the roar of a lion with the bleating of a goat thrown in, then as quickly changes to the solemnity of a church organ. It is altogether so strange a sound that nothing but a phonograph could convey any adequate idea of it. It is a thing to be heard. No pen can properly describe it. After a long march, and when you are preparing to relieve the brute of his load, he begins to grouse. When he is about to start in the morning he grouses. If you hit him, he grouses; if you pat his neck gently, he grouses; if you offer him something to eat, he grouses; and if you twist his tail, he makes the same extraordinary noise. The camel evidently has not a large vocabulary, and he is compelled to express all his various sensations in this simple manner.

The first part of our journey was monotonous enough, miles and miles of weary sandy plains, with alternate stretches of agabas or stony deserts, scored with shallow depressions, where torrential rains had recently soaked into the sand, leaving a glassy, clay-like surface, which had flaked or cracked into huge fissures under the heat of the fierce sun. And at every few hundred yards we came to patches of coarse camel grass, which had evidently cropped up on the coming of the rain, and, by its present aspect, seemed to feel very sorry that it had been induced to put in an appearance, for its sustenance was now fast passing into vapor, and its green young life was rapidly dying out as the sun scorched the tender shoots to the roots. But camels thrive on this parched-up grass, and our brutes nibbled at it whenever one slackened the head-rope.

We traversed the dreary plain, marked every few yards by the bleached bones of camels fallen by the way; the only living thing met with for two days being a snake of the cobra type trailing across our path. The evening of the second day we camped in a long wadi, or shallow valley, full of mimosa trees, where our camels were hobbled and allowed to graze. They delighted in nibbling the young branches of these prickly acacias, which carry thorns at least an inch in length, that serve excellently well for toothpicks. Yet camels seem to rejoice in browsing off these trees, and chew up their thorns without blinking. This I can partly understand, for the camel's usual diet of dry, coarse grass must become rather insipid, and as we sometimes take "sauce piquante" with our cold dishes, so he tickles his palate with one inch thorns.

Climbing ridge after ridge of the dunes, we at last saw stretching before us in the moonlight the valley of Obak, an extensive wadi of mimosa and sunt trees. Our guides halted on a smooth stretch of sand, and I wondered why we were not resting by the wells. Near were three native women squatting round a dark object that looked to me, in the faint light of the moon, like a tray. I walked up to them, thinking they might have some grain upon it for sale, but found to my surprise that it was a hole in the sand, and I realized at once that this must be a well. One of the women was manipulating a leather bucket at the end of a rope, which after a considerable time she began hauling up to the surface. It was about half full of thick, muddy water. Further on along the wadi I now noticed other groups of natives squatting on the sand doing sentinel over the primitive wells. I never came across a more slovenly method of getting water. The mouths of the holes were not banked or protected; a rain storm or sand drift at any moment might have blocked them for a considerable period.

Not being able to get water for the camels was a serious matter, as our animals were not of the strongest, nor had they been recently trained for a long journey without water. This was the evening of the third day from Berber, and many of the poor brutes were showing signs of weakness. We resolved, therefore, to hurry on at once to the next well, that of Ariab; so we left the inhospitable wadi, and started at three in the morning on our next stretch of fifty-three miles.

These night marches were pleasant enough; it was only the hour or two before dawn when the heaviness of sleep troubled us; but just as we began nodding, and felt in danger of falling off our camels, the keen change in the temperature which freshens the desert in the early morning braced us up, and, fully awake, we watched for the coming of Venus. As she sailed across the heavens, she flooded the desert with a warm, soft light, which in its luminosity equaled an English summer moon, and shortly seemingly following her guidance, the great fiery shield of the sun stood up from the horizon, and broad day swept over the plain.

Toward the evening we found ourselves in a bowlder-strewn basin amid rocky, sterile hills, evidently the offshoots and spurs of the Jeb-el-Gharr, which stood out a purple serrated mass on our left, and here we saw for the first time for many a month rain clouds piling up above the rocky heights. Their tops, catching the rosy glow from the declining sun, appeared in their quaint forms like loftier mountains with their snowy summits all aglow. This was, indeed, a grateful sight to us; the camels already pricked up their ears, for the smell of moisture was in the air. We knew that the end of our waterless journey was not far off; for where those clouds were discharging their precious burdens the valley of Ariab lay. But many a weary ridge of black rock and agaba must still be crossed before our goal was reached.

We camped at six that evening till midnight, when we started on our record march. Unfortunately at this time my filter gave out, owing to the perishable nature of the rubber tubing; the remaining water in our girbas was foul and nauseating from the strong flavor of the skins. I resolved to try and hold out without touching the thick, greasy fluid, and wait till the wells of Ariab were reached. As we advanced, the signs of water became more and more apparent; the camel grass was greener down by the roots, and mimosa and sunt trees flourished at every few hundred yards. When morning came, for the first time we heard the chirruping and piping of birds. The camels increased their pace, and all became eager to reach our destination before the extreme heat of the day. But pass after pass was traversed, and valley after valley crossed, and yet the wadi of Ariab, with its cool, deep wells of precious water, was still afar. It was not till past two o'clock in the afternoon that a long, toilsome defile of rugged rock brought us on the edge of a steep descent, and before us lay the winding Khor of Ariab, with its mass of green fresh foliage throwing gentle shadows on the silver sand of its dry watercourse. It seemed an age as we traversed that extended khor before our guide pointed to a large tree on our right, and said "Moja." We dismounted under the shadow of its branches, and found awaiting us the sheikh of the valley, who pressed our hands and greeted us in a most friendly way; but I was almost mad with thirst, and asked for the well. I was taken to a mound a few yards from our retreat, on the sides of which were two or three clay scoop-outs, all dry but one,