A violent thunderstorm, with a deluge of rain, broke upon our camp on
the banks of the Atbara, fortunately just after the tents were pitched.
We thus had an example of the extraordinary effects of the heavy rain in
tearing away the soil of the valley. Trifling watercourses were swollen
to torrents. Banks of earth became loosened and fell in, and the rush of
mud and water upon all sides swept forward into the river with a
rapidity which threatened the destruction of the country, could such a
tempest endure for a few days. In a couple of hours all was over.

In the evening we crossed with our baggage and people to the opposite
side of the ricer, and pitched our tents at the village of Goorashee. In
the morning the camels arrived, and once more we were ready to start.
Our factotum, El Baggar, had collected a number of baggage-camels and
riding dromedaries, or "hygeens". The latter he had brought for
approval, as we bad suffered much from the extreme roughness of our late
camels. There is the same difference between a good hygeen, or
dromedary, and a baggage-camel, as between the thoroughbred and the
cart-horse; and it appears absurd in the eyes of the Arabs that a man of
any position should ride a baggage-camel. Apart from all ideas of
etiquette, the motion of the latter animal is quite sufficient warning.
Of all species of fatigue, the back-breaking, monotonous swing of a
heavy camel is the worst; and should the rider lose patience and
administer a sharp cut with the coorbatch, that induces the creature to
break into a trot, the torture of the rack is a pleasant tickling
compared to the sensation of having your spine driven by a sledge-hammer
from below, half a foot deeper into the skull.

The human frame may be inured to almost anything; thus the Arabs, who
have always been accustomed to this kind of exercise, hardly feel the