in the bed, supplying "water sweet as the Nile,', showed a swarm
of struggling blacks, which the Egyptian officers compared with
Arafit or "demons;" we with large pismires. A sentinel was placed
to prevent waste and pollution at the Mayat el-Dasnah, whose
position is in north lat. 26 23'.

April Fools' day was another that deserved to be marked with a
white stone. I aroused the camp at 3.30 a.m., in order that the
camels might load with abundance of water: we were to reach the
springs of Umm Gezaz, but a presentiment told me that we might
want drink. At that hour the camp was a melancholy sight: the
Europeans surly because they had discussed a bottle of cognac
when they should have slept; the good Sayyid without his coffee,
and perhaps without his prayers; Wakil Mohammed sorrowfully
attempting to gnaw tooth-breaking biscuit; and the Bedawin
working and walking like somnambules. However, at 5.10 a.m. we
struck north, over a low divide of trap hill, by a broad and
evidently made road, and regained the Wady el-Kubbah: here it is
a pleasant spectacle rich in trees, and vocal with the cooing of
the turtle-dove. After an hour's sharp riding we reached its
head, a fair round plain some two miles across, and rimmed with
hills of red, green, and black plutonics, the latter much
resembling coal. It was a replica of the Sadr-basin below the
Hisma, even to the Khuraytah or "Pass" at the northern end. Here,
however, the Col is a mere bogus; that is, no raised plateau lies
beyond it.

We crossed a shallow prism and a feeding-basin: an ugly little
gorge then led to the important Wady Sirr. We are now in the
hydrographic area of the Wady Nejd,[EN#61] which, numbering