THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 217 



dead. The faithful child had been taken from Paganism and 

 died in Christianity ; he was laid gently away in a grave on the 

 banks of the Nile, with a rude cross for a grave-stone. 



ARRIVAL AT KHARTOUM. 



AFTER many delayj and difficulties, they reached Khartoum on 

 the 5th of May, 1865. Here they found letters from friends in 

 England, but the consolation these brought was marred by the 

 report, already authenticated, that Speke was no longer among 

 the living, having accidentally shot himself while hunting. 

 Besides this deplorable news, there were obstacles to prevent 

 Baker's immediate departure for England. An extraordinary 

 drought of two years had created a famine throughout the land, 

 attended by a disease among the camels and cattle, which had 

 caused a commercial stagnation, as no goods could be transported 

 from Khartoum. The plague, malignant typhus, had run riot in 

 the town, and reduced the black troops from 4,000 to less than 

 400. Yet in this place, reeking with filth, and death running 

 riot in the streets, they were compelled to wait until there was a 

 rise in the Nile that would enable boats to pass the cataracts 

 between Khartoum and Berber. They were detained here fot 

 two months, subjected to intense heat and dust-storms. It seemed 

 as if the plagues of Egypt had broken loose again. Respecting 

 the dust-storms, Baker writes: "On the 26th of June we had 

 the most extraordinary dust-storm that had ever been seen by the 

 inhabitants. I was sitting in the court-yard of my agent's house 

 at about 4.30 p. M. : there was no wind, and the sun was as bright 

 as usual in this cloudless sky, when suddenly a gloom was cast 

 over all a dull yellow glare pervaded the atmosphere. Knowing 

 that this effect portended a dust-storm, and that the present calm 

 would be followed by a hurricane of wind, I rose to go home, 

 intending to secure the shutters. Hardly had I risen, when I 

 saw approaching, from the S. W., apparently a solid range of 

 immense brown mountains, high in air. So rapid was the passage 

 of this extraordinary phenomenon, that in a few minutes we were 

 in actual pitchy darkness. At first there was no wind, and the 

 peculiar calm gave an oppressive character to the event. We 



