CHAPTER XVI 



A SHIPWRECK or SORTS 



We had intended to go on from the next Cataract, 

 and on to Khartoum, but Mr. Gubbins and I had 

 been somewhat alarmed by Mr. Allison's attack of 

 fever, and we decided that, as the next boat did 

 not carry a doctor, we had better cancel the tickets 

 for the second half of the journey. We returned, 

 therefore, from Assouan on the more home-like 

 Rameses the Great. Our return was not without 

 adventure, as the following quotation from " The 

 Special Commissioner " will show. 



" S.S. ' Rameses the Great,' 



" February 7, 1903. 



" As I write a change has come over the spirit of 

 our dreams. Mr. Gubbins, I am sorry to say, has 

 a touch of his old enemy, the gout ; Mr. Darling 

 has bad news of the illness of his second son 

 in South Africa ; and this morning, about 6.15, 

 with a bump and a bang, we fouled the bank on 

 the port side while we were trying to avoid running 

 into a felucca, and every single detail of the star- 



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