OUR FIRST DESERT VISITOR. 29. 



only 55, and as 65 has been the lowest on any 

 previous night, it really felt quite cold. Coke, however, 

 ignores a tent and sleeps in his hammock, when the 

 screws will hold, on the open ground about twenty yards 

 from our tent, and not even the kind suggestion of 

 Vivian that he might be eaten by a lion will make him 

 alter his present programme for the night. A jackal; 

 did visit our camp last night, and we found his track 

 on a waterproof sheet directly outside the tent. 

 Vultures are becoming more numerous, and it is 

 wonderful to see how rapidly they come into view, as 

 they soar about in the sky directly we shoot a gazelle. 

 We left one to-day, only for a few minutes, in the camel 

 track for our followers to pick up, but before their 

 arrival a huge vulture had cleared out its interior 

 through the bullet wound ; it was, however, partly 

 disappointed in its feast, for such a delicate morsel as 

 the liver raw was not to be lost in that way by our 

 friends. One of them is ill to-day, and rumour says 

 from eating too much gazelle ; but a hollow cough heard 

 at night in the distance is suggestive of something less 

 easily remedied. We have halted again near a very good 

 well. 



Jan. 8. Very late starting this morning, owing to 

 the camels having strayed a long way off. Emanuel 

 now goes out daily in search of them, for the Arabs are 

 getting lazier than ever, and are very loth to rise from 



