248 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



myself have no cause to find fault with the way Fate 

 has treated us. 



The Massowah party give a very unfavourable 

 report of their sport in the Bogo's country, having found 

 no elephants, as they had fully expected, nor scarcely 

 any other game, excepting buffaloes and gazelle. They 

 therefore returned to Massowah, and having heard 

 from the Governor, Arekel Bey (the nephew of Nubar 

 Pasha), to whom they had received letters of intro- 

 duction, that Munsinger Pasha had telegraphed to 

 him very favourable accounts of our doings, they 

 decided upon coming into our country, and engaged 

 fresh camels for the desert journey to Kassala. This 

 extended over two months, in consequence of their 

 making excursions into the Base country ; and owing 

 to the almost complete absence of antelope, they ran 

 very short of their meat supplies. Ranfurly shot a 

 fine lion en route, and between them they killed a boa- 

 constrictor measuring fifteen feet, which they found 

 coiled up in a bush and believed to be temporarily blind, 

 as it had just shed its skin and the eyes were still covered 

 with a portion of it. At Kassala they accepted a guard 

 of six soldiers, and after arriving at the Hamran village, 

 and being fleeced by Sheik Aghill, they departed for 

 the Salaam river, Arkwright preferring to visit a new 

 district than to return to his haunts of the previous 

 winter on the Settite. Having decided to strike 



