SKETCHES IN THE SOUDAN 45 



To the hunting sheikh mentioned above I gave my revolver on 

 leaving the country ; it was in its brown leather case, with 

 initials and regiment on the flap. On the Gordon relief expe- 

 dition, three years later, I carried a similar revolver marked in 

 the same way. 



One day, when talking to G., my late companion near 

 Abyssinia, in the mud fort at Gubat, on the other side of 

 the Bayooda desert, one of Gordon's soldiers passed with what 

 I thought looked like my revolver strapped on to his belt. Mine 

 had been left at my usual sleeping-place near the river, and 

 there I thought the Soudanee had annexed it, but that was 

 not the case. When sent for the man told me that his 

 revolver had been given to him by a sheikh on the Abyssinian 

 border, and that it had done good work under Gordon twice. I 

 at once recognised it as my old revolver, and regretted greatly 

 that it was not able to tell its own story, which, no doubt, would 

 have been highly interesting. 



