THE MIGRATION OF A CRANE. 
lo; 
Whoever catches or kills this bird is requested to communicate 
with me, and inform me where it occurred. — (Signed) F. R. 
Falz-Fein. September, 1892.’ 
“ I now raised my head, which hitherto I had kept closely 
bent down ; and the Khalifa asked, ‘ Well, what do the papers 
contain ? ’ ‘ Sire,’ I replied, ‘ this case must have been fastened 
to the neck of a bird which has been killed. Its owner, who 
lives in Europe, has requested that anyone who finds the bird 
should let him know where it was caught or killed.’ ‘ You have 
spoken the truth,’ said the Khalifa, in a somewhat more amiable 
tone ; ‘ the bird was killed by a Shaigi near Dongola, and the 
cartridge case was found attached to its neck. He took it to the 
Emir Yunes, whose secretary was unable to decipher the writing 
of the Christian, and he therefore forwarded it to me. Tell me, 
now, what is written on the paper ? ’ I translated the message, 
word for word, and, at the Khalifa’s command, also tried to de- 
scribe the geographical position of the country from which the 
bird had come, and the distance it had travelled before it was 
killed. ‘ This is one of the many devilries of those unbelievers,’ 
he said at last, ‘ who waste their time in such useless nonsense. 
A Mohammedan would never have attempted to do such a 
thing.’ ” 
“ He then ordered me to hand over the case to his secretary, 
and signed to me to withdraw ; but I managed to take one more 
hurried glance at the paper — Ascania Nova, Tauride, South 
Russia, I repeated over and over again to imprint it on my 
memory. The mulazemin at the door anxiously awaited my 
return ; and when I came out from the presence of my tyrannical 
master with a placid countenance, they seemed greatly pleased. 
On my w'ay to my house I continued to repeat to myself the 
name of the writer and his residence, and determined that, should 
Providence ever grant me my freedom, I should not fail to let 
him know what had happened to his bird.” 
I cannot here give an account of Slatin Pasha’s escape from 
his long captivity ; of his rapid camel ride across the desert, of his 
hiding in the Giuf Hills, of his hopes and fears, his excitements 
and escapes. For this his own narrative must be consulted. 
Suffice it to say, that in the spring of 1895 he made his escape, 
and was received in Cairo with enthusiasm. On p. 618 he 
says : — 
“ A few days after my arrival, when seated on the balcony of 
the [Austrian Diplomatic] Agency, and looking down on the 
garden all fresh with the verdure of spring, I espied a tame 
heron stalking across the flower-beds. Instantly I thought of 
Falz-Fein of Ascania Nova, in Tauride, South Russia, and I 
hurried to my room, and then and there wrote to him a full 
account of the crane which he had released in 1892, and which 
had been killed in Das Shaigia. It was the greatest pleasure to 
feel myself in a position to give the former owner of the bird an 
account of what had happened ; and soon afterwards I received 
