56 
SALI ACHMET KILLED. 
[chap. I. 
shot, about twenty times, in quick succession. I saw 
with the telescope a crowd of men about three hundred 
yards distant, standing on a white ant-hill raised above 
the green sea of high reeds, from which elevated point 
they were keeping up a dropping fire at some object 
indistinguishable in the high grass. The death-howl 
was soon raised, and the men rushing down from their 
secure position, shortly appeared, carrying with them 
my best choush 3 Sali Achmet, dead. He had come 
suddenly upon the buffalo, who, although disabled, 
had caught him in the deep mud and killed him. 
His gallant comrades bolted, although he called to 
them for assistance, and they had kept up a distant 
fire from the lofty ant-hill, instead of rushing to his 
rescue. The buffalo lay dead; and a grave was im¬ 
mediately dug for the unfortunate Sali. My journey 
begins badly with the death of my good man Johann 
and my best choush—added to the constant mishaps 
of the “Clumsy.” Fortunately I did not start from 
Khartoum on a Friday, or the unlucky day would 
have borne the onus of all the misfortunes. 
The graves of the Arabs are an improvement upon 
those of Europeans. What poor person who cannot 
afford a vault, has not felt a pang as the clod fell 
upon the coffin of his relative ? The Arabs avoid this. 
Although there is no coffin, the rude earth does not 
