On the following morning, we left shortly after sunrise; the
natives very civilly assisted to load our camels, and among the
most active was my fighting friend of yesterday, who, with his
nose and mouth all swollen into one, had been rapidly converted
from a well-featured Tokroori into a real thick-lipped,
flat-nosed African nigger, with prognathous jaw, that would have
delighted the Ethnological Society.
"April 29.--It rained hard during the night. Our course was due
west, along the banks of a hor, from which the natives procure
water by sinking wells about twelve feet deep in the sandy bed,
which is dry in the hot season. Throughout this country the water
is bad. At 11 A.M. we reached Roumele; this is the last village
between Gallabat and the river Rahad. The natives say that there
is no water on the road, and their accounts of the distance are
so vague and contradictory that I cannot rely upon the
information.
"I could procure only one water-skin, and none of my old stock
were serviceable; I therefore arranged to water all the animals,
and push on throughout the night, by which plan I hoped to arrive
by a forced march at the Rahad on the following morning, without
exhausting both men and beasts by a long journey through an
unknown distance in the heat of the sun.
