s turned and began to reclimb the hill. As we went on our
way, I inquired the reason of the men barring our path. "Oh," my man
said, "it is simply a question of snuff." "Snuff," I exclaimed, in
astonishment. "Yes; that was all they wanted--a little tobacco powder
to chew." Here was a possible adventure that seemed as if it were
going to end in smoke, and snuff was its finale.

After all the Suakim-Berber road, that was looked upon as full of
dramatic incident--for even our military friends in Berber, when they
bid us goodby, said, "It was a very sporting thing to do. Great Scott!
They only wished they had the luck to come along"--was a highway
without even a highwayman upon it, and apparently for the moment as
pleasantly safe, minus the hostelries en route, as the road from
London to York. Prom the top of Tamai Pass, 2,870 feet--though of the
same name, not to be confounded with the famous battle which took
place further south--we began to make a rapid descent, and the last
sixty miles of our journey were spent in traversing some of the most
lovely mountain scenery I think I have ever visited. Sometimes one
might be passing over a Yorkshire moorland, with its purple backing of
hills, for the sky was lowering and threatened rain. Then the scene
would as quickly change to a Swiss valley, when, on rounding the base
of a spur, one would strike a weird, volcanic-torn country whose
mountains piled up in utter confusion like the waves of the stormy
Atlantic; and further on we would come out upon a plain once more
scattered with gigantic bowlders of porphyry and trap, out of which
the monoliths of ancient Thebes might have been fashioned.

On the morning of the tenth day out from Berber, we sighted the fort
and signal tower of the Egyptian post at Tambuk, on a lofty rugged
rock, standing out in the middle of an immense khor. This was
practically the beginning of the end of our long journey, and here we
rested a few hours, once more drinking our fill of pure sparkling
water from its revetted wells.

About half an hour in a northeasterly direction, after a continual
descent from the Egyptian fort, we noticed, at intervals between the
hills in front of us, a straight band of blue which sparkled in the
sunlight. At this sight I could not refrain from giving a cheer--it
was the Red Sea that glistened with the sun--for it meant so much to
us. Across its shining bosom was our path to civilization and its
attendant comforts, which w