ute in hearing, but as there are no bells where there
are no houses, he of course could not answer such a summons, and he was
compelled to attend to the call of his own name--"Mahomet! Mahomet!"
No reply, although the individual were sitting within a few feet,
apparently absorbed in the contemplation of his own boots. "MaHOMet!"
with an additional emphasis upon the second syllable. Again no response.
"Mahomet, you rascal, why don't you answer?" This energetic address
would effect a change in his position. The mild and lamb-like dragoman
of Cairo would suddenly start from the ground, tear his own hair from
his head in handfuls, and shout, "Mahomet! Mahomet! Mahomet! always
Mahomet! D--n Mahomet! I wish he were dead, or back in Cairo, this
brute Mahomet!" The irascible dragoman would then beat his own head
unmercifully with his fists, in a paroxysm of rage.

To comfort him I could only exclaim, "Well done, Mahomet! thrash him;
pommel him well; punch his head; you know him best; he deserves it;
don't spare him!" This advice, acting upon the natural perversity of
his disposition, generally soothed him, and he ceased punching his
head. This man was entirely out of his place, if not out of his mind,
at certain moments, and having upon one occasion smashed a basin by
throwing it in the face of the cook, and upon another occasion narrowly
escaped homicide by throwing an axe at a man's head, which missed by an
inch, he became a notorious character in the little expedition.

We left Berber in the evening, and about two hours after sunset of the
following day reached the junction of the Nile and Atbara. The latter
presented a curious appearance. In no place was it less than four
hundred yards in width, and in many places much wider. The banks were
from twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and had evidently been overflowed
during floods; but now the river bed was dry sand, so glaring that the
sun's reflection was almost intolerable. The only shade was afforded by
the evergreen dome palms; nevertheless the Arabs occupied the banks at
intervals of three or four miles, wherever a pool of water in some deep
bend of the dried river's bed offered an attraction. In such places were
Arab villages or camps, of the usual mat tents formed of the dome-palm
leaves.

Many pools were of considerable size and of great depth. In flood-time a
tremendous torrent sweeps down the course of the Atbara, and the sudden
bends of the river are hollowed out by