Wady Aroukeen is in every respect a desirable place for the resting-place of a caravan.  It is full of trees and hasheesh, and lined with lofty precipitous rocks, which afford shelter in winter and in summer, and, as say the Scriptures, give “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”  The well dug by the Tanelkums supplies very palatable water.  It lies about an hour and a-half from our encampment.

I sent off my Soudanese servant this morning to the Tanelkums, to ask them to wait for us; or at least leave the things behind which I require for our use.

Yesterday evening the new moon (second evening) was seen by our people, telling them that the Ramadhan was finished.  They saluted the pale crescent horn with some discharges of their guns.

To-day is a great feast, but they have not the means of keeping it.

I cannot say that at this portion of my journey my mind is visited by much cheerfulness.  However agreeable may be the valley of Aroukeen, with its grass patches, its clumps of trees, and the eternal shadow of its rocks, I find my strength begin, to a certain extent, to fail me.  For several days I have had some threatening symptoms of ill-health; not very serious, perhaps, to a person surrounded with any of the comforts of civilisation, but much so to one in my position.  Besides, despite my endeavours to disbelieve the dangers with which we are said to be menaced from lawless freebooters, it is difficult to disregard them so far as to remain perfectly impassive.

My Kailouee friends do not seem to share our apprehensions.  Sometimes this circumstance cheers me; at others it suggests the idea that they may be in league with their brethren.  Let us hope not.  At any rate I am still displeased with them on account of their shabby conduct, and disposed, perhaps, to look at them more unfavourably than they deserve.

A man came over the hills to our right in the course of the day.  He belonged to the Soudan caravan, the great body of which was passing at no great distance by another road.  Our presence does not seem to be agreeable to such of these people as derive no profit from it.  This individual, in his own name and that of his companions, insists that we Christians must not be allowed to enter the City of Marabouts, the Holy City of Aheer.  Many Musulman countries of the interior have their holy cities.  Perhaps this worthy man made these observations because he had nothing else to say.  At any rate, having expressed his opinion, he went off.  I regretted his churlish warning; but his presence, to a certain extent, cheered me.  It was pleasant to know that a large body of my fellow-creatures were near at hand in this inhospitable desert, even though they entertained feelings of suspicion against us, and were proceeding on a path which might never again bring us together.  Caravans often pass thus in these regions, like ships at sea, which hail each other if within hearing, but, not lying-to, are satisfied by this slight testimony of mutual sympathy.