consequence of this system, was most remarkable. On one occasion we were on the road for seven months, with four hundred soldiers and a caravan comprising eighteen hundred souls, and during the whole of this time did not lose one man from sickness or desertion. The expedition included seven days' marching through a district recently raided by Arab parties, in which it was impossible to find an atom of food of any kind, and during which time we saw no living thing, the natives having all been taken prisoners or destroyed. They had previously exterminated the game; and the pigeons and guinea-fowl, which prefer the neighbourhood of man, had taken themselves off into other districts.

Knowing what was in store for us, the whole caravan had loaded itself beforehand with food, the women in many cases carrying more than an