Itu Gaffari to Kirippy two hours must be allowed, and there what remains of the day and the whole of the second night can be spent in fair comfort, for Kirippy is a pleasant camp, with good huts and bandas and most beautiful shade trees. The country about it is cultivated to some extent, and patches of maize and dura dot the landscape.

Once more on the trail, a two hours' march to Andoga, a place of two huts only, and then on again, a good three hours to Uma, orossing the Uma river on the way, beyond which the road is merely a track winding through an undergrowth reminiscent of a Surrey copse. But no Surrey oopse ever grew the roughbarked lulu-trees from which the ripe, yellow, plum-like fruit is falling-a fruit which has a pleasant acidity, and from which quite an agreeable drink can be made. The camp itself lies off the track to the right, and is apt to be missed. There is a good view from it to the north, over miles of low forest, with here and there hills rising from the plain as the back of an elephant rises from the jungle.

It is four hours' tramp from Uma to Musa, much of it through open and cultivated country. Musa oamp is on a ridge, and possesses two good trees. To the north the country is wild and broken, but elsewhere there are a few villages, and as a result there is little game. Next morning, two and a half hours' good going brings one to Gadein Morbi,

which is on a slope, and overlooks a fine wooded country through which roam herds of hartebeeste. It is still hartebeeste country all the way nearly to Vitia Ledju, which takes three and a half hours to reach, and is a pleasant place, for it is set upon a ridge with a fine rocky ledge near it and forest-clad Gebels hard by. These shelter lots of game, from the rhinoceros to the oribi, but the presence of many natives prevents the animals showing much of themselves. Part of the way to this camp was very cheerful, for there are clear streams in the open, and many doves, and it is good to be out of stunted forest, which is an abomination.

Another four hours through country with a better class of wood and we reach Shoka, orossing en route one deep but narrow river. Shoka proved an untidy and uncomfortable camp, and we were glad to be afoot before dawn on the last trek for the Nile and for Rejaf.

These early starts have a fascination of their own, after the inevitable groaning at having to roll out of bed in the darkness and dress by the feeble light of a candle in a shamadan is over. If your shawish is any good he has the porters well drilled, and so all goes smoothly, and after a cup of steaming tea and a biscuit you take the road with perchance a a orescent moon still in the sky and stars twinkling in company. There is a great silence at this early

hour, and all is dim and mystical. Then certain birds with harsh notes ory out that day is at hand, a faint breeze stirs the branches and lines of sickly light stretch over the hill-tops in the east. Almost imperceptibly the day brightens, and the smell of the night, that curious wild odour, is gone. Then comes a gleam in the sky, and almost at once the sun mounts upwards as though he had stayed too long abed and had to hurry to his work. The moon and the stars vanish, birds call and twitter, an early beetle blunders across the path, a flight of doves swings past seeking water-and another day in Africa, another hot, fierce, fatiguing day, has begun its march from sunrise to sunset.

But it is only some three hours to the Nile, and long ere we reach the river the quaint conical hill of Rejaf has come into sight away beyond the immediate forest slopes. Ere long we break into the open and descend a

wide road to a plain, through which the Bahr-el-Jebel, coming from Fort Berkeley and the rapids, courses as a huge deep waterway, making fast to the north, for Gondokoro and Mongalla, and Bor and Kenissa, and those sudd regions which must make it think that it has somehow got back to Lake Choga.

The Kit river is almost dry, its bed a broad bed of sand, with water trickling through it, and soon we are pushing over the plain, passing through clumps of dura 10 feet high, and past miserable dwellings smothered in vegetation. On and on at quickened pace, as is always the way when a journey is ending, till at last we reach the landing-place for the ferry, and, amidst a jumble of grass shelters, stand and look across the mighty river from whose source we have come, and which, still tireless and magnificent in its strength, is speeding onwards in a stately fashion to make the Sudan an habitation and to fulfil its destiny in Egypt.

TWENTY years or mere ago I was in charge of a big reserve centre situated in a cantonment in the north of India whilst the reservists were up for training. Primarily it was the centre for three Sikh and three Dogra regiments, but, in addition to these, nearly twelve hundred men of other regiments, reoruited from districts more or less adjacent to the cantonment, were attached to the eentre for administrative and training purposes. These last were chiefly Punjabi Mahomedans, with a large admixture of Euzufzai Pathans. Under the system then in force the training staff for this large body of men had to be found by the regiment stationed at the centre, which at the time happened to be a class regiment of Sikhs; but since, during the previous year's training, there had been a good deal of serious trouble between the Sikh training staff and the Pathan reservists, the G.O.C. had detailed another regiment in the brigade to furnish a party of Pathan N.O.'s and N.C.O.'s, who were attached for duty during the month the reserves were up for training.

In command of the party was an old Euzufzai Pathan -Subadar Sher Ali Khan,—a splendid specimen of the best type of native officer. The old man had put in close on forty years of good work since he

had first joined his regiment as a young reoruit of between seventeen and eighteen years. of age, and had seen active service against almost every tribe

on the North-West Frontier of India. Of a Jewish type of face, with a prominent hooked nose, 8 somewhat scanty beard dyed red, and with piercing slateblue eyes, in body he was tall and very spare. So spare indeed, he looked little more than skin and bone, but he was incredibly tough and wiry, and could walk all day without turning a hair, whilst on a hillside it took a good man to keep near him. He came of good stock and was a warm man in his own country, more than one village owning his sway.

Thoroughly independent and self-reliant, he was quite willing to take responsibility, as he proved on one occasion when he had a difference of opinion with a young political officer. The Subadar was in command of a small fort at the mouth of a valley which led up into independent tribal country. One day a jirgah, bristling with jezails, pistols, knives, &o., arrived at the fort gate to interview the political officer. Now it was a standing military order on the frontier that, with the exception of the garrison, no man bearing arms was permitted to enter any post, and that all lethal weapons must be deposited with the quarter

guard, where the owners were at liberty to resume them on departure. In accordance with these orders the sentry on duty at the fort gate stopped the jirgah. They protested, and the political officer (that he was very young and puffed up with a sense of his own importance is the only exouse which oan be offered for what occurred), hearing the altercation, sent out to know what was the matter. On hearing that the jirgah had been prevented from entering, he dashed out and ordered the sentry to admit them at once. The sentry quoted his orders, and referred the officer to the Havildar in command of the quarter-guard. He, like a wise man, declined to discuss the matter, and sent for Subadar Sher Ali Khan. The young officer, who had by this time unluckily lost his temper completely, turned on the Subadar and again imperiously ordered the immediate admission of the jirgah. The old man regretted that, as he was responsible for the safety of the fort, he was unable to comply unless the jirgah first deposited their arms in accordance with standing orders, from which decision nothing would move him. The jirgah was not admitted, and the political officer, boiling with rage, wrote to the commissioner of the district to report the Subadar for disobedience of orders, Sher Ali Khan, however, was no fool,-he alse wrote in his version, and reported the case for the information of his commanding officer; the net result being that

the young political was sent on special urgent duty to Lahore, and was subsequently transferred to another sphere of usefulness.

One thing the old man had no use for was a horse-at all events for riding purposes,thoroughly agreeing with David Harum's opinion that, if he had to make his choice between riding and being kicked, he would say, "Kick away; it amounts to about the same thing as fur as comfort goes, and it's a dum'd sight safer." It so happened that when his regiment was at Parachinar, in the Kurram valley, some of the officers went out one day to shoot chikhor, and the Subadar, who was a bit of a sportsman, wished to accompany them. The valley in which the party proposed to shoot was about five miles away from the frontier post, and one of the officers offered Sher Ali Khan the loan of a pony. The offer was firmly declined, the old man remarking gravely that he had served the Sirkar for over thirty years, and had earned his pension, so he wasn't going to risk the loss of it by getting outside a horse. He tramped out to the valley, and did his full share of walking and scrambling

the rocky

hills that chikhor love, being most useful in keeping the beaters-mostly wild Pathan villagers-well in hand, and came back in the evening as fresh as paint, though most of the rest of the party had had quite enough.

He certainly had his some