If anyone walked from port to starboard or touched the helm, the boat rolled over, and until the next roll maintained a list of ten degrees, so that I was frequently shot off the locker upon which I was trying to sleep, landing upon the top of José, my Maltese interpreter, and followed by field-glasses, filter, sword and boots. The mosquito-curtains carried away, and the mosquitoes instantly attacked in force, driving me nearly mad with loss of blood, irritation, and rage. My only comfort was a pneumatic life-belt, which had been sent to me by Lady Charles, and which I used as a pillow.
So we struggled along against the stream for the 330 miles to Assouan; and the weather was not too hot, and the nights were cool, and the banks were fringed with date-palms, and every night the sun sank from the intense blue of the zenith, laced with long-drawn clouds of rose, to the lucent green low in the west, and the sand turned to gold colour and rose, until the sun dropped suddenly out of sight and all turned grey like ashes. Then a cold little wind sprang up out of the desert and the night deepened into the velvet dark flashing with a myriad stars.
On 23rd September I came to Assouan: reorganised the postal service to bring two mails a week by steam-launch: made arrangements for the rapid working of the water transport generally, ready for the time of pressure, and sent an urgent request for flexible wire hawsers, as I was sure they would be urgently required.
Leaving Assouan on 24th September, I arrived at Wady Halfa on the 27th. Here were Sir Evelyn Wood and his Staff; among whom was my old friend Zohrab Pasha. I was immediately set to work trying camels, as I had become acquainted with these singular animals in India.
Upon the day of my arrival I went out with a young officer in the Mounted Infantry. His camel blundered over an irrigation ditch, and flung my young friend head over heels into the mud, where he sat looking sadly up into the face of his steed, which was complaining, as camels do, making a peculiar mumbling noise like an old woman kept waiting for her tea. Having been restored to his seat, this unfortunate youth immediately rode too close to the river and incontinently fell into a deep mud hole from which he had to be dug out.