on on the part of the United States naval forces. The Commodore had thereupon returned to the Yorktown, and his three ships had, as a precautionary measure, cleared for action. An hour later a communication had reached the Commodore from the Commander-in-Chief to the effect that he agreed to the terms, although under protest, and that he was withdrawing his troops from the vicinity of Fort Letemalkum. murred; but the Commodore such uncalled for interference having given that officer half an hour to change his mind, the latter had unwillingly consented. The Commodore had inquired with regard to the condition of the garrison of Fort Letemalkum. It so happened that two days before a boy scout had managed to get out of the fort with news which had reached the Governor's ears, in spite of his being under arrest. The garrison were on half rations, and would have to be placed on quarter rations in two or three days, they had only 30 rounds left per rifle, sickness had broken out, and their situation was growing desperate. Thereupon the Commodore had requested the favour of a meeting with the Commander-in-Chief of the invading forces, at which the Governor was to be present. At this interview Commodore Nouse had intimated that this business had gone on quite long enough, and must now come to an end. He gave the Commander-in-Chief until 6 P.M. to raise the siege of Fort Letemalkum, and until 6 P.M. on the following day to withdraw his forces from Gobango; unless his demand was complied with he would would sink the Impudenza Damnosa, and would seize the transports, in which case the Neveluezan troops would be unable to escape to their own territory before the expedition which had just sailed from England arrived at Darkiestown. The Commander - inChief had refused these terms, expressing his astonishment at men, women, Thereupon a small force had landed from the three U.S. warships, accompanied by Commodore Nouse. Surrounded by the entire white population of Darkiestown, the force had marched on Fort Letemalkum, the garrison of which had promptly opened fire, happily without doing any damage. An officer had then gone forward with a white flag to explain that the force came as friends. There had been a scene of delirious enthusiasm as the people and children-poured over the ramparts into the fort, and as the American sailors forced their way through the cheering multitude to form up by the battered flagstaff and to salute the rag of riddled bunting which fluttered from its peak. In the meantime the Neveluezan troops had been marched to their transports. They had embarked during the night, and early on the following morning the transports had weighed and taken their departure, accompanied by the Impudenza Damnosa, the H.M. Government had not made up their minds what was to happen next, when the Foreign Office was startled by receiving a cablegram from the Chargé d'Affaires in Nevelueza, from whom nothing had been heard since he had received the peremptory communication to be handed over to the Neveluezan Foreign Minister four weeks before. It appeared that the President Furioso had put him in prison, where he had remained until the expedition returned from Gobango. When the news of the return of the expedition had reached the capital there had been new President was a blatant Anglophil, who had commissioned him (the Chargé d'Affaires) to express the profound regret of the Neveluezan Government and of the Neveluezan nation at ex-President Furioso's unwarrantable action in despatching a force to the island of Gobango. The Chargé d'Affaires concluded by proposing that he should present himself in London to make a personal report to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. After four weeks spent in a dungeon in a tropical climate, he believed that a sea voyage would be beneficial to his health. It is understood that the Committee of Imperial Defence was assembled to consider whether any military action could be undertaken against Nevelueza, and if so, whether the three battalions and the three cruisers now on their way to Gobango would suffice for the purpose. It is not known what conclusion the Committee arrived at, but, thanks to the good offices of the Government at Washington, an accommodation was arranged with the Neveluezan Republic which, according to statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, satisfied the honour of either party, and was calculated to restore the most amicable relations between two nations united to each other by the ties of mutual respect and of common interests. CHAS. E. CALLWELL. ABU SERI'. IN the first place, it was nearly as difficult to find out where Abu Seri's tomb was as it had been to discover anything about the revered gentleman's history or antecedents. The maddening Bedouin habit of reckoning the length of journeys by time and not by distance, and their incurable vagueness, frustrated all efforts to inform ourselves upon the ordinary points desirable to be known when setting forth for a place. Our friends assured us with equal certainty that -(1) we could drive to the Sheikh's tomb from Helouan with the greatest ease in a few hours; (2) it would take us two nights to get there; (3) the journey would be as long or as short as our Excellencies liked to make it. We turned to maps but fared little better, for it happens that that part of the desert has as yet no ordnance survey map, and we searched Cairo in vain for anything that would show the route and destination of the pilgrims. 66 In the end a kind friend came to the rescue with a German map, and we located the Sheikh's tomb at about forty miles to the east of Helouan. 'Why, O Suliman," said A to the Bedouin who had been the most sanguine about the short drive, "did you tell us that the distance to the Sheykh from Helouan was but small, seeing that the map shows it to be so great?" "Maps, Excellency! What are maps? The people who draw them ride none but the slowest of camels, and therefore they say the distance is great. Maps are of no use." This little speech threw considerable light on the Bedouin idea of geography, and caused us to abstain from further futile argument. And here I must introduce the reader to Suliman, the leading spirit of the expedition, whose picturesqueness and energy were a constant source of enjoyment to us during the trip. over A Bedouin of the Maazeh tribe, he was the brother of our night watchman, whose weak brain and timid heart he exercised a tyrannous sway. A, who was continually poking about and hobnobbing with all the riff-raff of the country-side, had made acquaintance with him over & donkey for which Suliman was trying to find a purchaser. When A by a miracle escaped out of the hand of the fowler and refused to buy the donkey, Suliman turned his attention to the matter of the pilgrimage, and appointed himself general manager in all that concerned camels, water, and the rest of the "work of the desert." Also, since he was the only person available who knew the way and all about it, he soon became adviser-inchief on all points connected with the expedition. Clever and energetic above his fel lows, he ruled like a king camp between the Sheykh and among them, enforcing his Helouan. Besides the Dahea, commands at intervals with the object of our quest, we an ever-ready kourbash, which were told that we should see never failed to ensure instant all sorts of games and entercompliance with his wishes. tainments in the day time there, including horse - dances, races of various kinds, and the "Maskhara" itself, in which Bedouins dress up and act some sort of comedy, reputed to be highly entertaining. The German map did not help us much after all, owing to the fact that though plentifully sprinkled with German names (for which, no doubt, the author had his reasons), it gave none of the local appellations. It was useless to ask Suliman anything about the 66 Moritz-Thal" or "BorchardtsBerg"; one might just as well have talked about Unter den Linden or the Erz-Gebirge, and expected him to know where they were. Whereas the famous Dar-el-Maskhara, a most important place, which we were particularly anxious to find, was marked only by the dubious title of "Beduinen Lager," and it was not until we arrived there and compared the surrounding hills with those shown on the map that we knew it must be meant for the same place. As A had insisted on travelling by moonlight, and in a sand-cart, and since we had only one night available for the journey, we decided not to risk the fatigue of a forced march of forty miles over unknown obstacles, but sent the tents and water to Dar-elMaskhara, from whence, if we liked, we could go on to the Sheykh. This name means "The House of the Masquerade," and the place is the scene of a sort of Bedouin Braemar Gathering at the time of the Pilgrimage, as it is the rest One morning, as the time drew near for our departure, we were requested to come and see the camels for the ladies of the party and the water, &c., parading near the house, for our benefit, before starting on their tedious tramp to Helouan. At the head of the procession was a large and handsome camel, wearing a beautiful red bonnet with large side-flaps, decorated with shells, bells, beads, fragments of looking-glass, and ostrich feathers, tastefully arranged, and very becoming. On his back was a sort of tent, decorated with arabesques and texts in bright and lively hues, covering the litter which contained the wives of Suliman and Nasrallah (the watchman), with a large assortment of children. There was also a small crowd of relatives and hangers-on, some on donkeys, some on foot, some sticking on the backs of the baggage-camels like flies, amid a curious collection of the odds and ends carried by Bedouins on a journey. Suliman now appeared in all the splendour of his pilgrim get-up. Contrary to our ideas of going on a desert-trip in clothes "that will not spoil," these people, whose normal costume is a ragged cotton galabeah with a thin black cloak thrown over it, get themselves up for the occasion in their finest raiment, and when they have no smart clothes of their own, borrow some from those who have. Suliman's Ascot frock consisted of a puce cloth jibbah, or outer garment, beautifully made, and fitting perfectly over an elegant kaftan of striped yellow and white cotton, showing only at the Vshaped opening in the front of the outer garment and at the sleeves. The latter were very long, so as to come out through the jibbah-sleeves and fall over the hand like an exaggerated unstarched shirt-cuff. So far all was very chaste and reticent in colour-purposely, no doubt, to give the greater effect to the gorgeous keynote of the composition. This was supplied by a rainbow-hued koufiya, or silken head - shawl, woven in rich stripes of brilliant colours, cunningly arranged into a perfect harmony. Gold thread was used among the colours, and from the saucy embroidered fillet that confined the folds of the koufiya hung cords and blobs and tassels of pure and delicate gold, interwoven with silken thread of softest shades. Beneath the strip of white turban that kept the whole arrangement bound to his head, the dark and hawk-like features of our friend shone forth with an expression of happy devilry such as I have seldom seen approached on any stage. As he stood in an ecstasy of self-admiration, fingering the blade of the useful - looking scimitar that hung, in another cluster of gold and silken tassels, from a narrow shoulderbelt of the same precious materials, he looked the very picture of a successful robberchief, enjoying all the advantages without enduring any of the drawbacks attaching to the arduous profession of a highwayman. Some days previous to the start of the baggage-camels, A had gone (hand-in-hand with Suliman) to Helouan, to spy out the nakedness of the land and to see about the water and the sand-cart. Taking a cab at the station, they had characteristically entered into conversation with the driver, a Syrian, who proved to be part-owner of the only two sand-carts in the place. Having decided to take one of these vehicles, and leaving minute instructions as to putting it in good repair and getting a reliable mule to draw it, A departed, to the rushing sound of a torrent of promises and assurances that everything would be more than perfect at the appointed time,-promises that betokened nothing more than a vague desire to please at the moment, and to say the polite thing. Knowing full well that we should find every sort of deficiency in spite of these hopeful words, we set out for Helouan in time for a dress rehearsal the night before we meant to start, and ordered the mule |