. Too late for Gordon and Khartoum; the testimony of an independent eye-witness of the heroic efforts for their rescue and relief. With maps and plans and several unpublished letters of the late General Gordon . associations or cherished homefestivities. There was nothing even in the weather toremind a Briton of the festival, for not a cloud was to beseen, and it was hotter than many of the hottest days inour islands summer. This heat, however, on account ofits dryness, was not in itself so hard to bear as was thecontinued and intense glare of light to which we were ex-posed. We halted for lun
. Too late for Gordon and Khartoum; the testimony of an independent eye-witness of the heroic efforts for their rescue and relief. With maps and plans and several unpublished letters of the late General Gordon . associations or cherished homefestivities. There was nothing even in the weather toremind a Briton of the festival, for not a cloud was to beseen, and it was hotter than many of the hottest days inour islands summer. This heat, however, on account ofits dryness, was not in itself so hard to bear as was thecontinued and intense glare of light to which we were ex-posed. We halted for luncheon under the grateful shadeof a patriarchal mimosa, whose branches extended manyfeet from its trunk, and which seemed to be a favouritehalting-place, for the marks of many fires were to beseen under it. There was also a plot raised a few inchesabove the level of the adjacent ground and marked roundby stones, which was evidently intended as a place ofprayer for the Mussulmans who frequented it. Beforereaching this spot a well-dressed young Soudanese,riding on a donkey, overtook us. He carried in his handthe well-bleached shoulder-blade of a camel on which DOWGtMan/ ?h. %; IKl & ?> IT To (act. To Tace, p 138 London,; Jolav Murray, *e:.Street. Ed*ftVfdter,kih CH. X. SHOULDER-BLADES AND SUNSHADES 139 was written a sentence from the Koran. This he toldus in passing he was going to place at the corner of afield he was sowing with barley, in order to insure theblessing of a good harvest. Here was an illustration ofthe traditional perpetuation of a practice twelve hundredyears old at least, for Mahomet wrote the Koran onpalm leaves and shoulder-blades of mutton ; and thepages without order or connection were cast into adomestic chest in the custody of one of his wives. Here we had now one of his followers using that of acamel. In school-houses in the Sierra Nevada theshoulder-blades of horses are used by the pupils insteadof slates. It is probable that when the Moors were
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