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18 both parties returned. El Amin arrived first, and reported that they had failed to find any trace of the road. Hassan came shortly afterwards, and, having heard before reaching Ismail of the failure of the others, came up to us jubilant and triumphant, as a road had been picked up where he said it would. They had not only picked up the road, but had come to the resting-place of a caravan of fifteen to twenty camels, which could only be a few hours ahead of us, as the embers of the caravan's fire places were still hot. I judged it best to be silent on the subject of the route now, though Amin, jibed and scoffed at by the victorious Hassan, was loud in his declarations that we were on the wrong route, and that Hassan had lost his way; this nearly led to trouble again between him and the two men who had accompanied Hassan, as they considered their word doubted.

We travelled east during the night, and crossed the road which Hassan had, during the day, picked up. But there was a feeling of uncertainty and unrest in the caravan. One after another appealed to me, and I could but say that I was still convinced my "paper" was right and Hassan wrong. El Amin, pricked to the quick, spread through the caravan his opinion that Hassan had not lost his way, but was deliberately leading us in the wrong direction. When we halted on the 12th, Ismail, noticing the gossiping going on, and the manner of his men, decided upon sending out scouts to the east to see if they could pick up anything at all in the way of landmarks. El Amin joined the scouts, who were absent the whole day. They