Note 46 — Chapter XVII

My servant having broken my thermometer at Gibel el Birkel, I have, unfortunately, been unable to ascertain the heat here: I can only remark, that the temperature for these last three months has increased perceptibly every week. Some travellers have stated that the extreme heat in Nubia is in April. Such an observation, if not entirely an error, can only be applicable to that part where heavy tropical rains fall. On the 11th of March (see p. 97.) we had 110° in the shade; but although that was the commencement of the extreme heat, and for that reason more difficult to support, I did not experience so great an inconvenience from it as at present. The natives did not then complain as they do now, nor did my servants from Cairo and Thebes suffer so much. They were all ill at El Ourde, and I thought my Greek servant Ibrahim would have died.