Expedition to the Wliite Nile. 239 



perhaps have been a greater success ; but I am convinced 

 that it would have been perfectly practicable^ and of course 

 much more comfortable and less fatiguing, to have ridden 

 bicycles on the desert track as far as we went. However, 

 by means of camels and donkeys travelling at about 18 miles 

 a day, we reached a point a few miles south of El Kawa, or 

 about 150 miles direct fiom Khartum, in nine days. We 

 had intended to reach Abba Island a little further south, but 

 as I was unfortunately attacked with dysentery on the tenth 

 day from Khartum, we halted and made our first collecting- 

 camp. 



During my illness, Saunders and Camburn worked zealously 

 at collecting both birds and small mammals at this camp and 

 a second north of El Kawa. At our third, a little north 

 of Ed Duem, I was able to join again in active work. 

 From this point to Khartum we made five collecting-camps. 

 From four to six days spent at each place was all that was 

 needed to work out the surrounding country. Although 

 certain species, as for instance Pigeons and Sand-Grouse, were 

 exceedingly numerous, birds on the whole were so scarce that 

 it was only by the hardest work that two of us who were 

 collecting could keep the third employed in skinning. Of 

 mammals there were scarcely any. 



As we found it, in the months of April and May, the east 

 bank of the White Nile from Khartum to 150 miles south 

 of it is exceedingly barren. By the river there is either a 

 strip of short grass or a flat of caked mud deeply cracked in 

 every direction. The country beyond is sometimes abruptly 

 cut off from the river by a high bank of sand, but more often 

 the land gradually rises and supports a narrow belt of trees 

 at no great distance. The trees are small, and almost 

 all are of the acacia family. Beyond this belt, which 

 in no place is more than a mile wide, stretches a scrub of 

 mimosa and other bushes, gradually thinning out until the 

 bare desert is reached. Enormous stretches of it appear to 

 be capable of cultivation, and part of it was covered with 

 stubble of maize and durrha — the first crop that had been 

 grown fur many years, we were told. The natives had 



