266 A Day in the Lower Sierra 
one of the sierras which lie behind the sandy shores of Trafalgar 
Bay. 
Referring to my diary of 26 September, 1884 I find the follow- 
ing entry anent this cliff. ‘This must be worked up some day,” 
At the moment circumstances did not lend themselves to such a 
scheme. [| was on board of a 10-knot ‘‘tramp” steamer chartered 
to convey some forty of the famous Nile whalers to Alexandria, by 
the aid of which sanguine spirits still believed it might be possible 
to lend a helping hand to General Gordon, at the time so sorely 
beset in Khartoum. 
In 1884 the Soudan, with all its difficulties and perils was 
practically ¢erva tncognita, not only to us soldiers who were about 
to be launched into its wastes, but to the vast proportion of the 
civilized world to whom it was indeed but little more than a name, 
Nobody at that time had the slightest idea what lay before us, 
and as usual the only fear on the part of the soldiers was that 
there might be no fighting, a pious apprehension which subse- 
quent events in the Bayuda Desert proved to have been entirely 
groundless, 
Nearly a year later, when on the homeward voyage after our 
unsuccessful attempt to reach Khartoum, I once again saw the 
same cliff shining in the afternoon sun, and once again registered 
a vow to try to visit it some day, since my fancy peopled it with 
Vultures, and possibly Eagles whose eggs might help to enrich 
my collection. 
But although frequently in Spain during the next twelve years, 
fate seemed to be against my ever attaining my object. On several 
occasions I made efforts to cross the sierra and reach the point, 
but was from some cause or another as often baffled. At one 
time, rains made both sierra and the miles of soft clayey foothills 
below it practically impassable. At another, although successful 
in reaching the neighbourhood, I found that the hours of daylight 
