386 The Egyptian Vulture or Neophron 
bodies of the latter lay about in hundreds, mixed with scores of 
the swollen carcases of camels and horses. Apparently both the 
great Marabou Storks (Leptoptilus crumeniferus) and the larger 
Vultures (Vudtur auricularis, Gyps riippelii and others) had given 
up the task of clearing up the battlefield as one quite beyond their 
powers and had gone to the more convenient scenes of our fight- 
ing near the Nile, where I had seen many congregated. But the 
Egyptian Vultures were evidently not so easily daunted and pairs 
of these evil-looking birds were to be seen amid the throng of 
white-coated men, which lay thick in places on the hot sandy 
hill-side, stalking from one to another as if undecided where to 
recommence operations. 
Some ten days later, during our retreat across the Bayuda 
Desert, these birds constantly accompanied us, halting when we 
halted. I have a peculiarly vivid impression of awaking at grey 
dawn and perceiving close to me a pair of white birds whose 
ghostly forms in the mysterious early morning light of the Desert 
seemed more than ever uncanny as they walked about among the 
recumbent forms of our men still asleep in their bivouacs. 
