36 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



we saw many interesting divergences. In the 

 foreground constantly recurred the Bedouin 

 brush shelters, each with its picturesque figure 

 or so in flowing robes, and its grumpy camels. 

 Twice we saw travelling caravans, exactly like 

 the Bible pictures. At one place a single bur- 

 noused Arab, leaning on his elbows, reclined full 

 length on the sky-line of a clean-cut sandhill. 

 Glittering in the mirage, half-guessed, half-seen, 

 we made out distant little white towns with 

 slender palm trees. At places the water from 

 the canal had overflowed wide tracts of country. 

 Here, along the shore, we saw thousands of the 

 water-fowl already familiar to us, as well as 

 such strangers as gaudy kingfishers, ibises, and 

 rosy flamingoes. 



The canal itself seemed to be in a continual 

 state of repair. Dredgers were everywhere ; some 

 of the ordinary shovel type, others working by 

 suction, and discharging far inland by means of 

 weird huge pipes that apparently meandered at 

 will over the face of nature. The control sta- 

 tions were beautifully French and neat, painted 

 yellow, each with its gorgeous bougainvilleas in 

 flower, its square-rigged signal masts, its brightly 

 painted extra buoys standing in a row, its wharf 

 and its impassive Arab fishermen thereon. We 



