RIVER BEDS AS CAMPING GROUNDS. 99 



hope, all had been dry and sultry; dust and desolation 

 yesterday to-day, a magnificent stream some 500 yards in 

 width, and from fifteen to twenty feet deep, flowed through 

 the dreary desert. Bamboos and reeds, with trash of all 

 kinds, were hurried along the muddy waters. Where were 

 all the crowded inhabitants of the pools? The prison doors 

 were broken, the prisoners released, and rejoicing in the 

 mighty stream of the Atbara." * 



The causes of this extraordinary flood are not diffi- 

 cult to determine. As Sir S. Baker explains "This 

 sudden creation of a river was but the shadow of the 

 great cause The rains were pouring* in Abyssinia! 

 These were the sources of the Nile." f 



These strange and wonderful events are, however, 

 more common than people might be disposed to im- 

 agine, and in some countries it is a matter of serious 

 risk to encamp upon dry river beds. These situations 

 present considerable attractions to travellers, as a 

 place of encampment, on account of the general ab- 

 sence of insect pests and the clean expanse of dry 

 level sand that is often found in such places. We 

 cannot, however, too emphatically warn travellers to 

 beware how they indulge in this dangerous practice. 

 The German traveller Dr. Barth, who was for some 

 time in command of the British Government Exploring 

 Expedition, in North Africa, from 1849 to 1855, relates 

 the fact that their camp in the Sahara was on one of 

 these occasions nearly swept away by the occurrence 

 of one of these sudden floods, through camping in a 

 ravine during heavy rains, and though the valley was 



* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, 

 1867, pp. 51 to 53. 

 j Ibid., p. 51. 



