EGYPTIAN SUDAN 



217 



canes and rushes, and cloaked with sudd, which may 

 so cover the marshes as to seem like a regular growth, 

 which completely hides the waters and assumes the 

 appearance of our meadows. A fishing population of 

 most peculiar habits lives amid those swamps. On the 

 savana and the other poor steppes, as well as in portions 

 of the scrub area, a certain number of cattle can be 

 supported, for the nature of the country compels pastoral 

 activities. Agriculture is confined to the vicinity of the 



FIG. 84. The Desert near Rogel. 



rivers and to the higher lands which receive a somewhat 

 more generous rainfall. The woodlands are of no special 

 economic value, but they supply an abundance of fuel 

 for the steamboats which ply on the Nile ; hence they 

 are rapidly becoming exhausted. 



Abyssinia is an enormous block of lofty tableland, 

 topped by still loftier ranges and peaks, and broken 

 by deep and narrow gorges. While it attracts the 

 summer monsoon rains from across the equator, it is 

 yet so severely drained and wind-swept that the effect 



