DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 



529 



villages of Shilluks and other tribes, mostly cattle-owners; 

 some showing slight traces of improvement, others utter 

 savages, tall, naked men, bearing bows and arrows. 



Our Egyptian and Nubian crew recalled to my mind the 

 crew of the daha- 

 biah on which as 

 a boy I had gone 

 up the Egyptian 

 Nile thirty-seven 

 years before; es- 

 pecially when some 

 piece of work was 

 being done by the 

 crew as they chant- 

 ed in grunting 

 chorus " Ya allah, 

 ul allah." As we 

 went down the 

 Nile we kept see- 

 ing more and more 

 of the birds which 

 I remembered, one 

 species after an- 

 other appearing; 

 familiar cow -her- 

 ons, crocodile plo- 

 ver, noisy spur- 

 wing plover, black- 

 and-white king- 

 fishers, hoop o os, 



green bee-eaters, black-and-white chats, desert larks, and 

 trumpeter bullfinches. 



At night we sat on deck and watched the stars and the 

 dark, lonely river. The swimming crocodiles and plung- 

 ing hippos made whirls and wakes of feeble light that 

 glimmered for a moment against the black water. The 

 unseen birds of the marsh and the night called to one 



Slatin Pasha, from the roof of the Khalifa's palace, 



shows how he made his escape from Oindurman 



From a plwlograph by Kcrmit Roosci-cll 



-3-4 



