EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 89 



A more complete change can hardly be imagined 

 than that from a luxurious cabin to nightly open-air 

 bivouacs on the cold sand. Our first day was the 

 customary march of little more than an hour, to be 

 assured that nothing needful had been omitted. The 

 next day the real journey began. The track we 

 followed was presumably the same that has been 

 followed since the most ancient days ; it bore marks 

 of its continued use during recent times in the whitened 

 bones with which it was strewed. Sometimes we 

 came across a camel whose skin had not yet dis- 

 appeared, but formed a hollow shell including marrow- 

 less and porous bones. These desiccated remains 

 were of most unexpected lightness. My arm is far 

 from strong, but I easily lifted with one hand and 

 held aloft the quarter of a camel in this dried-up 

 state. 



The ribbed rocks looked like the bones of the 

 earth from which all the flesh, in the shape of soil 

 and vegetation, had been blown away as sand and 

 dust. Travellers by the railway that now runs along 

 that very track can ill appreciate the effect the desert 

 had on such as myself at that time. Ali proved an 

 excellent and devoted servant. I long bore in mind 

 his kindness to me on one bitterly cold night, for 

 the nights were sometimes extremely chill, in quietly 

 taking off his own jacket and wrapping it round my 

 shivering body. 



Many strangers joined our slowly moving caravan. 

 One group was such as is frequently seen on similar 

 occasions ; it consisted of a husband on foot, with 

 his wife and child mounted on a donkey, like the 

 often-painted subject of the Flight of the Holy 



