THE DESERTS 21 



trains de luxe that mock distance and traverse the wilder- 

 ness in hours where our pioneers such as Baker spent 

 weeks of laborious trekking. 



From the moment of quitting Red Sea shores, the 

 Sudan leaves one in no manner of doubt that we are 

 back in Africa Africa et praterea nihil attractive as 

 ever in its appalling (yet entrancing) sterility. Scarce 

 have the coral-built quays and warehouses of Port Sudan, 

 with the red funnels of our good ship Gaika, sunk 

 behind the dunes, than we are plunged in medias res 

 into a desolation of sand, stunted scrub, and scraggy 

 thorn. 



Quickly traversing the narrow maritime plain and 

 entering the hills, the railway climbs out for 100 miles 

 to its culminating point at "Summit," 3014 feet above 

 sea -level, the gradient averaging i in 100, and never a 

 "level" save only at the stations. 



No prospect can well be more bleak and barren than 

 that of these great black naked hills that overlook the 

 Red Sea a chaos of crags, shale-slopes, and disintegrated 

 lava, upon which it would appear incredible that even an 

 ibex could find pasturage. Their barrenness, however, 

 is more apparent than real ; for these hills are dew- 

 drenched each night by the mists that sweep in from the 

 sea, and the moisture thus distributed fosters a scant 

 and lowly plant-life, largely mossy and cryptogamic, yet 

 sufficient to maintain herds of ariel, gazelles, and ibex- 

 one of the latter we actually descried from the railway, 

 silhouetted on a sky-line 2000 yards away. The climatic 

 facts just stated we only discovered later, during a delightful 

 expedition among these hills in March and April, as 

 described in subsequent chapters. 



The higher peaks exceed 5000 feet and are largely of 

 pyramidal contour, but include precipitous faces, crags, 

 and great fang-like pinnajcles that give fantastic skylines, 

 recalling Pringle's South-African lines : 



