22 SAVAGE SUDAN 



" Sterile mountains, rough and steep, 

 That bound abrupt the valley deep, 

 Heaving to the clear blue sky 

 Their ribs of granite, bare and dry ; 

 And ridges by the torrents worn, 

 Thinly streaked with scraggy thorn, 

 Which fringes Nature's savage dress 

 Yet scarce relieves her nakedness." 



THOMAS PRINGLE, Ephemerides. 



The force and fury of these torrents are attested all 

 along by the succession of retaining- walls and breakwaters 

 constructed to safeguard the line ; while in the beds of 

 the khors all stone-dry at this season wild lines of 

 boulders, strung out in chaotic processions, bespeak the 

 power of summer floods. 



Dawn reveals the fact that during the night our train 

 has cleared the hill-country and entered the desert 

 typical desert that stretches away for a thousand miles 

 westward. Having covered two hundred of those miles, 

 we reach the Atbara, once both classic and romantic. 

 To-day all romance is dead, for "Atbara" is a mere 

 humdrum railway-junction. 



Early that morning our train had stopped at some 

 nameless station to replenish its water-supply such 

 water, be it observed, having been brought 100 miles, 

 since none exists nearer. At a little puddle caused by 

 leakage of the precious fluid from its tank, assembled a 

 throng of thirsty birds all of strangely blanched hues 

 assimilated to their desert environment. Thereat drank 

 crested larks of ghostly pallor ; and there were desert- 

 wheatears, doves, and finch-larks, all likewise arrayed 

 in those washed-out achromatic drabs and greys that are 

 beloved of the Quaker sect ; even the local sparrow had 

 assumed a sand-coloured tone. One of the throng, never- 

 theless, disdained the fancy-dress of the desert. That one 

 exception was a cosmopolitan no mere "Ethiopian" he, 

 but a world-wide wanderer over both hemispheres, to wit, 

 the white wagtail (Motacilla alba}. One recognises him 



