VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 53 



the river-bed, and one sees them industriously cultivating 

 the mud-banks and islands as, yard by yard, each is laid 

 bare by the receding river. Here they erect temporary 

 shelters, and presently strings of camels, horses, and 

 donkeys are carrying down loads of timber, straw, and 

 reeds wherewith regular villages, or "dry-season camps," 

 are established at spots over which, a week or two earlier, 

 the river had flowed. Then one sees packs of geese 

 feeding within gunshot of natives all busy hoeing and 

 ploughing ; and it amuses to watch other geese grazing 

 right under the "scarecrows" which the said natives have 

 erected to warn the fowl off their seeds ! 



The industry of these Arab folk, and its corollary 

 wealth in herds of cattle, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys 

 are apt to amaze so soon after the Mahdist extirpation. 

 Everywhere one sees them busy tilling, irrigating, drawing 

 water, and tending herds. Possibly within measurable 

 years the Sudan may be supplying not only cotton to 

 Manchester but beef to Smithfield. 



There are, moreover, other "fearful wildfowl" in the 

 Sudan. One hot noontide I recollect seeing on the apex 

 of a pinnacled sand-dune, a single black figure wildly 

 gesticulating and brandishing a spear from which fluttered 

 a black flag. Around on the glowing sand squatted a 

 dusky audience, while others came flocking to the 

 rendezvous, some on camels or donkeys, others by boat 

 or on foot. This was a minor Mahdi of sorts. Such 

 gentry are still a not uncommon by-product of this 

 stronghold of paganism and superstition. Luckily they 

 are harmless. Their power for mischief was broken for 

 ever at Omdurman. Still that gesticulating fanatic formed 

 a characteristic spectacle. 



A GALLON WHITE NILE 



Voyaging on White Nile is not all summer sailing, as 

 this extract from diary shows : "Awakened at midnight 



