KHARTOUM AND OMDURMAN 309 



on the opposite shores, including a considerable proportion 

 of that manifold wealth of waterfowl, great and small, 

 web-footed or "hen-footed," that characterise the Upper 

 Nile. At midday these aquatic hosts were replaced or 

 reinforced by crowds of thirsty kites and vultures 

 (Neophrons) which, with a few stray eagles chiefly 

 Aquila rapax spent the blazing hours in desultory 

 bathing along the shores. It was curious to observe how 

 completely the openbill storks dominated the small vultures 

 and kites, which scuttled away before those great ugly 

 mandibles. 



Sometimes we made expeditions by steam-launch for 

 the " evening- flighting." The sandgrouse-shooting within 

 reach of Khartoum needs no new description, and this 

 year the abnormal heat (combined, it may be, with a 

 full moon in mid-March) precipitated the departure of 

 the ducks. Already, at the date named, the bulk of the 

 pintails and wigeon had disappeared, while towards the 

 end of the month almost all, save a few garganey, had 

 passed on northwards ; but whoever knows the garganey, 

 with its lightning speed, will admit that a very few shots 

 are ample reward for an hour or two's vigil. A feature of 

 these quiet evenings on White Nile was the assembling 

 of migrating wagtails gorgeous creatures whose breasts 

 of burnished gold literally coloured the foreshores. 1 



OMDURMAN 



Omdurman itself presents to me neither charm nor 

 interest no more than, say, the Arab quarter of Aden. 

 But only a couple of leagues away across clean open 

 desert lies Jebel Surgham, the scene whereon between 

 sunrise and noon was decided the fate of the Sudan. 



Jebel Surgham itself is but a rocky koppie, one of 



1 I remembered capturing similar wagtails aboard the M.M. s.s, 

 Djemnah in mid-Mediterranean, April loth, 1906, as recorded in my 

 Bird-Life of the Borders (p. 126). The coincidence of dates is noteworthy. 

 These Khartoumers would be due at the same spot off Crete at a 

 corresponding period. 



