318 SAVAGE SUDAN 



prefers the dry thorn-bush and eschews rivers altogether. Its 

 title, I believe, is Halcyon chelicutensis. Another and somewhat 

 rarer acquisition was a robin-chat (Cossypha verticalis), lovely in 

 contrasted hues of black and white, chestnut and orange. This 

 is a regular bush-skulker, slipping about horizontally through 

 the densest foliage after the manner of a warbler. In a lateral 

 ravine a colony of bridled bee-eaters (Merops frenatus} was 

 established in a steep clay face ; though whether they were 

 already breeding or not, the lack of excavating implements 

 prevented our proving. There were wart-hogs in these woods, 

 but their rootings were normal not the curious four-square 

 rootings observed later on the Binder River.] 



(n) DINDER RIVER 



The distance between Blue Nile and Binder being 

 but twenty odd miles, we lightly thought to accomplish 

 that transit in an afternoon's march. But African travel 

 especially by camelry and with wide rivers to cross 

 prepostulates contingencies and inevitable delays that 

 one is apt, foolishly, to ignore. Hence, for the second 

 time within a fortnight, we found ourselves "benighted" 

 midway and perforce obliged to weather out another 

 night in the forest, without a rag of cover, bite, or sup! 

 and subjected to a temperature that would scarce have 

 shamed Shackleton in the Antarctic. Moreover, our 

 gallant explorers of the Frigid Zone do not suffer the 

 intermediate contrast of 100 in the shade at noon! 

 It is one of the many paradoxes of Africa that whereas 

 in regions such as this -the midday sun well-nigh 

 suffocates with fiery heat, yet at midnight the degree 

 of cold may chill and cut like a razor. 



The Binder shares with many another African river 

 the character of being intermittent. In summer, after 

 the Abyssinian rains, it rushes down in turbulent torrent 

 200 yards across ; in winter (when we were there) its 

 course is a sand-bed dry as Sahara, and its waters 

 confined to scattered pools often miles apart. 



