368 SAVAGE SUDAN 



out drab of their companions, and whose snow-white 

 heads displayed black blotches on the auriculars. These 

 were quite unknown to us and remain so. 



Next appeared other huge vultures, also new. Hardly 

 such giants as the Nubians, these last-comers were of 

 a bright tawny colour and, even as they flew, one saw 

 in the fierce sunlight that each feather was boldly shaded 

 that is, streaked darker down its centre. By the 

 authorities on Ethiopian ornithology I understand these 

 are regarded as Griffon vultures ; but knowing the 

 Griffon intimately in Spain, I feel confident that no 

 vultures such as these ever soar in Iberian firmament. 



From beneath our rock-roof we enjoyed for an hour 

 an entrancing scene in African bird-life. Below in the 

 stony glen lay the dead gazelle, its white belly glistening 

 in the sunlight, while around, grave ravens and neophrons 

 stood like sextons. Close overhead soared and wheeled 

 the giant vultures just described their naked necks 

 full-stretched earthwards and huge hanging talons 

 balancing flight as, undecided, they swept to and fro 

 in endless aerial evolutions, wondrous to witness. The 

 human eye, by virtue of its arresting retina, is enabled 

 to follow the whole process of flight. But by no 

 mechanical means can such pictures be portrayed 

 whether by pencil or camera. The mazy confusion of 

 immense winnowing wings quills each widely separated 

 and uptilted often strangely foreshortened, in ceaselessly 

 changing perspective and intricacy of angles these 

 things defy all attempt to depict. The pencil is useless, 

 but the camera is still worse; its instantaneous action 

 produces nothing but an amorphous smudge, inconductive 

 of any intelligible idea or impression. Such scenes, in 

 short, fall within that category of Nature's pictures that 

 can never be fully appreciated save only through the eye 

 itself. 



Some suspicion pervaded their minds, for none of the 

 bigger vultures dared to dine, and presently all alighted 



