4 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



rail and boat. Both my companion and I would 

 have been quite lost at the railway station had it not 

 been for the kindly offices of Captain Brakenridge, 

 R.A.M.C., who, like a good Samaritan, accompanied 

 us from Abdin barracks to the station, and, finding 

 that the native staff officer on duty there spoke no 

 European language, acted as interpreter for us. 



At Shellal we transferred ourselves and our belong- 

 ings from the train to the steamer, which was moored 

 within sight of Philae. Pen and brush have, as far as 

 mortals can guide them, done justice to the Nile. It 

 is grand and terrible. As a tourist does, I have de- 

 voured its history and taken in its every reach ; as an 

 old stager I have been bored by the sameness of its 

 low sandstone containing hills, narrow strips of culti- 

 vation, and limited view. But before I left the spirit 

 of the great river god entered me, and I loved it. Its 

 half-mile-broad torrent, now calm, now rough ; the 

 clumps of scraggy date palms ; its temples, its villages, its 

 very hills and monotonous yellow sand ; the groaning 

 of the Sakias, the creaking of the Shadufs ; the people 

 on the banks, some engaged in work, some in languid 

 play, some travelling clad in sky-blue gallabias on 

 diminutive donkeys, some lazily squatting on the banks 

 — to leave it was to leave a friend. If drinking of 

 the Trevi fountain brought me back to Rome, surely, 

 O Father Nile, I have drunk enough of your life- 

 giving waters from source to mouth to bring me back 

 to your broad bosom ! 



Just north of Haifa we entered the Sudan. At 

 the town itself we made another change into a train 



