8 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



fairly straight tree, some inches in diameter, is in- 

 valuable, and is cut down to make beams for the roof. 

 Two of these, trimmed, are fastened either side of a 

 donkey, who half carries, half drags them into town, 

 where they fetch a good price : hence the tracks. 



The mess, near which we " baraked " (made to 

 kneel) our camels, was a small unfloored yard, part of 

 which was covered in in a primitive fashion. It struck 

 one as incongruous that the combined incomes, from 

 Government sources, of the few officers who used it 

 amounted to more than ^8000 a year. The tables 

 were of barrack pattern. They had just replaced 

 ones made of packing-cases. The chairs, which we 

 thought very swagger, were cane-bottomed. The 

 floor was several inches deep in loose sand. 



The houses of the British officers were in a com- 

 pound about a hundred yards square, the wall of which 

 was the line of defence in case any need arose. The 

 entrance to it was the archway under a tower. The 

 latter was a relic of the reckless expenditure of Ismail 

 Pasha. About five yards broad by six in depth and 

 thirty feet high, and surmounted by the British and 

 Egyptian flags, this edifice was at once the great 

 landmark and the pride of the province. It was built 

 of bricks made in England ! carried by camels along 

 the Forty-days' Road (Darb el Arbain) from Assiut 1 

 The tower was covered with plaster, pitted all over by 

 the gun and rifle fire aimed at it by the Mahdist hordes 

 in 1884 when it was held by a native Bimbashi and a 

 few men. Their ghosts, headed by that of their intrepid 

 officer, who, cup of coffee in hand, encourages to the 



