PUNITIVE EXPEDITIONS 33 



once for Sungakai, where a man, whose name, accord- 

 ing to our instructions, " may be Ibrahim may be 

 staying." Our road lay through deserted villages. 

 The telepathy of the savage had spread the news 

 of our actions. Every guilty man feared for himself, 

 and it was no new thing to the mass of the popu- 

 lation to be obliged, as in the slave-raiding dervish 

 days, to fly into the high cereals. A bundle of 

 household goods dropped on the path, and the waving 

 of the dukhn marked the path of some panic-stricken 

 woman, and elicited shouts of chaff from my men. 



The sheikh of Sungakai, a very intelligent man, 

 received us and assisted us in our search. We seized 

 the only Ibrahim in the place — an inoffensive cultivator, 

 as it turned out. His papers were carefully scrutinised, 

 but produced nothing incriminating. Very interesting 

 was his family tree, bringing him back at least ten 

 generations, which, we were told, was in all likelihood 

 genuine. 



We decided to return slowly by a lake (in the rains) 

 called Birka. Our camels, when they smelt the water, 

 mended their pace wonderfully. With head stretched 

 out they broke into a swinging trot that no amount of 

 encouragement or belabouring had been able to force 

 from them before. 



We halted for a day at Birka, which was crowded 

 by the passage of sheikhs and their followers now 

 hurrying in to show how loyal {sic) they were. We 

 left for El Obeid in the afternoon, and halting, as was 

 my custom, at about 8 P.M. for feed and dinner, were 

 overtaken by an Arab on a donkey. This man told us 



c 



