CHAPTER V 



Marching at night — A lion — The Messeria Arabs — " The incident of the 

 royal shirt " — I leave El Obeid — " Gyppie " — The Sudanese soldier- 

 English lack of tact — Moslem marriages — Sudanese irregulars — Their 

 endurance — The Arab soldier in the Hagana — Native officers — Turks 

 — Egyptian — Sudanese. 



I WAS away at last. Soon I met three minor sheikhs 

 hastening in to pay their respects to me. Riding 

 down the valley we could see several high hills in the 

 distance. Roads led in all directions — one to Sun- 

 gakai, not many miles away, where I had been a short 

 while before. Our road passed several villages, in 

 one of which a weaver with a hand-loom was busy 

 making the nine-inch-wide strips of " damur " (coarse 

 cotton cloth), which are used both as clothing and as 

 currency, the value being a shilling ; while all the 

 inhabitants appeared to have distaffs in their hands. 

 It passed between two moderately high conical hills, 

 and debouched on to the Kordofan plain. 



As we rode through the night a forest fire, which 

 had climbed the side of a long ridge, showed ruby-red 

 in the distance. We crossed the Wadi Shalango, 

 which we had so frequently seen on the road from 

 Turda. 



After a few hours' rest we started at 3 A.M. I do not 

 remember a darker night in the Sudan ; we even 



