266 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



These would go off to build and repair the houses of 

 the place, to cut wood for the fuel of the steamers, and 

 the thousand and one other jobs that cropped up. 

 There was no lack of work, I assure you. The 

 hundred to two hundred men being dispersed, the 

 native officer would go one way, I another, super- 

 intending, explaining, urging on. At 8 a.m. came 

 breakfast and a rest. At 9 A.M. all started again. 

 Special jobs seemed to draw one's interest, e.g. the 

 brickmaking or the building of red brick. Providence 

 averted an awful accident when we were making a 

 bridge over a khor near the town. We determined 

 to make a good trestle, as previous ones of native 

 pattern had invariably been washed away. The 

 frames were made bound together by telegraph wire, 

 and further strengthened by home-made dogs. In 

 order to drive some of the latter in on the under 

 side we had to turn the frame, twenty feet high, built 

 of huge mahogany logs, over. Some idiot lost his 

 purchase on the feet of the frame, and the whole 

 thing came down with a bump. There were quite 

 seventy men in and about the frame. How no one 

 was crushed, how they all managed to avoid the cross- 

 pieces, is a miracle. 



This would busy one till about 1 1 a.m. Then 

 would come office work. It was continuous, but 

 not arduous. At i p.m. or half-past one we would go 

 to lunch. More often than not Sweny would not 

 appear till past three. At about the latter hour one 

 might do a last turn round the place, and at 4.30 

 P.M. be on the tennis ground, where tea had been 



