300 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



Selima has been described as a " most beautiful 

 spot." It is not. Yet, bursting suddenly as it does 

 on the traveller, it is a more grateful sight, after the 

 oceans of sand, than are the terabil of other watering- 

 places which one sees floating in mirage fifteen miles 

 and more before reaching them, and which never come 

 up to expectation. Selima has ruins and a history. 

 The latter is that a Roman (or Greek) Amazon reigned 

 supreme here, and held the key of the Arbain road. 

 The former are supposed to be those of an early Chris- 

 tian convent. They are built on a small hill, and are 

 about 6 by 10 yards in size, containing small low 

 rooms. The stones wherewith the edifice is built are 

 well squared, and covered with hieroglyphics, as is 

 the rock on which it stands, such as might be made 

 by a child. Stones about have scratched on them 

 names in old-fashioned Arabic. Perhaps an illiterate 

 sentry of the fabled queen amused himself in making 

 the former while the better educated Mahomed Suli- 

 man Mahomed (one of the names) found time to hand 

 his name down to posterity. One sees him reincar- 

 nated assiduously at work on the stays of a sentry 

 box. 



Near this ruin I found a long line of tiny chambers 

 built at the side of an overhanging rock. Out of the 

 sand I got a red earthenware bowl, and in a zeer (Nile 

 water jar) got some date stones that crumbled to dust 

 in my hand. Not being an archaeologist I feared to 

 destroy the traces of early civilisation, so ceased my 

 researches. 



Not far from here were the Selima salt fields. They 



