304 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



these we crouched during our midday halt to shelter 

 ourselves from the truly awful blasts. The stone on 

 this plain, a hard black rock, and yellow stones of 

 flint-like hardness, was absolutely other than that 

 further east, where it was sandstone or conglomerate. 



Beyond this plain was another of dead level sand. 

 Here we found many skeletons of birds, and a bit of 

 kitr, about the size of a lead pencil, too large to have 

 been carried there by the wind. I was told that often 

 great flights of birds from the west alight at Selima, 

 and in their anxiety to drink often drown each other 

 in the wells. I should have mentioned before that, 

 except east of Sheb, insect life is rife on the desert. 

 Solitary or pairs of locusts pursue a drunken flight for 

 a few yards when disturbed. Moths and beetles of 

 various kinds are found. What an opportunity for an 

 entomologist. Let him but gather a few specimens, 

 and he will hand his name down to posterity tacked 

 on to some beetle or bug. Some of the crawling 

 things are particularly hideous and repulsive-looking. 

 I loathe insects. 



At nightfall we saw some sand-drifts to the north, 

 but at daybreak these were out of sight. Nothing but 

 a dead level of sand was around us, not even a ripple 

 on it broke the mirror-like surface on which we 

 travelled. As the sun rose higher, however, undula- 

 tions and small pebbles appeared, and presently in the 

 west we sighted in the far distance another belt of 

 sand-drifts. Alas, we had to turn back. The coldness 

 of the weather had enabled us to husband our water, 

 but we were now in for two days more than we had 



