3o8 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



oasis is used by the Bedaiat during their raids. While 

 in the vicinity the keenness for sentry duty the pohce 

 displayed told of years of raids and counter-raids. 



This oasis, like Selima, is approached by a drop of 

 two hundred feet to its level. There is, however, one 

 marked difference. Selima is surrounded by a ridge 

 which one climbs before descent into the depression 

 is begun. Here, on the contrary, though the country 

 passed was like the trough and crest of an angry sea, 

 one drops straight over the edge of a stony plateau 

 into it. To the east the plateau on which we had 

 travelled comes to an end in a long escarpment. In 

 all the similar depressions we passed were large, pre- 

 cipitous hills, perhaps three hundred feet high, and the 

 sides themselves looked like a range of them. 



A little green spot, a cluster of palms eight feet high 

 growing out of one root, marks the position of the 

 well, which is situated a mile from the gully we de- 

 scended. The water is slightly saline about a foot 

 from the surface in deep wells a couple of yards wide 

 at the top. About the well were a few clumps of 

 halfa grass, but the sprouting date-stones were kept 

 down by the gazelle, whom the scares made of the 

 bones of defunct camels failed to keep off. There 

 had been a police post here. It was removed, as the 

 " state of constant readiness " was too trying on the 

 men to keep up. Some who had been on it told 

 me that the ground would yield anything. Still 

 Nature has been most niggardly in her favours. The 

 few square yards of halfa grass I mentioned are all 

 she has to show for countless years of occupation. 



