IV 



SKETCHES IN THE SOUDAN 



1882 

 I. ON THE MARCH 



G'S shout, " Untie the camels ! " cuts short my dreams 

 t dreams in which curiously confiding lions and rifles which 

 would not go off at the critical moment had been strangely 

 mingled and another day of our African camp life has begun. 

 One more quarter of an hour for meditation between the warm 

 blankets is very pleasant, for the sun has not yet risen ; it 

 is chilly in the early morning, and everything is wet with dew. 

 The stars have disappeared, but the pale crescent of the de- 

 clining moon is still visible through the overhanging feathery 

 branches of a juniper- tree. It is a truly Eastern scene the one 

 now before and around me. Our camp lies- in the sandy bed of 

 a river which at this season of the year is perfectly dry ; the 

 banks are covered with juniper and other trees and bushes, their 

 trunks and branches interlacing into a dense mass, the dark 

 green of the juniper being relieved by the brighter and fresher 

 shades of a luxuriant creeper, which in its very luxuriance 

 envelops like a mantle everything within its reach, or by the 

 delicately leaved and graceful tree acacia. The camp lire, 

 nearly out, is soon brought into a blaze again by the Arabs, 

 who, having slowly unrolled themselves from the folds of 

 a cotton sheet, their sole garment by day and only covering 

 by night, eagerly crowd round the flame, shivering in the chilly 

 hour which precedes sunrise. The cook resumes his labours 

 at another fire, and as the camels, which have been gravely 

 lying in a circle round the fire with their heads towards it, are 



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