366 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



fortunate possessor is then able to keep a cow, and to live at least 

 in tolerable comfort, although he is still so poor that even the 

 Egyptian government does not venture to burden him with taxes. 

 But such places are rare oases in this forbidding waste. The boat- 

 man, fighting his way up-stream, welcomes every bush; he greets 

 a palm-tree with manifest joy, a bean-field, perhaps hoped for all 

 day long, with exultation, a water-wheel with thanks to the All- 

 merciful. For it is not merely that his bold spirit has learned to 

 know fear in this valley of rocks, but also because he knows well 

 that, should his supply of provisions fail, bitter want would befall 

 him, and starvation stare him in the face. Down-stream the 

 well-steered boat speeds rapidly through this land of desolation 

 and poverty; but sailing up-stream it often lies, as if spell-bound, 

 for hours, or even days, at a time, waiting for a favourable wind, 

 sheltered by a rock from the force of a rapid. The boatman, who 

 becomes "sea-sick" with the incessant rocking of his craft, may 

 roam or swim for miles without coming upon men or fields. 



At its southern limit the rocky valley passes almost abruptly 

 into the fertile country of middle Nubia. Before the traveller lies 

 a narrow basin shut in by two deserts, and with several large 

 islands in its midst. The basin is filled with mud, and of this the 

 islands are composed. Though we do not yet find all the wealth 

 of tropical life, there are hints of it in the freshness and vigour of 

 both fauna and flora. Almost continuous palm -groves, in which 

 ripen the most delicious dates in the world, border this pleasant 

 oasis in which the labours of the husbandman are rewarded by rich 

 harvests. Christ-thorns and various mimosas, not hitherto seen, give 

 evidence that we have crossed the equator. Besides the sun-bird 

 already mentioned, there are now other birds characteristic of the 

 interior of Africa. In the first dhurra-field which one carefully 

 observes, the eyes are gladdened by a sight of the fiery weaver-bird, 

 as beautiful as it is agile, which has its home among the stems, and 

 from time to time appears like a flash of fire on the top of an ear, 

 uttering from this perch its simple whirring and buzzing song, and 

 inciting others of its kind to a like display. In the holes and 

 crevices of the mud-huts other members of the family, especially 



