310 EXTRACTS FROM 
hut stood near the dilapidated building with its round dome 
and lighthouse-looking minaret. 
At this place we resolved to stop and pursue our shooting 
on foot. The various kinds of herons instantly vanished at 
our first attempt to get near them; but we found by the 
water’s edge many smaller shore-birds, among them some 
Avocets, those remarkable black-and-white birds, with long 
stilted legs and recurved bills, also Ruffs, and four or five 
sorts of sandpipers. 
We now separated, rambling in various directions; our 
guns were soon cracking merrily, and in less than half an 
hour the little island was quite shot out. 
The formation of these islands is peculiar, and {they 
merit a few words of description. Almost all of them are 
very long, narrow, and covered with shells—one might almost 
say formed of them. Thick dark green tamarisk-bushes grow 
all over them, and their shores are flat, sandy, and in some 
places clayey, while the feathers and down of the great 
Pelicans, the Rosy Flamingoes, and all kinds of waterfowl 
are everywhere strewn about. Some of them, especially those 
which are characterized by large sandbanks, are quite plastered 
over with thick deposits of guano, and one sees in the clay 
the footprints of every variety of marsh- and water-bird; at 
one spot I even found the tracks of an Ichneumon. 
After a short but pretty productive spell of shooting we 
continued our voyage in an easterly direction, in order to get 
to the Flamingo district, and indeed we soon perceived among 
the islands a long rosy bank of these peculiar creatures—a 
lovely sight. 
A narrow tongue of land had to be crossed, so we stopped 
the dahabeeyahs; and as the afternoon was now far advanced, 
we advised the other gentlemen to disperse among the islands, 
and settled that this was to be the place for our night- 
quarters. 
