20 
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA, 
The next morning was calm and deliciously cool ; but we held 
ourselves in readiness for more rain^ and that we had occasionally 
for two days^ unaccompanied,, however,, by wind. The Nile had in- 
creased alarmingly,, and was carrying with it large palm and other 
trees,, heaps of grain^ and drowned cattle j and in the ravine of the 
desert rushed a torrent,, bearing the carcases of hyaenas, camels^ 
and quantities of the colocinth plants with its gourd-like fruit. 
All this told how universal had been the storm. 
Late in the day a caravan arrived from Berber,, and the sheikh 
reported to us that great had been the sufferings of travellers and 
beasts. Water was only to be procured at the midway station — 
the wells of Murat — and there it was scarce. The heat had never 
been known so great ; an(J had it not been for the timely rains of 
the last two days^ one woman,, a soldier^ s wife,, must have died^ 
it was said. Our people had been met with at different parts of 
the desert ; some of the camels had broken down^ two had died^ 
and their loads were left on the ground. 
During the day we heard a loud crash,, and a splash in the Nile, 
and were blinded for a few moments by clouds of dust. The 
sakyeh near to us had fallen into the river ; its supports had been 
carried away by the rush of waters. All the village turned out to 
lament, and the confusion was terrific. Our kitchen was under an 
arch which formed the support of the wheel j it was destroyed, with 
our dinner, the cook having a narrow escape. 
The sakyeh is a crude machine erected on a stage overhanging 
the river, and some ten or twenty feet above it, and for thousands 
of years has been in use for irrigating the land. It is worked by 
horses, mules, bullocks, buffaloes, or camels ; and it is not of un- 
frequent occurrence to witness a bullock with either of the fore- 
going animals in the same yoke. 
