22 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
“ Sterile mountains, rough and steep, 
That bound abrupt the valley deep, 
Heaving to the clear blue sky 
Their ribs of granite, bare and dry ; 
And ridges by the torrents worn, 
Thinly streaked with scraggy thorn, 
Which fringes Nature’s savage dress 
Yet scarce relieves her nakedness.” 
Thomas Pringle, Ephemerides. 
The force and fury of these torrents are attested all 
along- by the succession of retaining-walls and breakwaters 
constructed to safeguard the line ; while in the beds of 
the khors —all stone-dry at this season—wild lines of 
boulders, strung out in chaotic processions, bespeak the 
power of summer floods. 
Dawn reveals the fact that during the night our train 
has cleared the hill-country and entered the desert— 
typical desert that stretches away for a thousand miles 
westward. Having covered two hundred of those miles, 
we reach the Atbara, once both classic and romantic. 
To-day all romance is dead, for “Atbara” is a mere 
humdrum railway-junction. 
Early that morning our train had stopped at some 
nameless station to replenish its water-supply — such 
water, be it observed, having been brought ioo miles, 
since none exists nearer. At a little puddle caused by 
leakage of the precious fluid from its tank, assembled a 
throng of thirsty birds—all of strangely blanched hues 
assimilated to their desert environment. Thereat drank 
crested larks of ghostly pallor; and there were desert- 
wheatears, doves, and finch-larks, all likewise arrayed 
in those washed-out achromatic drabs and greys that are 
beloved of the Quaker sect; even the local sparrow had 
assumed a sand-coloured tone. One of the throng, never¬ 
theless, disdained the fancy-dress of the desert. That one 
exception was a cosmopolitan—no mere “Ethiopian” he, 
but a world-wide wanderer over both hemispheres, to wit, 
the white wagtail (Motacilla alba). One recognises him 
