VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 
53 
the river-bed, and one sees them industriously cultivating 
the mud-banks and islands as, yard by yard, each is laid 
bare by the receding river. Here they erect temporary 
shelters, and presently strings of camels, horses, and 
donkeys are carrying down loads of timber, straw, and 
reeds wherewith regular villages, or “dry-season camps,” 
are established at spots over which, a week or two earlier, 
the river had flowed. Then one sees packs of geese 
feeding within gunshot of natives all busy hoeing and 
ploughing; and it amuses to watch other geese grazing 
right under the “scarecrows” which the said natives have 
erected to warn the fowl off their seeds! 
The industry of these Arab folk, and its corollary— 
wealth in herds of cattle, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys-— 
are apt to amaze so soon after the Mahdist extirpation. 
Everywhere one sees them busy tilling, irrigating, drawing 
water, and tending herds. Possibly within measurable 
years the Sudan may be supplying not only cotton to 
Manchester but beef to Smithfield. 
There are, moreover, other “fearful wildfowl” in the 
Sudan. One hot noontide I recollect seeing on the apex 
of a pinnacled sand-dune, a single black figure wildly 
gesticulating and brandishing a spear from which fluttered 
a black flag. Around on the glowing sand squatted a 
dusky audience, while others came flocking to the 
rendezvous, some on camels or donkeys, others by boat 
or on foot. This was a minor Mahdi of sorts. Such 
gentry are still a not uncommon by-product of this 
stronghold of paganism and superstition. Luckily they 
are harmless. Their power for mischief was broken for 
ever at Omdurman. Still that gesticulating fanatic formed 
a characteristic spectacle. 
A Gale on White Nile 
Voyaging on White Nile is not all summer sailing, as 
this extract from diary shows :—“Awakened at midnight 
