388 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
and it fascinates to watch the combined coolness and 
skill with which your swarthy ghillie lifts him inboard. 
The “chances” taken in this big-game fishing bear 
a far greater ratio of risk than occurs in any other form 
of sport with the rod. The odds are always heavily in 
favour of the game—or, at least, against the angler. 
The use of a rod at all is, in fact, a mechanical handicap. 
The native who fishes for his livelihood uses a hand¬ 
line only, and that (given a pachydermatous palm) is 
pecuniarily more profitable. 
To the fearsome joys described, an added interest is 
ever provided by the strange and exotic bird-life that 
surrounds the angler afloat. 
(n) Bird-Life on the Red Sea Coast 
Swarms of seagulls attend our boat and seek to share the 
sport, wheeling, screaming, and dipping down to snatch up the 
sardines chucked seaward as lures—sometimes, too (less 
circumspect than barracouta!), seizing the baited hook and 
being thus hauled ignominiously aboard. The great majority 
of these gulls are at once recognised as total strangers— 
Ethiopians—and, by appearance, of two distinct species. We 
took them to include Hemprich’s gull; but eventually they proved 
to belong to the white-eyed species (Larus leucophthalmus ); 
the adults, being black-headed 
and altogether darker than 
the young, caused temporary 
confusion. The sketches may 
serve to show the difference. 
The only other gulls present 
were a score or so of lesser 
black-back and herring-gulls, 
together with a few of our 
equally familiar British black¬ 
headed gulls—the favourites 
of the Thames Embankment—all three immature. We did, 
however, shoot a “ Hemprich ” gull. 
On all the sheltered waters, over the sardine-shoals, poised, 
