KHARTOUM AND OMDURMAN 
309 
on the opposite shores, including- a considerable proportion 
of that manifold wealth of waterfowl, great and small, 
web-footed or “hen-footed,” that characterise the Upper 
Nile. At midday these aquatic hosts were replaced—or 
reinforced — by crowds of thirsty kites and vultures 
(Neophrons) which, with a few stray eagles—chiefly 
Aquila raftax —-spent the blazing hours in desultory 
bathing along the shores. It w r as curious to observe how 
completely the openbill storks dominated the small vultures 
and kites, which scuttled away before those great ugly 
mandibles. 
Sometimes we made expeditions by steam-launch for 
the “ evening-flighting.” The sandgrouse-shooting within 
reach of Khartoum needs no new description, and this 
year the abnormal heat (combined, it may be, with a 
full moon in mid-March) precipitated the departure of 
the ducks. Already, at the date named, the bulk of the 
pintails and wigeon had disappeared, while towards the 
end of the month almost all, save a few garganey, had 
passed on northwards ; but whoever knows the garganey, 
with its lightning speed, will admit that a very few shots 
are ample reward for an hour or two’s vigil. A feature of 
these quiet evenings on White Nile was the assembling 
of migrating wagtails—gorgeous creatures whose breasts 
of burnished gold literally coloured the foreshores . 1 
Omdurman 
Omdurman itself presents to me neither charm nor 
interest—no more than, say, the Arab quarter of Aden. 
But only a couple of leagues away—across clean open 
desert—lies Jebel Surgham, the scene whereon between 
sunrise and noon was decided the fate of the Sudan. 
Jebel Surgham itself is but a rocky koppie, one of 
1 I remembered capturing similar wagtails aboard the M.M. s.s. 
Djenmah in mid-Mediterranean, April ioth, 1906, as recorded in my 
Bird-Life of the Borders (p. 126). The coincidence of dates is noteworthy. 
These Khartoumers would be due at the same spot—off Crete—at a 
corresponding period. 
