312 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
The period of the flood-season on this hill-born 
stream being- a month earlier than that of White 
Nile, the Blue River falls in earlier in autumn, and 
by November navigation has ceased. The new railway, 
however (Khartoum - Sennar-Kordofan), carries one 
235 miles south to Sennar in a twelve-hours’ run. We 
reached Sennar after dark, and slept in the straw-thatched 
shanty that does duty for a “station hotel.” I remember 
that night; for, lying awake, a big beast with cocked 
ears that might have been a hyena—or a brontosaurus 
■—suddenly stood in the bright moonlight within our 
open doorway. A shooting-boot was the nearest 
available missile and the turmoil it created awoke my 
companions, who thought I was afflicted with nightmare 
-—but they had not seen the apparition. Of course, it 
was only a pariah dog on the prowl; but I resent such 
intrusion in the small hours. Next morning-—with far 
less trouble than a portentous document in Arabic 
would seem to imply—we fixed up a contract for camelry 
with the local sheikh and set forth on the ride to 
Singa, 50 miles south. 
The country traversed was all flat plain — to the 
eastward (across the river) lay continuous forest; on our 
side, all cultivation, and densely populated by Arab tribes 
whose wealth in cattle was surprising. Each morning 
as we rode forward, the country was enveloped in clouds 
of rolling dust emanating from countless droves coming 
down from the arid interior to water at the river. The 
land seemed amove and, since we were told that these 
herds only drank every second day, the total aggregate 
must be double what one sees. 
Such detail may seem irrelevant to the scope of this 
book; but nowadays almost everywhere one must pass 
through an intermediate zone of semi-development—or 
tentative development—ere reaching the “unspoilt wilder¬ 
ness” beyond. And even in this otherwise uninspiring 
region we enjoyed two striking object-lessons in bird-life. 
