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SAVAGE SUDAN 
prefers the dry thorn-bush and eschews rivers altogether. Its 
title, I believe, is Halcyon chelicutensis. Another and somewhat 
rarer acquisition was a robin-chat (Cossypha vertlcalis), lovely in 
contrasted hues of black and white, chestnut and orange. This 
is a regular bush-skulker, slipping about horizontally through 
the densest foliage after the manner of a warbler. In a lateral 
ravine a colony of bridled bee-eaters (Merops frenatus ) was 
established in a steep clay face; though whether they were 
already breeding or not, the lack of excavating implements 
prevented our proving. There were wart-hogs in these woods, 
but their rootings were normal—not the curious four-square 
rootings observed later on the Dinder River.] 
(n) Dinder River 
The distance between Blue Nile and Dinder being 
but twenty odd miles, we lightly thought to accomplish 
that transit in an afternoon’s march. But African travel 
—especially by camelry and with wide rivers to cross—• 
prepostulates contingencies and inevitable delays that 
one is apt, foolishly, to ignore. Hence, for the second 
time within a fortnight, we found ourselves “benighted” 
midway and perforce obliged to weather out another 
night in the forest, without a rag of cover, bite, or sup! 
and subjected to a temperature that would scarce have 
shamed Shackleton in the Antarctic. Moreover, our 
gallant explorers of the Frigid Zone do not suffer the 
intermediate contrast of ioo° in the shade at noon! 
It is one of the many paradoxes of Africa that whereas 
—in regions such as this—the midday sun well-nigh 
suffocates with fiery heat, yet at midnight the degree 
of cold may chill and cut like a razor. 
The Dinder shares with many another African river 
the character of being intermittent. In summer, after 
the Abyssinian rains, it rushes down in turbulent torrent 
200 yards across; in winter (when we were there) its 
course is a sand-bed dry as Sahara, and its waters 
confined to scattered pools often miles apart. 
