350 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
aflame with the spikes of red-hot poker, yellow acacia, 
and golden-blossomed yuccas, with many a flower un¬ 
known. Some of these khors resembled “streets” of 
brilliant colour-relief amid the forbidding- desolation on 
either side. Another feature of Sarrowit was the 
fantastic jebels that studded this highland plain, some of 
them composed of giant monoliths piled in such fashion 
as apparently to outrage the laws of gravity. 
It was here that we encountered the Ariel—a game- 
animal as fascinating in form and figure as hunter can 
hope to meet. Its favourite haunts were the mountain- 
faces which, in dark shaly terraces, encircled the plateau, 
or upon the intervening foothills. 
As each dawn broke herds of ariel grazed within sight 
of our camp and amazingly conspicuous they were. In 
colour the ariel is extremely pale. Quite one-half of his 
person is, in fact, snowy-white ; while the rest is of lightest 
fawn, almost straw-colour. Thus, on the dark iron-stone 
tracts, the ariel-herds stand out most conspicuous objects, 
challenging attention at a couple of miles. Naturally, 
when feeding in the sandy khors, their pale colour har¬ 
monises better with the surroundings—there, in the glare 
of an African noontide both animal and environment 
oft share a hue of “liquid sunlight.” 
So powerful a factor is sunlight that even the gaunt 
black areas of quartz and ironstone rock (together with 
any ariel upon them) may partake equally of the false 
colour, intensified by mirage and the dancing heat-haze. 
A further deception is superadded by the thousand tufts 
of dothering-grass aforesaid ( Hordeum ), which lend a 
quivering motion to the solid earth and increase the 
optical illusion. 
During the hot noontide ariel lie down to rest, and 
one sees the harsh black stone-beds studded with yellow 
patches. These are spots from which the animals have 
scraped away the surface-stones, so as to rest upon the 
soft sand beneath. Their “siestas” the ariel select with 
