O'ur donkeys lived exclusively upon the dhurra
(;Sorghum Egyptictcct) that we carried with us, and
the camels required a daily supply of corn in
addition to the dry twigs and bushes that formed
their dusty food. The margin of the river was
miserable and uninviting; the trees and bushes were
entirely leafless from the intense heat, as are the
trees in England during winter. The only shade
was afforded by the evergreen dome palms ; nevertheless,
the Arabs occupied the banks at intervals
of three or four miles, wherever a pool of water in
some deep bend of the dried river s bed offered an
attraction; in such places were Arab villages or
camps, of the usual mat tents formed of the dome
palm leaves.
Many pools were of considerable size and of
great depth. In flood-time a tremendous torrent
sweeps down the course of the Atbara, and the
sudden bends of the river are hollowed out by the
foree of the stream to a depth of twenty or thirty
feet below the level of the bed. Accordingly, these
holes become reservoirs of water when the river is
otherwise exhausted. In such asylums all the usual
inhabitants of this large river are crowded together
in a comparatively narrow space. Although these
pools vary in size, from only a few hundred yards
to a mile in length, they are positively full of life;
huge fish, crocodilos of immense size, turtles, and occasionally
hippopotami, consort together in close and
unwished-for proximity. The animals of the desert—
gazelles, hyenas, and wild asses—are compelled to
resort to these crowded drinking-places, occupied by
the flocks of the Arabs, equally with the timid
beasts of the chase. The birds that during the
cooler months would wander free throughout the
country, are now collected in vast numbers along the
margin of the exhausted river; innumerable doves,
varying in species, throng the trees and seek the
shade of the dome palms; thousands of desert grouse
arrive morning and evening to drink and to depart;
while birds in multitudes, of lovely plumage, escape
from the burning desert, and colonize the poor but
welcome bushes that fringe the Atbara river.
The heat was intense. As we travelled along the
margin of the Atbara, and felt with the suffering
animals the exhaustion of the climate, I s acknowledged
the grandeur of the Nile that could overcome
the absorption of such thirsty sands, and the evaporation
caused by the burning atmosphere of Nubia.
For nearly 1,200 miles from the junction of the
Atbara with the parent stream to the Mediterranean,
not one streamlet joined the mysterious river, neither
one drop of rain ruffled its waters, unless a rare
thunder-shower, as a curious phenomenon, startled
the Arabs as they travelled along the desert.
Nevertheless the Nile overcame its enemies, while
the Atbara shrank to a skeleton, bare and exhausted,
reduced to a few pools that lay like blotches along
.the broad surface of glowing sand;
Notwithstanding the overpowering sun, there
D 2