78 SPORT BY THE RIVER A sardine tin, left by some sportsman and picked clean by the ants, is the sign that the hunter is now its only visitor.

Ibrahim was in the Abu Hashim district as a young man in those days—after all, but a few short years ago—and significantly draws his hand across his throat, purses his mouth, shakes his head, and says much in Arabic ; for in this district, now almost deserted, were once 800 villages. Yet many there were who spoke well of INIohammed Ahmed, the Mahdi, remembering him by his early affectation of piety, his magnetic personality, his pretence of asceticism and imposition of virtue on others, rather than by his rapacity, bloodthirstiness, and immorality. There was a belief in his bo7ia fides which caused them to overlook the terrible results of his rule, but for Abdulla, the Khalifa, his successor, no word of good was said, save in reference to his soldiership and pluck.

Day by day fresh sights were afforded ; at one moment the eye was struck by an odd, scrambling, most un-antelope-like movement through the trees.

It was the crablike retreat of the great ape, keeneyed and vengeful ; even the Arabs discountenance the killing of one of a troop, in the belief that his fellows in retort will attack in menacing combination. In the gehels (hills) are also many baboons, and it is said in South Africa of these, that one of their great aims in fighting is to bite off their opponent's fingers. Truly, an ape without fingers would cut a poor figure in a tree, and it