WITH THE STREAM NORTHWARD 285 good influences of firmness and sympathy exhibited so nobly by its Governor.

Kodok sHd back into the past, and Renk gave memories of the long camel ride from the Dinder.

Goz Abu Guma, by Hillet Abbas, was passed close by the island of Abba, where the Mahdi spent the early days of his religious development, and where, inland and opposite, is Um Debreikat, the field which witnessed the crushing of his movement through the death of the Khalifa and his remnant of army.

Here the dhurra-birds came in their millions, wee creatures that had appeared on the Dinder in places, and produced an astounding effect at close quarters.

In the distance there is a black cloud of smoke, rapidly moving ; it advances, extends, changes direction and form in bewildering fashion, increases and pales in its colour, condenses and thickens, twisting and twirling at speed vidth all the strange movements of a skirt-dancer's robe. The birds will descend on a plantation of dhurra with all the destructiveness of the locust pest, stripping the plants of their grain in incredible time, with ruin to those who depend on it. Dueim, on the western bank,was passed by, where the Governor's pier consisted of two old whisky cases, a sunken canoe, bottom up, a telegraph-pole, and an angarib, and where caravans of camels brought gum from Kordofan.

Swiftly the boat gUded down the stream till Gordon's tree stood out on the eastern bank,