VIEW FROM THE CAMP. 257 trees ; the river itself was very low, and presented a very different appearance to what it did when we first came up. A broad sandy mud-bank reached nearly from shore to shore, leaving only a channel some fifty yards wide on each side of it. Just about here the river-bed was very wide, so that, the near channel being only half visible over the near bank, and the far one very nearly concealed behind the broad sand-bank in the middle, the Nile did not present that appearance of beauty which it should have. On our left were the hospital-tents, on the right some stray tents between us and the stores, and in our rear a few trees and mud-huts separated us from cultivated fields and the Dongola track : such were to be our quarters for an indefinite period.