KORTI country on the Nile is entered. Both banks are lined with fine palm trees of various kinds, and in the summer time the air is filled with the slightly aromatic scent of the fiowering shrubs and trees. In most places the cultivable mud on both banks extends some distance from the river, but as we steamed on to Meravvi we saw that most of it was lying waste. For some years past the palms had been neither tended nor fertilized, and under the rule of the Dervishes the water-wheels had in many places been ruined, and the channels which supplied them had become choked with -"•rrv-'Fw i I iwuBPnnujm AN ISLAND IN THE NILE.

mud and rubbish. The huts everywhere were in ruins, and very few cattle were to be seen. The little islands which we passed from time to time were veritable paradises, and they stood up like large gems of living green from the yellowish-brown waters of the river. The trees on such islands were filled with large numbers of little birds of the most brilliant plumage, and it was satisfactory to think that the tourist sportsman had not yet made his way into that portion of the Sudan. Here and there We saw on the banks contrivances of reeds which the natives had placed III