THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN he lived with his wife and children, stood at the far end of the clearing, which was 200 or 300 yards long, and close b}- was a small hut occupied by a former slave and his wife and child. The shekh had a baby donkey, a few goats and two or three fields of dhurra, which was then nearly ripe ; he complained bitterly of the thefts of the grain by the birds, and he kept two boys, perched aloft on wooden platforms ten or twelve feet high THE CLEARINO OF SHEKH MUHAMMAn IBRAHIm AL-AMIn.

among the crops, to drive off the feathered thieves by shrill cries and pellets of mud which they threw at them from sHngs. Every few minutes he would jump up and run towards the dhurra and exhort the boys in most vigorous language to drive away the birds. On all sides of the clearing the thorn jungle and halfa grass grew luxuriantly, and the labour spent in making the ground ready for the dhurra crop must have been enormous.

So soon as the tent was pitched I began to make inquiries for the pyramids, and the shekh took me through the scrub to a place from which they could be seen. There was no path, and the 266 i I i