NATURE OF THE COUNTRY. 17l animals of northern lands. Various schakals (jackals, badschumm) were also disturbed out of their slumbers, and even tliey were galloped down and slain by the Turkish horsemen. They are only eaten by the Arabs and Dongolese. Large and small gazelles we saw vanishing in the distance on all sides ; their speed is wonderfully great; yet we have seen them overtaken by the Turkish horses.

Soon the plain began to slope very gradually downwards. Trees, among them the atla, atle, or atal (here darfa), the tundo, and a tree similar to a wild pear-tree, grow in numbers on the plain; the two latter, more like shrubs or bushes, and the former of ill growth, and rising into trees giving little or no shade. The tundo we had already seen in the great desert ; it has no leaves, but thick green thorny branches, similar to those of a rose stem; it also bears sour, round berries, which contain many seeds, and have a decayed sweet taste. They are greedily eaten by the Arabs. The shrub itself is, from its bitterness, a special lavourite with the camels. Useful woods, such as would from size do for house or ship building, we have not as yet seen. Birds, save vultures, hawks, and crows, we have seen or heard hardly any, as is ever the case in the little animated and devoid of water scenes of Africa. Only in the neighbourhood of rivers, lakes, or springs, are to be found rich plumagcd birds. The vultures with ruffled feathers, bald heads and necks, generally grey, or grey-black ; yellowish or light grey bodies, follow, in monstrous flocks, our march, and rush in hun-<lreds on each falling beast. They are a real blessing to these countries, in which men let animals lie where they have fallen, even in the streets of the capital, Chartum. They are quite tame, and will let one go up to them without rising ; and when they do rise, they only fly off" a little way, and then lounge about as usual.

On our progress the bu.sh grows ever thicker ; nebbeck, acacias, and other mimosas, start up among the former trees, and the grass grows very high, so that it overtops the smaller asses. Foot-tracks of many wild beasts cross in all directions ; those of the elephant are of enormous size and sunk into the ground, somewhat moistened by the rain, more than a foot, and are Irom one and a half to two feet in length and breadth. One can plainly ei»ugh distinguish where these gentry have halted any time, for all bushes and shrubs