6 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN

Egyptian Army but a short time, and so knew very

little Arabic. Our camel men wished to take advantage

of this in order to take a month for the journey. Very

fortunately, Colonel Friend, R.E., had given me an

itinerary showing that the 210 miles should be done in

ten days. Ye gods ! how ludicrous I would consider

a proposal to travel at even so slow a rate with my

present experience, unless weak camels or some other

potent reason were the cause. Then, too, at the

various resting-places there were disputes about water-

ing the camels. At one village, where the wells were

200 feet deep, our animals lay beside them the whole

day. At last I seized my phrase book, and, learning

the Arabic for " the camels must be watered," pro- ceeded to see it done. In a minute all around were

cheerfully helping me, and in half-an-hour we were

able to go on. We had, too, a capital map compiled from sketches by Captain Lloyd (Cameronians), which was very

useful, though we travelled almost entirely by night,

marvelling much at the wonderful sense of direction

the Arab possesses. It is a gift that soon comes to

one when one has a lot of night travelling to do. Near Jebel Tius, the only hill of importance that we

passed, and it only a couple of hundred feet high, we chased the shadow of a creeper-covered thorn-bush

for the best part of the day, as our baggage had lagged

behind. I remember being much amused, as on this

spot on the map was written the legend " No shade," and it turned out to be almost the only place with any

pretence of it between Omdurman and Bara. One