Our beds were spread in the open again. Orion was straight above me as I lay, before falling asleep, and Sirius nearer to the southern horizon. I looked for the constellation and the star each night when I turned in, and had a sense of being in the presence of old friends while I gazed at them.
On the following morning, December 15, I again changed my mount for the better, and rode a smoothly trotting camel at last. Our day’s journey was a short one, and brought us to the last watering-place which a traveller on this road reaches before the wells of Fau. On the way my companions shot a couple of guinea-fowl, and we were glad to see them at dinner-time.
We camped at night close to a long range of hills of a granite formation called Gebal Arang. They rise to a height of three hundred or four hundred feet, and make a striking change in the landscape as one approaches them. I knew that our Berbereen boys had never seen such high ground, and watched them to observe what impression it made upon them. It made none. They are an apathetic race, philosophers of the nil admirari school by temperament.
THE WELLS AT THE FOOT OF GEBAL ARANG.
See [p. 18.]
On these inland marches we carried water in tanks, and were obliged to hoard it. We had to go back in the morning to the allowance which had served us for washing purposes overnight. In all this region, every condition of life, important and unimportant, depends upon the rivers. At Gebel Arang we saw gazelles and the antelopes called ariels for the first time. We also caught sight of a large bustard, and my companion stalked it unsuccessfully. It is hard work to carry a gun in a hot country where every bush, and even the grass, grows thorns that “mean business,” and the man who fails is usually weary as well as disappointed.
Next day, December 16, we travelled at the foot of the hills. It was a pleasant journey, for there was verdure, and the tall mimosas threw shade on the track. Besides the flocks of guinea-fowl to which we were accustomed, we saw a hare—the first we had found in the Soudan. Before midday we reached the wells of Fau. The drinking-water here is of a fairly good quality, but not quite free from mud. Guinea-fowl again supplied our dinner. They are slow to rise, but not easy to shoot; for they run in the most nimble fashion among the thick covert, and to come within range, the “guns” have to run too. The sun is strong overhead, the thorns are strong all round, and the exercise is smart work, even for a man in sound condition.
In the evening a messenger from the Intelligence Department reached our camp. He brought us letters and papers, and I ascertained that he, on a fast camel and without baggage, had travelled in two and a half days a distance which we had covered in six.
Our halting-place was between two ranges of the hills. The wind blew hard during the night, and the current of it came racing down the valley where we lay. Great clouds of dust were carried with it, and the particles were driven thickly into every crevice and corner. Crawley and I tried to form a shelter by piling up our square boxes behind us, but this was of little avail. It was an excitement of a sort, but not pleasant to a sleepy man.