While we were at Kassala an Italian officer arrived in the town from Eritrea. No one had received notice of his coming, and no one seemed to know what his business was. I sat next to him one night at dinner, and he told me that he was a lieutenant in the Mountain Artillery, and was using his leave to make a journey to the junction of the Atbara and Settite Rivers. He would return thence direct to his battery.
On the 20th we struck our camp and left Kassala in the afternoon, turning our faces towards the Atbara again. We had the pleasure of the company of the Governor and another English officer during the next two days’ journeys, which were hot, tiring, and uneventful. We bade farewell to our friends on the afternoon of the 22nd. On the following day we marched in the direction of the Goz Regeb hill. This singular rise of ground in the desert appeared and disappeared as we moved down imperceptible slopes and then ascended again. We saw the mirage all around us. The soil in this region was shingly. At Goz Regeb there was a two-roomed rest-house. It was of baked mud, and was the most solid building that we had seen since we left Khartoum. We had been told at Kassala that it belonged to the Slavery Department, and that we might make use of it as it was then unoccupied. That night there was a high wind, and among its ludibria, was Crawley’s sponge, which, oddly enough, was found next day in the Atbara about half a mile from our halting-place.
On March 24 Dupuis climbed Goz Regeb Hill and took photographs of the curious balanced granite blocks which stand upon it. At a distance many of them look like figures of men, and at a nearer range like worn statues. But it is certain that they have not been placed in their position by human agency. I am unable to offer any conjecture as to their origin or geological relation to their surroundings.
An incursion of great numbers of Arabs from the south, with their flocks and herds, into the region around Goz Regeb takes place regularly at the commencement of the rainy season. They are then compelled to come to this district to avoid the seroot fly[119]—the tsetse of the Soudan—which is fatal to all live stock except goats. Obviously, this necessary migration is an important fact both in relation to politics and campaigning in the Soudan. Sir S. Baker came in contact with the movement northward.
GOZ REGEB GRANITE STONE, MIMOSA SCRUB IN THE DISTANCE.
See [p. 208.]
From a Photograph by Mr. C. E. Dupuis.
GOZ REGEB STONES.