2.—Wadi El Gab.
3.—Bayuda Desert.
Section 1.—Desert West of Nile, North and West of Wadi El Gab.
The country west of the Nile from Halfa to Kerma merits little description. Desert of the most arid description comes down close to the banks of the river, west of which all is uninhabited and waterless, with the exception of the few oases, for as far as is known upwards of 300 to 400 miles. The desert itself varies from hard, often stony sand or gravel-covered plains, to undulating moving sand dunes and rocky hills of lime, granite, or basalt. Remains of petrified forests are occasionally met. The amount of mineral wealth discovered in this inhospitable region is not yet definitely known.
Here and there a very limited amount of vegetation is met, at some spot where the water of one of the rare rainstorms that pass over this district has chanced to collect, but more often one may travel for miles and miles over country devoid of any vestige of animal or vegetable life.
The whole of this desert region, including the wells and oases, is uninhabited. It is, however, visited occasionally by roving bands of Hawawir and Kababish in search of natron or wild dates, as also by raiding parties of the Bedaiat, a tribe living to the north of Darfur, who only recently drove off camels grazing within 80 miles of Dongola.
The following is an extract from a report by Captain H. Hodgson, February, 1903, descriptive of the country west of the Wadi El Gab.
“Beyond the limits of the Wadi El Gab, on the western side, there seems to be a belt of country in which water is easily found, but is undrinkable. Of the two water pans I have tried, namely Murrat and Butta, the one is very bitter and the other has a distinct smell of sulphuretted hydrogen—Arabs use these waters medicinally as purgatives.
Jebel Abiad.“I reached and ascended the plateau of Jebel Abiad at what I reckon, roughly, to be 100 miles west from the river at Khandak. In 1901 I found the northern extremity of this range to be 98 miles from the river at Dongola. It is, on the eastern side, a high steep bluff, exposing the white rock (gypsum) from which it gets its name. It extends continuously from where I stood, both north and south, as far as the horizon.
“The surface of the plateau is shingle and sand; it slopes gently down on the western side.