Drainage.Rain falls at long intervals in very heavy and local showers. From the upper part of the country it is carried off by a number of wide shallow wadis, whose beds are hardly distinguishable when crossed, though the slight remains of grass they sometimes contain show them up clearly when looked down on from the top of a hill.
As these wadis reach the rocky belt along the river, their beds contract so much that after heavy rain regular torrents descend them, sweeping away anything they find in their path. Much damage occurred in this way to the camp at Akasha in 1896, though no rain fell in the vicinity.
South of the crest of the spur the chief drainage lines are the two Wadis Keheli, one of which rises near J. Kuror and joins the Nile, about 40 miles below Abu Hamed; the other rises near No. 5 Station and is followed by the railway under the name of Wadi Gaud, and eventually reaches the Nile a little west of Mograt Island.
Vegetation.Some of the wadis contain a little grass and a few stunted selem bushes, but there is no grazing for flocks except within a few miles of the Nile. Firewood also is very rarely met with.
Inhabitants.The riverain inhabitants graze their flocks a few miles into the desert. Besides these shepherds there are no inhabitants.
Cultivation.There is none.
Roads.Except in the hilly belt along the river, camels can go anywhere.
The only track at all well-known is that from Dongola (Naui) to Merowe, cutting off the great bend of the Nile to the south.
(b) Country East of Halfa-Abu Hamed Railway, or “The Atbai.”
Limits.The Atbai is roughly the name applied to the country bounded on the north by the Kena-Kosseir road, on the south by the Berber-Suakin road, on the east by the Red Sea, and on the west by the Nile from Kena to Halfa, and thence by the Sudan Government Railway to Berber. It lies, therefore, approximately, between N. lat. 26° and 20°.