name very likely there, and the same with Herodotus," said the
dragoman gravely. "Both have been long worn away. But there on the
brown rock you will see Belzoni. And up higher is Gordon. There is
hardly a name famous in the Soudan which you will not find, if you like.
And now, with your permission, we shall take good-bye of our donkeys and
walk up the path, and you will see the river and the desert from the
summit of the top."

A minute or two of climbing brought them out upon the semicircular
platform which crowns the rock. Below them on the far side was a
perpendicular black cliff, a hundred and fifty feet high, with the
swirling, foam-streaked river roaring past its base. The swish of the
water and the low roar as it surged over the mid-stream boulders boomed
through the hot, stagnant air. Far up and far down they could see the
course of the river, a quarter of a mile in breadth, and running very
deep and strong, with sleek black eddies and occasional spoutings of
foam. On the other side was a frightful wilderness of black, scattered
rocks, which were the _debris_ carried down by the river at high flood.
In no direction were there any signs of human beings or their dwellings.

"On the far side," said the dragoman, waving his donkey-whip towards the
east, "is the military line which conducts Wady Halfa to Sarras.
Sarras lies to the south, under that black hill. Those two blue
mountains which you see very far away are in Dongola, more than a
hundred miles from Sarras. The railway there is forty miles long, and
has been much annoyed by the Dervishes, who are very glad to turn the
rails into spears. The telegraph wires are also much appreciated
thereby. Now, if you will kindly turn round, I will explain, also, what
we see upon the other side."

It was a view which, when once seen, must always haunt the mind.
Such an expanse of savage and unrelieved desert might be part of some
cold and burned-out planet rather than of this fertile and bountiful
earth. Away and away it stretched to die into a soft, violet haze in
the extremest distance. In the foreground the sand was of a bright
golden yellow, which was quite dazzling in the sunshine. Here and
there, in a scattered cordon, stood the six trusty negro soldiers
leaning motionless upon their rifles, and each throwing a shadow which
looked as solid as himself. But beyond this golden plain lay a low line
of those black slag-heaps, with yellow sand-valleys wi