CHAPTER XIV

Two weeks after leaving the district of Wadi Halfa the caravan entered the land that had been conquered by the Mahdi. They galloped over the hilly desert of El-Gesireh (Dschesirah) and in the vicinity of Schendi, where the English had previously inflicted a crushing defeat upon Musa’s army, they crossed a district which in nowise resembled a desert. Here there were no sand plains or hillocks. As far as the eye could reach extended a steppe of partly green grass and jungle, where grew groups of the prickly acacias t…