[In the Heart of Africa by Samuel White Baker]@TWC D-Link book
In the Heart of Africa

CHAPTER I
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The firman was an order to all Egyptian officials for assistance; the cook was dirty and incapable; and the interpreter was nearly ignorant of English, although a professed polyglot.

With this small beginning, Africa was before me, and thus I commenced the search for the sources of the Nile.
On arrival at Korosko, twenty-six days from Cairo, we started across the Nubian Desert.

During the cool months, from November until February, the desert journey is not disagreeable; but the vast area of glowing sand exposed to the scorching sun of summer, in addition to the withering breath of the simoom, renders the forced march of two hundred and thirty miles in seven days, at two and a half miles per hour, one of the most fatiguing journeys that can be endured.
We entered a dead level plain of orange-colored sand, surrounded by pyramidical hills.

The surface was strewn with objects resembling cannon shot and grape of all sizes from a 32-pounder downward, and looked like the old battle-field of some infernal region--rocks glowing with heat, not a vestige of vegetation, barren, withering desolation.

The slow rocking step of the camels was most irksome, and, despite the heat, I dismounted to examine the Satanic bombs and cannon shot.


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