It was as though the brown weight of the river would drive the white men back to their own country.

The indescribable scent of Nile mud in the air told that the stream was falling and the next few miles would be no light thing for the whale-boats to overpass.

The desert ran down almost to the banks, where, among gray, red, and black hillocks, a camel-corps was encamped.

No man dared even for a day lose touch of the slow-moving boats; there had been no fighting for weeks past, and throughout all that time the Nile had never spared them.

Rapid had followed rapid, rock rock, and island-group island-group, till the rank and file had long since lost all count of direction and very nearly of time.