_Plate I_ [Illustration: Fig. 1. Coast of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Sandstone hills shaded, _small_ islands black. Coastline double, the outer line being the edge of the fringing reef. The thin lines enclosing roughly oval or elongated areas at sea are the barrier reefs. Figures on sea represent depths in fathoms.] DESERT AND WATER GARDENS OF THE RED SEA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS London: FETTER LANE, E.C. C. F. CLAY, MANAGER [Illustration] Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET London: WILLIAM WESLEY & SON, 28, ESSEX STREET, STRAND Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO. Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. _All rights reserved_ _Plate III_ [Illustration: Fig. 3. A sandstorm seen from among the Barrier Reefs] =DESERT AND WATER GARDENS OF THE RED SEA= BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVES AND THE SHORE FORMATIONS OF THE COAST BY CYRIL CROSSLAND M.A. Cantab., B.Sc. Lond., F.L.S., F.Z.S. Marine Biologist to the Sudan Government Cambridge: at the University Press 1913 Cambridge: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS TO MY WIFE TO WHOSE BRAVE ENDURANCE OF A LARGE SHARE OF MY EXILE IS OWING MUCH OF WHATEVER I HAVE ACHIEVED, OR OF WHAT SUCCESS MAY YET BE MINE PREFACE It is my fortune to know intimately a portion of the Red Sea coast, that between 18° N. and 22° N. on the western side. This must be one of the least known coastlines of the world. Until 1905, the Admiralty Chart shewed an area of 25 square miles of reef, which the surveys run for the approaches to the new town of Port Sudan have proved to be non-existent. Though a considerable distance north of this point has now been accurately surveyed, practically no details of the great barrier system of reefs leading up to the Rawaya Peninsula, or of the land inside the coastline, have yet been mapped. As I shall shew later, certain features of the maritime plain are of the greatest interest, but they have only been hurriedly examined by Mr Dunn, one of the Sudan Government geologists; and no survey of the country has yet been made.