These questions are my own special province, I deal with them as an expert though writing so briefly, but in the rest of the book I have made no attempt at writing a treatise on anthropology or a guide book to the Sudan coast, but only to present what is to me beautiful, interesting or amusing in the places and people as I see them. What I describe I write of with all the accuracy of which my words are capable; so far as it goes, all is strictly true. But alas, no one has yet written of the beauty of this desert coast as it should be written. Could I describe one half the beauty of the memory pictures I owe to this country, I should be a poet, whereas I am only a man of facts. I wonder much at the neglect of this route through the Red Sea by those who make extended journeys on the Nile. From Atbara a perfectly comfortable train journey carries one swiftly through desert and mountains to either Port Sudan or Suakin. I trust that I have written clearly enough to prove that a few days on this coast is time well spent. Finally, this route to Khartum and Uganda is a quicker and cheaper one than that by the Nile. Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner’s reading and criticism of what follows is but one of many kindnesses, and is especially valuable in the case of the chapters on corals and reefs, of which our knowledge has been so greatly added to by Prof. Gardiner’s researches. CYRIL CROSSLAND. WINDERMERE, _September_ 1912. POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE On reading my book for the press I find that it has a moral, a thing never intended! It is that real romance and beauty are to be found in things as they are, so that the man of science, popularly supposed to be hardened by “materialistic” pursuits, has opportunities for a truer worship than has the sentimentalist who bows before idols of his own imagination. I tender my thanks to the Council of the Linnean Society who have permitted the reproduction of most of the illustrations of Chapter IX and some of those of Chapter VIII from my papers in their _Journal_, vol. xxxi, in which the account of Red Sea Structure was originally published for Scientific readers, and to Messrs Murray and the Challenger Society for the use of two diagrams from their _Science of the Sea_. The beautiful photograph of a Suakin mosque is by my friend W. H. Lake, Esq. CYRIL CROSSLAND. DONGONAB, RED SEA. _Sept._ 1913. CONTENTS PART I THE DESERT AND ITS PEOPLE PAGE PREFACE vii CHAPTER I THE SUDAN COAST