On March 30 we reached Gumaza. I had the luck to bring down a fine buck gazelle while we were on the road. In the evening Dupuis and I made practice at the crocodiles in the river, and their numbers were shown by the commotion that they made in the pools. The next day we pushed on across the desert towards Berber and slept in the open. On April 1 our road lay through similar country. Sometimes a gazelle would scamper away in the distance, but often nothing was to be seen but sand and mirage. And then suddenly we were confronted by vestiges of civilization. When we were not far from the Atbara battle-field we saw the unmistakable traces of a traction engine. About eleven o’clock dome palms were in sight, and we reached a rest-house beside the river half an hour later. After lunch we heard the jerky puffing of a petrol motor, and rushed out to see what was approaching. It was a heavy engine dragging a car, and the tracks which we had discerned were accounted for. The Englishman in charge told us that he had carried a tombstone to the battlefield; it had been erected on an officer’s grave. He added that he could travel six miles an hour in the desert, but that petrol was very expensive in Berber, where it cost ten shillings a gallon; so he had come to the rest-house to await a troop of forty mules, which were to drag the engine and car back to the town. [Illustration: LORD KITCHENER’S BRIDGE OVER THE ATBARA, NEAR BERBER. _See p._ 214.] On April 2 we reached the bridge over the Atbara—_monumentum ære perennius_, if Lord Kitchener’s energy and perseverance receive their deserts from posterity. It was strange to us to see a railway train, and hear the whistle of a locomotive once more. On the next day we arrived at Berber. Here we were in full contact with civilization, and here, practically, the duties of the expedition ended, for we followed the ordinary train and steamer route to our journey’s end. Here, too, I will take leave of my reader, hoping that the long excursion from Khartoum has not wearied him, and will only add my conviction that a splendid future lies before the Eastern Soudan, and before Abyssinia, _after_ the clouds have gathered over that country and burst. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: A khor is a gully or gorge formed by the rush of rain in the wet season. It is a watercourse at that time, but a dry ravine during the rest of the year.] [Footnote 2: Kneel.] [Footnote 3: These bottles were of aluminium covered with felt. Before we started on the day’s march, the felt was soaked in water, and the evaporation from it tended to keep the drinking supply cool.] [Footnote 4: Lieutenant-Colonel.] [Footnote 5: Governor.] [Footnote 6: Chief baggage-man.]