Next morning we were up at sunrise. We had not yet lost touch of the British breakfast-table, for we ate sausages and poached eggs. Then the camels were loaded and the tents were struck, and at mid-day we started—three Englishmen, six native servants, forty camels, and ten camel-men. Our route lay along the north bank of the Blue Nile, over a beaten track in a wilderness of loose sand. A few scattered thorny mimosa bushes are the only vegetation. I timed the camels and found they travelled about 3¼ miles an hour. At two o’clock the temperature was 104° F. in the shade, but all the surroundings were new to me, and I enjoyed the journey in spite of the monotony of the country. It is all bare desert, and one never loses sight of the mirage. At one point I watched a flock of goats, which looked exactly as if they were knee deep in water. We reached Soba, fourteen miles up the river, at sundown. Here there is a pleasant and clean little rest-house built of straw. We had kept ahead of our baggage-train, which arrived an hour later. People in England who speak of tea as refreshing do not know the full meaning of that word. The cups were filled for men who had fasted since breakfast at 7.30, except for a welcome drink of river water on arrival, and were served with biscuits and sardines. After this, the happiness of a wash, and an eight o’clock dinner. A meal of curry and rice and tinned roast beef is not a severe hardship, and the only _contretemps_ on our first day in the desert was the discovery that we must put ourselves on short rations of candles. A mistake had been made about the quantity ordered, and we were ill supplied. But there was a clear moon. We turned in to sleep in the open, and the sandflies found us and were glad; for we were fresh blood, and they were small enough to crawl through the meshes of the mosquito curtains. [Illustration: THE START AHEAD OF THE CARAVAN. _See p._ 4.] [Illustration: CHILDREN AT NO. 6 STATION, BETWEEN HALFA AND ABOU HAMED, EAT THE REMAINS OF LUNCH, CURRY AND RICE. _See p._ 2.] The first signs of dawn brought us out of bed next morning. We were in good luck; for the servants had kept a fire alight all night, and hot water was ready for us. There was beatitude in a warm bath after the plague of sandflies. We started at daybreak; there was no change in the track or the country. Heat, a high wind and dust spoiled the journey in the morning. We halted to lunch under the largest mimosa bush we could find, which gave as much shade as a telegraph pole.