A white bird on the bank looked
at it, and rose with a startled note of alarm, and a flight of
lovely-salmon-coloured colleagues followed. The others merely
looked up and paused, with their wings wide stretched, and then
went on calmly with their toilets--they had seen it before.
In the launch, of which the whole centre was taken by the
naphtha-stove--the engine by courtesy--sat a young Englishman,
whose face had that frank, attractive look of one whose thoughts
are kindly, well disposed to all the world; and at stem and stern
stood, erect and silent, the white-clothed figure of a boy from
the Soudan. Lithe, graceful forms supported long necks and
straight-featured faces, black as if carved out of smooth ebony,
and contrasting strangely with the white turbans of stiff linen
twisted deftly into a high crest above the brows. Swiftly the
little boat ran on for a mile or two against wind, with its three
silent and motionless occupants; then one boy turned, and
pronounced solemnly the two words, "Mister, Omdurman!"
This was accompanied with a gracious wave of his hand towards the
bank, as he leant forward to stop the engine, and his companion
turned the boat to land.
Omdurman, as seen from the river level, looks like nothing but a
long streak of duller yellow on the real gold of the African sand.
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