The useful dome palm is the chief
support of the desert Arabs when in times of drought and scarcity
the supply of corn has failed. At this season (June) there was
not a blade of even the withered grass of the desert oases. Our
donkeys lived exclusively upon the dhurra (Sorghum Egyptiaca)
that we carried with us, and the camels required a daily supply
of corn in addition to the dry twigs and bushes that formed their
dusty food. The margin of the river was miserable and uninviting;
the trees and bushes were entirely leafless from the intense
heat, as are the trees in England during winter. The only shade
was afforded by the evergreen dome palms; nevertheless, the Arabs
occupied the banks at intervals of three or four miles, wherever
a pool of water in some deep bend of the dried river's bed
offered an attraction; in such places were Arab villages or
camps, of the usual mat tents formed of the dome palm leaves.
Many pools were of considerable size and of great depth. In
flood-time a tremendous torrent sweeps down the course of the
Atbara, and the sudden bends of the river are hollowed out by the
force of the stream to a depth of twenty or thirty feet below the
level of the bed.
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