Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/187

 bank the previous night, you may dimly descry one of them doing sentry-go along the dusty shore. At the great rock-temple of Abu Simbel he was to be seen patrolling one of the lower ledges of the sandstone rock, in front of the four gigantic Colossi, looming awful in the dawn-light, with a peculiarly weird effect. At the end of the hours ride into the desert, which must be taken to reach the rock of Abu Sir, with its view of the Second Cataract, you note the figure of a black soldier silhouetted against the sky on every rocky knoll around you—a look-out man on the watch for any approaching troop of men, visible as they would be for leagues of distance over this boundless waste.

On board our trusty Soudanese appear to pass their time cheerily enough in their quarters on the lower deck, where one may find the men who have been on guard during the night now sleeping like so many logs of black bog-oak, while their comrades sit