Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/190

 before, for "the season" above the First Cataract is barely a fortnight old, and the calamity which has singled out the inhabitants of Atandan from all the other nameless groups of their fellow peasants along the Nile is itself not very much older.

But their tongues are soon unloosed when they know the object of our visit, and the information which they are all of them ready to pour out at once into the ears of our interpreter leaves nothing to be desired in point of quantity at any rate. Like the common people in all countries, they are proud of their tragic experience, and would not for a moment think of sparing us a single horror. Yes, it was just here that they slaughtered seven of us, and here—pointing to a wide-eyed Nubian boy with a ring through his left nostril—is the son of one of those whom they slew. This was his house; and we stoop our heads to pass under the low doorway of the hovel. A mud hut is not exactly a decorative building anywhere in the world; but to the inhabitants of