The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 187

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THE. LUTHERAN PIONEER.

187

back to his tropical post. Two itinerant Americans
completed the boat’s company. For half the dis-
tance to Halfa the desert was saffron-colored,
sienna, burnt orange; in the high light of noon
it was golden. Most of us think of the Sahara as
composed of white or gray sand. On the contrary,
it is colorful. Often the ‘sand’ is broken rock, and
‘there are many ledges and ridges. Everywhere the
ground heaves and swells... .

“The desert Arabs live in desperate squalor, on
the fringe. On what they subsist is more or less
a mystery. ‘The hot sun burns up their filth;

‘

a soft haze; the next, a bright, hot sun assaulted
the land. Along the shore small palm-trees grew
delicately out of the water itself and gently waved
green branches at us. Off toward the horizon were
hummocks and pyramids of crumbly rock. Near
at hand an Arab mud village slept soundly and
odorously. Swarms of wispy gnats moved down
from nowhere to settle in our hair for additional
warmth. ...

“We asked one of our physician passengers if
the Sudan were a prosperous country. ‘Yes, on the
face of it,’ he replied, ‘but a country of calamities.

View of a Native African Village.

otherwise they must of necessity all die. The Nile
flows close by, but it is not used for bathing. Half
the inhabitants seem to have sore eyes, and the
sightless ones are everywhere... . [

“Tvidently the desert flies have been educated.
To tell a fly, ‘Go away,’ means nothing to it.
Always the Arabs were covered with contented flies.
We shooed them away. They ignored the warning.
They stayed where they were until they were

killed. ...

“The heat in the cabins of the small boat was
almost unendurable,-so we turned out at daybreak
and went on deck to breathe. We saw the sun rise

- over the desert. A huge brassy disk slid into place
with astonishing rapidity. One moment there was

One year there is no rain. The next year we have
a flood which washes away everything. A third
year we have famine. Then the natives say they
are bewitched and steal off into the jungle and
refuse to work. One year we have malaria, and the
next, sleeping sickness.’ These doctors are literally
giving their lives to save the black man from
savagery and ignorance and disease. Only the
lucky ones are likely to come out of the Sudan
- alive at the end of their period of voluntary servi-
tude. When one dies, another comes in. Their
salary is a pittance. Medical missionary work
yields about 100 per cent. results. At first the
natives. were afraid of the ‘medicine man’ from
civilization; but once their confidence was gained,