Calder lifted his eyes and looked to his right and his left across glaring sand and barren rocks shaped roughly into the hard forms of pyramids.

The narrow meagre strip of green close by the water's edge upon each bank was the only response which the Soudan made to Spring and Summer and the beneficent rain.

A callous country inhabited by a callous people.
[Footnote 2: The native bedstead of matting woven across a four-legged frame.] Calder looked downwards again to the angareb upon the barge's deck and the figure lying upon it.

Whether it was man or woman he could not tell.

The black veil lay close about the face, outlining the nose, the hollows of the eyes and the mouth; but whether the lips wore a moustache and the chin a beard, it did not reveal.
The slanting sunlight crept nearer and nearer to the angareb.