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It might be taken for a Titan's hat-box; it was seven feet in diameter, and ten feet in height. On the 29th, after travelling in a S.W. by S. direction, we reached Kikuru. The march lasted for five hours over sun-cracked plains, growing the black jack, and ebony, and dwarf shrubs, above which numerous ant-hills of light chalky-coloured earth appeared like sand dunes.
In the center of the village, where the one main road that led from the main gate came to an abrupt end at a low mud wall, stood a house that was larger than the others and somewhat more neatly kept; there had been an effort made at sweeping the enclosure that surrounded it on all four sides, and there was even whitewash, peeling off in places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls.
It was Rabbit who, ignorant of the significance of that flapping bit of white, was taken unawares and ducked sidewise when Helen May, standing precariously on a rock beside the spring, cupped her hands around her sun-cracked lips and shouted "Vic!" at the top of her voice. She nearly fell off the rock when she saw the horse and rider so close.
And whilst this has been going on, sun-cracked lagoons and lakes, surrounded by good, if dry, feed have been lying unnoticed and useless, waiting for the time to come when they would be turned to account. Back from the main watercourses are countless natural reservoirs, that lie for years dry, and drought-smitten, save in an exceptional flood.
On this account it is the custom of the wise traveller in these parts always to cross a river before camping, for otherwise a flood may come down and detain him and his caravan on the wrong side of the stream for perhaps a week. Of course when the rain ceases, the floods as quickly subside, the rivers and dongas dry up, and the country once more resumes its normal sun-cracked appearance.
The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the Rocky Mountains, a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half a mile.
On the other side an equally desolate wilderness is bounded only by the distant Red Sea. Between these two huge and barren expanses Nubia writhes like a green sandworm along the course of the river. Here and there it disappears altogether, and the Nile runs between black and sun-cracked hills, with the orange drift-sand lying like glaciers in their valleys.
And when those ranks, with their parched throats and sun-cracked lips, were all ready, the Turkish guards opened the taps of the reservoirs, and allowed the whole of their contents to run away into the sand. Whether Jemal the Great planned that, or whether it was but a humorous freak on the part of the officials, I cannot say.
A rocky point which was a familiar landmark came into focus. He padded on, his chest heaving, his breath whistling through parched, sun-cracked lips. He did not know that his face was now a mask of driven resolution. "Hahhhhhh " The cry reached his dulled ears. Travis lifted his head, saw the men before him and tried to think what that show of weapons turned toward him could mean.
"Where did you fellows have your bullocks last night?" demanded Martin, his eye resting on the sun-cracked stucco which covered three-fourths of Damper's colossal personality. "And did you see a dark chestnut horse; bang tail; star and snip; white hind feet; saddle and bridle on?" I asked.
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