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of Nubian people continually being displaced by a government extending its infrastructure
and power. This was a world in which a strict code of hospitality sat side by side with daily
human-rights' abuse.
'Don't get used to it, Lev,' said Will as we tramped, one final mile, down the river. 'It
isn't every day you'll hear an African begging for the British to come back . . .'
The town of Karima stretched out in front of us, surrounded on all sides by date plant-
ations. Through the trees ran a single railway track - still plied by Sudanese trains, but
yet another relic left behind by the British. I realised, then, that we had been seeing it
everywhere, the stamp the British had left on this land - and not only in the railways and
roads, the decaying barracks buildings or the brass plaques in the towns that harked back
to the English companies who had once worked here: SHEFFIELD STEEL, STOKE-ON-TRENT
CERAMIC, WATERWORKS OF BIRMINGHAM . We were seeing it in the hearts and minds of the
people as well, the memories of those old enough to have been there then, and the stories
handed down to those who had not.
Old British tractors rotted in fields and old British steam engines lay overgrown with
weeds. By the Nile old English water pumps formed a rusting metal memorial to a bygone
age. It had been the Golden Age for Sudan. In spite of defeat at the hands of Kitchener,
the Sudan had become a breadbasket for North Africa, producing wheat and a seemingly
endless supply of cotton for a needy Empire. Here the Nile looked verdant, especially after
three hundred miles of barren desert. I'd fallen in love with the river once more, and with,
I hoped, only a fortnight of walking to reach the Egyptian border, I was doubly excited.
Still sand-blasted and bedraggled, we followed the tracks into town. It was time for an-
other snatch at civilisation before we followed the river onwards.
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