In the middle of the day we see several crocodiles at the tip of an islet.

March 2nd, 1850, 11am

In the middle of the day we see several crocodiles at the tip of an islet. When the cangia approaches, they slip down into the water like big slugs. We walk on the sandy island for an hour, finding nothing. At the end of the island, I kill a small vulture.

Hamameh. In the evening, we anchor at Hamameh, in front of Dandarah - it becomes big - doum palms: this tree makes one think of a painted tree. Small wood, with men in blue dresses seated at their feet, smoking their pipes. At sunset, the green becomes arch-green (we enter another kind of nature, agriculture disappears), the Arabic Range is wine-red, the whole landscape is enormous. A fisherman tries to sell us a stuffed crocodile. Dog howling dreadfully at his side. We walk over several “shadufs” [water wheels] to go into the field where the crocodile was.


Paul and David Wade said thanks.

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Gustave Flaubert

"Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." [extracts from Flaubert's travel diary written in 1849-1851]

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