. Egyptian birds for the most part seen in the Nile valley . bird, anyhow by name, andbeing here, very naturally desire to see it. Thedragoman, being asked so frequently to point outSacred Ibises, long ago settled that it would bebest to please and humour his patrons, and deter-mined to call all Egrets, Spoonbills, and BufF-backed Herons, being white birds with long necksand legs. Sacred Ibises. Time after time I havebeen solemnly informed that four or five, or around dozen. Ibises had been seen at such a inquiry I liave been told there could be nomistake, as dear So-and-so, the drago
. Egyptian birds for the most part seen in the Nile valley . bird, anyhow by name, andbeing here, very naturally desire to see it. Thedragoman, being asked so frequently to point outSacred Ibises, long ago settled that it would bebest to please and humour his patrons, and deter-mined to call all Egrets, Spoonbills, and BufF-backed Herons, being white birds with long necksand legs. Sacred Ibises. Time after time I havebeen solemnly informed that four or five, or around dozen. Ibises had been seen at such a inquiry I liave been told there could be nomistake, as dear So-and-so, the dragoman, hadpointed them out and assured all and sundry thatthey were genuine Sacred Ibis. And thoughstrange, it is true, people prefer to believe a lie ifit confirms what they wish, than the truth if itdoes not. The sad truth is, there are no SacredIbises in Egypt at all, and the dragomans—any-how, most of them—know this elementary bit ofornithology perfectly well, but they prefer to lie,and live in the perpetual atmosphere of mild SACRED IBIS AND PAPYRUS. THE SACRED IBIS 133 admiration and interest that follows their everyutterance. No, the first place that you can at allsafely look for Ibis in is south of Kartoom. Itneeds the great jungle-like brakes of papyrus thatgrow rampantly along the river-course, and whichhelp to constitute the dread sudd of thosewaters. Immense masses of it, we are told, gettorn off and detached when the new years floodcomes rushing down, and along with other masses gofloating onwards till they meet with some stoppageand then they form a dam, new masses comingdown and down, till there may be miles of thisfloating jungle, which can, and does, get so packedand compressed by the weight behind it that itbecomes nearly solid. In country like that theIbis lives, and that is, all will see at once, not thecountry that Egypt is like, and therefore the Ibisis an absentee from the big, gently-flowing Nilefrom Assoan to Alexandria. Was it ever commonin ancient E
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidcu319240, booksubjectbirds
