six in the morning
On the deserted track between Berber and Suakin the wells of Obak are sunk deep amongst mounds of shifting sand . Eastward a belt of trees divides the dunes from a hard stony plain built upon with granite hills ; westward the desert stretches for fifty-eight waterless miles to Mahobey and Berber on the Nile , a desert so flat that the merest tuft of grass knee-high seems at the distance of a mile a tree promising shade for a noonday halt , and a pile of stones no bigger than one might see by the side of any roadway in repair achieves the stature of a considerable hill . In this particular May there could be no spot more desolate than the wells of Obak . The sun blazed upon it from six in the morning with an intolerable heat , and all night the wind blew across it piercingly cold , and played with the sand as it would , building pyramids house-high and levelling them , tunnelling valleys , silting up long slopes , so that the face of the country was continually changed . The vultures and the sand-grouse held it undisturbed in a perpetual tenancy . And to make the spot yet more desolate , there remained scattered here and there the bleached bones and skeletons of camels to bear evidence that about these wells once the caravans had crossed and halted ; and the remnants of a house built of branches bent in hoops showed that once Arabs had herded their goats and made their habitation there . Now the sun rose and set , and the hot sky pressed upon an empty round of honey-coloured earth .