“Our first encampment had considerable pretensions to the picturesque. It was pitched beside a small lake with rocky banks—a portion of the Nile—where the date-trees looked luxuriantly verdant, and the refreshing aspect of the water suggested the bath I was very soon enjoying. The three white tents were arranged in a semi-circle, another being formed by the numerous boxes—a principal object was the fire, bearing four or five copper-pans, in which our dinner was cooking. Standing by, were the swarthy Arabs, peeling onions and potatoes, like English kitchen-maids; a little further on, a group of camels were devouring fresh-cut grass, whilst their drivers, at a convenient distance in another group, were eating with equal relish dates and bread. On the other side, the rest of the camels, and their drivers, were similarly occupied; near me the fifty hens were proceeding to devour the beans, that had been scattered for them, displaying a most pugnacious spirit at every heap, and making a prodigious noise and fluttering, to show their enjoyment of their liberty. The turkeys had selected the top of the hen-coop for their own place of rest, but some of the hens appeared to entertain the same ideas of its comfort, and then the former took violent measures to dispossess the intruders.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Use recipe for Health Food Muffins (see p. 67). After the first rising, while kneading, add two-thirds cup each of English walnut meats cut in small pieces, and dates stoned and cut in pieces. Shape in a loaf, let rise in pan, and bake fifty minutes in a moderate oven. This bread is well adapted for sandwiches.
Sources: The passage is from George Melly, Khartoum, and the Blue and White Niles, Vol. 2, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — plum cloth, sheaf stamp.