THE DESERT TRACK OF THE NILE. 509 



proposed expedition, furnished but little information of 

 a precise or reliable nature ; and though from the maps 

 it appeared that there were but six principal cataracts, 

 officers who accompanied the boats report that be- 

 tween the second and third cataracts, the river is 

 almost constantly impeded by rocks and rapids of 

 more or less serious character, throughout a section of 

 the river upwards of 200 miles in length. From the 

 third to the fourth cataract, some distance above 

 Korti, the point where the British expedition stopped 

 in their ascent of the river, its course is fairly clear 

 of obstruction, but from the fourth to the fifth cataract, 

 near Berber, the whole river is again a succession of 

 rocks, falls and rapids. From Berber to Khartum, it 

 once more becomes tolerably clear, and is impeded 

 only by the sixth or " Shabloka " cataract, some 55 

 miles below Khartum, which however is of a com- 

 paratively mild description, as General Gordon's 

 steamers used to pass it in safety, except at the 

 lowest stage of the water. Such described, as briefly 

 as we can, is the course of the Nile as far as the 

 now celebrated city of Khartum: and it may serve 

 to give some idea of the length of its course to the 

 great lakes, if we say that roughly speaking it is 

 nearly 1000 miles from the sea to the head of naviga- 

 tion, at the second cataract; and that the traveller 

 there finds himself in or about half-way, by river, to 

 Khartum, and when he arrives at Khartum, he will 

 then be about half-way to the Victoria Nyanza. These 

 distances however the reader must be careful to 

 remember are merely approximate: for in fact the 

 real length of the great river channel has never 

 been surveyed, and is still but very imperfectly known, 



