56 NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



cultivated. Farther north the right bank is skirted by a chaos of extinct 

 volcanoes forming a continuation to the rocks of the cataract. Cones, craters, 

 rugged crags, mounds of indurated ashes, hillocks of lava, stand out with their 

 thousand varied forms against the horizon of the Libyan desert. 



The " first " cataract, that of Asuan, is neither so long nor so uniform as that 

 of "Wadi-Halfa, nor does it present the same desolate appearance, but it none the 

 less deserves the name bequeathed to us by the ancients. It also consists of a 

 series of rapids endlessly ramifying amid the granite rocks of divers forms and 

 colours, mostly destitute of vegetation, but offering here and there grand or charming 

 pictures with their piled up rocks amid the foaming waters, and their picturesque 

 groups of palms, tamarinds, or thickets festooned with lianas. The approaches of 

 the cataract are guarded above by the island of Philse, at once a temple and a 

 garden ; and below by Elephantine, the " Island of Flowers," whose beauties are 

 mirrored in the waters of the stream. Their historical memories and associations 

 also contribute to render the sight of these rapids one of those spectacles that 

 challenge the attention of the observer in the highest degree, and that leave an 

 indelible impression on the memory. Here is the " gate " of Egypt ; here, since 

 the commencement of recorded history, we trace, as it were, a visible boundary 

 between two worlds. By a remarkable coincidence this boundary is almost 

 indicated by the Tropic of Cancer, for it was close to Asuan that for the first time 

 astronomers saw, at the summer solstice, the sundials deprived of their shadow and 

 the wells pierced to the bottom by the solar rays. Another world began for them 

 beyond this ideal line ; it seemed to them as if in the torrid everything must 

 contrast with the phenomena of the temperate zone. Even at the present day we 

 are easily led to exaggerate all the local differences between the regions stretching 

 on either side of the cataract and the populations inhabiting them. 



At high water the navigation is not arrested along this so-called cataract. 

 Boatmen pass with safety up and down ; but at low water the passage either way 

 on the thousand arms of " Neptime's vast staircase " is only to be accomplished by 

 the aid of the "chellala," or "men of the cataract," who tow or check the boats 

 by means of hawsers. About fifty large dhahabiyé, engaged by the tourists, yearly 

 brave the dangers of the falls, and thanks to the experienced pilots employed, 

 accidents are rare. The skill of the boatmen in descending the cataracts displays 

 itself in keeping the boat on the central crest formed by the stream, at times rising 

 six or even more feet above the main body of water skirting the rocks ; from the 

 top of this moving hill the pilot commands the foaming rapids. The moment the 

 boat swerves right or left from the crest of the wave the danger begins ; if the 

 sailors are unable to redirect it into the current by oar or rudder, it is inevitably 

 dragged into the eddies at the sides and exposed to the rocks, compared by the Arabs 

 to monsters who " bite " it to pieces as it is borne along. 



At the sight of these rapids it may be asked, while allowing for the poetical 

 exaggeration of the ancient descriptions, whether the obstructing reefs were not 

 much higher two thousand years ago, and whether the Nile did not at that period 

 form a veritable fall. Tn fact, it is probable that the river then fell in a cascade 



