246 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



January 26th, 1885, when its heroic defender. General Gordon, and the Egyptian 

 garrison, with nearly all the Christians still in the place, were massacred. This 

 tragic event occurred only three days after the arrival at Metammeh of the advanced 

 division of the British expedition, organized by General Wolscley for the relief of 

 the place in the autumn of 1884. Thus the primary object of the expedition was 

 defeated, and Khartum became for some time the centre of the Mahdi's power in 

 the Upper Nile regions. 



A few villages succeed Khartum and the town of Halfaya along the banks of 

 the Nile. But for a distance of 120 miles no important place is met till we reach 

 Shendi, in the Jalin territory, which is a collection of square-shaped houses, cover- 

 ing a space of about half a square mile on the banks of the river. Shendi, situated 

 below the sixth cataract, in times of peace has a considerable trade with the towns 

 on the Abyssinian frontier. Opposite it, on the western bank of the Nile, is the 

 town of Metammeh, the depot of the products of northern Kordofan ; in the vicinity 

 the desert sand is washed in order to extract the salt which is mixed with it. 

 Shendi is the town where Ismail-pasha, the conqueror of Nubia and the banks of 

 the Blue Nile as far as Fazogl, received the punishment he so justly merited for 

 the massacres and devastations he had ordered ; having unsuspiciously come to a 

 banquet to which he had been invited by the chief of the district, he was burnt 

 alive with all his officers. But soon after his death was avenged by rivers of blood- 

 shed by the terrible " defterdar," son-in-law of Mohammed Ali. The village of 

 Gtibat, 2 miles south of Metammeh, was the extreme point reached by the British 

 expedition sent to the relief of Khartum and General Gordon in 1884—5. 



Naga — Merck. 



This region of Nubia is already comprised within the limits of the ancient 

 Ethiopia, a region where lived nations directly influenced by the general progress 

 of Egyptian civilisation. Numerous ruins attest the splendour of the ancient cities 

 here erected, and, according to the statements of the Arabs, the Europeans are still 

 acquainted with but few of the monuments concealed in the desert. At a day's 

 march south of Shendi, not far from the Jebel-Ardan, stand the two temples of 

 NcKja, covered with sculptures representing the victories of a king who bears the 

 titles of one of the Egyptian Pharaohs ; one of these buildings is approached by an 

 avenue of sphinxes. At the time of Cailliaud's visit no inscription revealed to him 

 the precise age of the temples of Naga, but the ornaments of the Greco-Boman 

 style satisfied him that the town was still in existence at a relatively modern period. 

 Since then, Lepsius discovered a lloman inscription, and several sculptures which 

 apparently represented Jupiter and Christ, 



About 12 miles north of Naga, in a desert valley, is a labyrinth of ruined 

 buildings and refuse which the Arabs have named Mesaiirat. The central building, 

 whose ruins are still visible, is one of the largest known edifices, being 2,900 feet 

 in circumference; its columns, fiuted and sculptured, but without hieroglyphics, 

 are evidently of Greek architecture, and whilst Cailliaud thinks it was a priest's 

 college, Iloskin imagines it to have been a royal country seat. 



