304 NOEÏH-EAST AFEICA. 



Semneh is the well-known place where Lepsius discovered numerous inscrip- 

 tions carved in the rock, indicating the height of the Nilotic floods during the 

 reign of Amenemha III., and showing how considerably the water-mark has been 

 changed during forty centuries. But even at a level much higher than that 

 reached by the floods in the time of the Pharaohs, labyrinths of polished rocks 

 are seen absolutely similar to those now washed by the present waters of the 

 river. Opposite the village of Emka, the rock is more deeply scored with a 

 horizontal line, which M. Pouchet believes to be the primitive level of the Nile 

 floods. Not far from this spot lies Wady-Sarras, the present (1885) terminus of 

 the railway which skirts the cataract. 



Wady-Halfa. 



"Wady- Haifa, or the " Valley of Reeds," is situated on the right bank of the 

 Nile, over a mile below the last rapid of the Second Cataract. A few fields and a 

 belt of palms growing in the sand surround the huts of this village, which has 

 become of great military and commercial importance as a station where the 

 caravans unload and reform. Moreover, Wady-Halfa, as the capital of the 

 frontier district, now enjoys an extensive administrative jurisdiction, the ofiicial 

 boundary of Egypt and Nubia having been transferred from the First to the Second 

 Cataract. During the campaign of 1884-5, the English here established their 

 principal provisioning depot in Nubia, and since 1875 the Egyptians have made it 

 the terminus of the railway which skirts the Cataracts, and which may ultimately 

 be pushed on to Dongola. 



A bridge will have to be raised at Koyeli, near Sioleh, below the Third Cataract, 

 so as to open up a route to the capital of Nubia across the western desert. In 

 order to surmount the rapids of Wady-Halfa, the English employed boats of a 

 special make, the guidance of which was intrusted to Canadian and Iroquois 

 boatmen, accustomed from their youth to sail down the rapids of the Canadian 

 rivers. May not the presence of these Iroquois boatmen on the Cataracts of the 

 Nile be taken as a striking proof of how greatly the size of the world has been 

 reduced by steam ? 



Derr — KoRosKO — Ibsambul. 



Till recently the population of Wady-Halfa was much smaller than that of 

 Dcrr, a village situated on the right bank of the river, its houses scattered amidst 

 groves of palms, in the most fertile part of Nubia, known by the name of Bostan, 

 or " the garden." 



The traffic of Wady-Halfa was also less important than that of the station of 

 Korosko, situated on the right bank, at the northern extremity of the caravan route 

 which avoids the great curve of the Nubian Nile. Between Wady-Halfa and 

 Derr the river flows by the foot of two temples which take their place amongst 

 the marvels of Egyptian art ; they are the monuments of Ibsambid, more com- 



