47 — 
metres from Khartoum is the Shabluka or 6th cataract. Here the 
Kile descends 6 metres on a length of 18 kilometres. Two hundred 
and twenty kilometres below the cataract the Atbara flows into the 
Nile and repeats on a very small scale what the Blue Nile does at 
Khartoum. The Atbara is a flood torrent and is dry from October to 
May. In flood it discharges from a low maximum of 1,700 to a high 
maximum of 5,000 cubic metres per second, with a mean maximum 
of 3,500 cubic metres. 
In this reach the Nile has a maximum range of 8J metres and an 
ordinary range of 7 metres. 
Twenty -four kilometres downstream of the Atbara junction is Berber, 
and 45 kilometres downstream of Berber is the beginning of the 5th 
cataract, which has a length of 160 kilometres and a drop of 55 metres 
with three principal rapids, the Solimania, Bagg&ra and Mograt. The 
village of Abu Hamed is situated at the foot of this Cataract. Between 
Abu Hamed and Dongola is the 4th Cataract, which begins at a point 
97 kilometres downstream of Abu Hamed, and has a length of 110 
kilometres with a drop of 49 metres. In this series of rapids are the 
Um D&ras and Guerendid. Between the 4th and 3rd Cataracts is a 
reach of 313 kilometres on a slope x^To* On this reach is the town 
of Dongola. The 3rd Cataract has a length of 72 kilometres and a 
drop of 11 metres with the Hannek and Kaibar rapids, surveyed and 
levelled by De Gottberg in 1857. Upstream of the Hannek rapid, on 
the left bank of the Nile, is the termination of the long depression in 
the deserts which goes by the name of the Wady-el-Kab and is consi- 
dered by many as lower than the Nile valley. Between the 3rd and 
2nd Cataracts is an ordinary reach of 118 kilometres. West of this part 
of the Nile are the Selima Wells and according to some travellers an 
old abandoned course of the Nile slightly above the present high level 
of the river. This waterless river is said to terminate in the Oasis of 
Berys which is separated from the Khargeh Oasis by a limestone ridge. 
The 2nd Cataract, known as the “ Batn-el-Haggar ” or “Belly of 
Stone,” has a length of 200 kilometres and a drop of 66 metres with 
the rapids of Amara, Dal, Semna and Abka. At Semna are the rocks 
where Lepsius discovered the Nile gauges cut by one of the Pharaohs 
some 4,000 years ago. The Nile flood recorded there is 8 metres 
higher than any flood of to-day. As the Nile at Semna could be very 
easily barred by a dam, it struck me when I was there in 1892 that 
probably King Amenemhat (of Lake Mceris fame) had tried to bar the 
