THE NILE CATARACTS. 
513 
slants of water down which, amid all the fury and turmoil of the 
raging river, a boat can live. 
Neither is the force and violence with which the pent torrent rushes 
down these rocky slopes at all exaggerated. 
It is difficult to imagine a more resistless impression of water power 
than that which is to be seen at any of the Bab el Kebirs or Big Gates 
of the cataracts between Wady Haifa and Dongola, and still more in 
the long series which intervene between Dongola and Abu Hamed. 
But whether the ancients were, or were not, extravagant in their 
ideas of the dangers of the cataracts, there can be little doubt that 
they understood the use to which the Nile could be put better than we 
understand them to-day. 
All the wonders of old Egypt were the work of the Nile ; the 
pyramids were built by the river, and could not have been possible 
without it; the gigantic stones were hewn by the shores of the river 
when it was low, and floated on rafts to the site of the colossal works 
when the water rose in the inundation. The obelisks which now adorn 
the squares and central places of the capitals of the world were quarried 
at Assouan, on the edge of the first cataract, and thence floated off to 
Thebes, to Memphis, or the Delta. The cities of Egypt, even as late 
as the fifth century before our era, were reckoned at 20,000. Alexandria, 
under the Ptolomies, had a population of two million souls; the 
Egyptian army numbered 200,000 infantry, 40,000 cavalry, 300 
elephants, and 200 chariots. In the navy, which numbered 112 vessels 
of the largest class, there was one ship which was 420 feet in length, 
and 45 feet in beam. But perhaps the most extraordinary proof of the 
greatness of old Egypt, and of the sense of justice which pervaded 
her governing powers and financial authorities, was the fact which we 
are told on the authority of a most veracious Homan historian, that the 
daily pay of an officer in the Egyptian army was £3 17s. 7d.; unfort¬ 
unately, we are still in the dark as to what his mess and wine bills 
may have been. 
Well, although this magnificence and opulence has long ago vanished, 
and Egypt has become the mightiest ruin on the earth, there are still 
connected with the Nile so many strange facts and peculiar phases 
that make it still what a learned French historian described it 150 
years ago, “ a wonder so astonishing in itself that it has been the object 
of the curiosity and admiration of the learned in all ages.” 
Dealing with it in its physical aspect, we are struck with certain 
facts which mark it as different from other rivers. It had once seven 
mouths, now it has only two, and although these mouths have been 
longer known to man than those of any other river, it is doubtful 
whether the real source of the extreme head has yet been discovered. 
The river in its general course has few bends, usually pursuing a 
channel which is visible for miles in immense reaches; but it has the 
biggest bend of any river, flowing almost back upon its original course 
at Abu Hamed to Debbah, where it again turns north ; but perhaps 
its strangest feature is that for the last 1800 miles of its course, the 
further it is ascended the larger it becomes, and that peculiarity 
