Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/312

 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 Wolseley 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 Shcndi, 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 fur 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 Githat, 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 — Merge. 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 Naga, 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-Roman style satisfied him that the town was still in existence at a relatively modem period. Since then, Lepsius discovered a Roman 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 Mesaurat. The central building, whose ruins are still visible, is one of the largest known edifices, being 2,900 feet in circumference; its columns, fluted and sculptured, but without hieroglvphics, are evidently of Greek architecture, and whilst Cailliaud thinks it was a priest's college, Hoskin imagines it to have been a royal country seat.