Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/380

 804 NOETn-EAST AFRICA. ^ 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 official 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 Egj'ptians 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 Koyeh, near Soleb, 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 Derr, 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 Boston, 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 car{jvan 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 Ibsambul, more com-