Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/91

 may not have flowed through this breach towards the Red Sea. Beaches of rolled pebbles, which could only have been deposited by running waters, are found in this gorge both on the slope of the Nile and on that of the sea. It is probably these traces of a former channel that have suggested to the vivid imagination of the

Arabs the idea that it would be easy to divert the Nile into its former bed, always supposing that this ravine did once receive the waters of the river. But if the course of the Nile cannot be deflected into this lateral gully, it would at least be easy to construct a railway through it, which would make the port of Koseïr the