202 " CREAVE JUNCTION " OF THE NILE the race, and its flood comes down first ; then comes the Blue Nile, but its waters are held up by the force of the earher torrent, and, backing into the more upstream bed, fill it and form a natural reservoir. Precisely the same occurs as between the Blue Nile and the Sobat, so that not till the Atbara commences to slacken does the Blue Nile come fully into play, and only after the latter has finished its turn does the Sobat come in. There is thus a natural regulation and prolongation of supply, which is artificially augmented by the great dam at Assuan.

The explanations of the ancients respecting the rise and fall of the Nile are interesting and amusing.

For eighty miles or so from the most southerly point of the White Nile, the river, now over 500 miles to the south of Khartoum, flows almost due east from the west, as the Nasamonians of Herodotus reported, and at Lake No the Mountain Nile joins from the south at right angles. There is thus, as between the White Nile and the JNIountain Nile, a rectangular shoulder, across which a branch or short-cut of the river runs diagonally. This is the Bahr-el-Zeraf, or Giraffe River, very well named, for many of these creatures were seen in the course of the next few days.

The entrance to the Zeraf was most abrupt. From the great waters of the wide Nile one's eyes suddenly fell on grassy plains on either side of the steamer, and almost touching the sandals alongside.

The effect produced was as if we were sailing across