160 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

granite masses, around which the swift current roars and foams, and I can imagine that the descent must he very exciting, though perhaps less so than that of the Rapids of the St. Lawrence. Boats are towed up, under the superintendence of one of the rais, or captains of the Cataract. There are four of these officers, with a body of about two hundred men. The fee varies from two to four hundred piastres, according to the size of the boat. One third of the money is divided among the captains, and the remainder falls to the portion of the men.

This also includes the descent, and travellers going to the Second Cataract and back, pay half the fee on returning.

On the following morning we visited the ancient granite quarries of Assouan. They lie in the hills, south of the town, and more than a mile from the river. I never saw a more magnificent bed of rock. Its color is a light red, flecked with green, and its grain is very fine and nearly as solid as porphyry. An obelisk, one hundred feet long and twelve feet square at the base, still lies in the quarry, having been abandoned on account of a slight fissure near its summit. Grooves were afterward cut, for the purpose of separating it into blocks, but for some reason or other the design was not carried out.

In many parts of the quarry the method employed by the Egyptians to detach the enormous masses, is plainly to be seen. A shallow groove was first sunk along the line of fracture, after which mortices about three inches wide and four deep, were cut at short intervals, for the purpose of receiving wooden wedges. These having been driven firmly into their sockets, were saturated with water, and by their expansion forced the solid grain asunder.

We rode back to the Cleopatra with heavy hearts. Every