THE SECOND CATARACT. 483 gurgling up amid chaotic heaps of rocks as if from subterranean sources, foaming and fretting their difficult way round endless islands and reefs, meeting and separating, seeking every where an outlet and finding none, till at last, as if weary of the long contest, the rocks recede, and the united waters spread themselves out, sluggish and exhausted, on the sands below. It is a wonderful picture of strife between two material forces, but so intricate and labyrinthine in its features, that the eye can scarcely succeed in separating them, or in viewing it other than as a whole. The streams, in their thousand windings, appear to flow towards all points of the compass, and from their continual noise and motion on all sides, the whole fantastic wilderness of rock seems to heave and tug, as it is throttled by the furious waters. This is the last great struggle and triumph of the Nile. Henceforth, his tortured •waters find repose. He goes down to Egypt as a conquered crowned with a double majesty after all his toils. Is it to be wondered at, that the ancient race which existed by his bounty, should worship him as a Grod ?

But by this time we saw our baggage-camels, like specks on the sand, approaching Wadi Haifa. Ali, unable to contain himself, started off on a run, and we soon lost sight of him. I mounted my faithful big dromedary, Abou-Sin, and after two more hours on his lofty hump, dismounted at the ferry-place, opposite "Wadi Haifa, never, alas ! to mount him again. A boat with a company of merchants from Cairo had just arrived, and the sailors were unloading their packages of merchandise.

The merchants came up and saluted me, and could scarcely believe that I had been so far as the White Nile. They were bound for Dongola, and one of them, learning that my brown