loS EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

reach of open water tlie Bordcin struck on a rock and was completely hung up. Fortunately it was bright moonlight, and men of both ships worked hard to get her off, but to no effect, and she had to be anchored till morning in the midst of a race and rush of water which, if the cable parted by a sudden slip of the vessel, would send her nobody quite knew where. All next day she lay while the natives working the sakiyehs or water-mills on the banks took shots at her with rifles, the blacks replying with fusillades which seemed to hurt nobody. Then the stores and ammunition had to be shifted, the soldiers landed, and by hauling on hawsers and manoeuvring the paddles she was at last got off amidst tremendous excitement.

It was late on the morning of the 26th of January before the Bordcin was quite clear, and then the men had to be got on board, and it was near noon when the two vessels were together again with the worst part of the cataract still to pass—the Shabloka Passage—through which the two captains were to take the Bordeiii first, and then return to bring up the other boat. The passage Avas through a channel of broken water studded with pointed rocks, and skirtinsf one of a larcfe number of wooded islands all said to be named Hassan, which are found in the cataract north of Shabloka. For some time all seemed to be going well, when there was a crash, and the steamer, shaking from stem to stern, was fast on a bank of sand from which the soldiers, standing in the shallow water, were unable to heave her off At last the captain went down the channel on the other side of the island to the west to fetch up the Talahawiyeh, which anchored on the other side of the sandbank, the soldiers having landed on the island and marched up. Both cajDtains were thus able to return in a small boat to the Bordcin, and she was eventually set free, the soldiers being landed to lighten her, and after much skilful piloting she reached her consort just before sundown.

Another day gone, and although there had been no shots fired at the boats during the short and difficult journey, a day of great exertion with but little result. The scene itself under other circumstances would have been worth loitering for. The wooded islands