KURRU AND ZUMA formed the necropolis of another royaV Nubian family. They are called the " Pyramids of Zuma," and stand near the village of that name, between the mountains and the river. Behind them, near the mountains, is the ruin of an old fort, called " Kal'at An Nagil," i.e., the " Castle of Nagil " : the natives said that it was built by an ancient king of the country, but in reality nothing is known of its builder. Lepsius states ' that the front walls were "only destroyed and thrown down about fifty or sixty years ago," i.e., about 1780, when the inhabitants of Zuma settled there, and he records a tradition to the effect that when the fort was built the surrounding land, now dry, was still within reach of the Nile, and it is said to have been fertile. During the last hundred years a large quantity of land on both sides of the river has gone out of cultivation, chiefly through the supineness of the natives. They build water-wheels, and dig shallow canals to carry the water to their fields, but they take no trouble to remove the sand which drifts over their ground, and chokes the canals, and buries the plots wherein the dhurra is grown, and in a few years the land becomes unworkable. No man takes the trouble to grow more grain than he wants, and no man will take any trouble about his property unless he considers it absolutely necessary.

In ancient times this district must have supported a large population, and whole tracts of country which are now covered with sand must at one time have been cultivated, and one of the chief causes of the decay in the cities which once stood near the foot of the Fourth Cataract was, undoubtedly, the failure of the land to supply sufficient grain for their inhabitants. The freaks of the Nile and the drift-sand of the desert were probably responsible in the first instance for this failure, and the laziness and apathy of the people completed what the river began.

Between Kurru and Merawi there are no remains of ancient Nubian buildings or pyramids, but not far from the latter village, close to the mountains, small, rectangular slabs of stone, inscribed in Coptic with funeral texts, have been found, and these seem to indicate that a Christian community was settled there perhaps before the Muhammadan conquest of Egypt. From Shibba, a village just beyond Merawi, the striking mass of sandstone known ' " Letters," p. 230.

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