CHAPTER VI.

SECOND MISSION TO THE SUDAN (1898).

WADi HALFA TO THE ATBARA AND BAGRAWIYA.

The examination of the pyramid fields of Tankasi, Kurru, Zdma, Gebel Barkal, and Niiri, and of the remains of the Nubian temples on both sides of the river near Merawi, which I made in 1897, produced few material results, but it succeeded in showing the plan according to which certain of the pyramids were built, and proved the necessity of making further mvestigations among the other pyramid fields of the Sudan. The descriptions and plans published by Cailliaud, Hoskins, and Lepsius suggested that a great deal of archaeological work still remained to be done in the Island of Meroe, and as general interest centred in the antiquities which were known to exist near Bagrawiya, a village on the east bank of the Nile, about forty-four miles south of the Atbara, and at Nagaa and Masawwarat, the Sirdar most kindly offered every facility for proceeding thither, and the Trustees of the British Museum sent me to the Sudan a second time. The instructions which I received directed me to visit in particular the Pyramids of Bagrawiya, and to report on the possibility and advisability of making excavations on the site. With this object in view I left London early in the winter of 1898, and proceeded to Aswan, where I found Captain O. Pedley and Sergeant-Major Kelham, who had given me such valuable assistance in 1897. The journey from Shellal to Haifa was uneventful, but there was abundant opportunity of examining the change which was beginning to manifest itself everywhere as the result of the Sirdar's signal victory over the Dervish forces at Omdurman on September 2nd. A new impetus had been given to trade in every direction, and the natives who lived to the south of Aswan felt that they 240 i