CHRISTIAN REMAINS AT SOBA clear that we were digging among the ruins of a building which had been used for Christian worship. We, of course, did not disturb the bodies, and we filled in the holes which we had made. We then went and examined the remains of a stone gateway, which did not appear to be so old as the temple which we had just left.

Soon after returning to Khartum I found that Lieut. Lord had secured camels for our journey to Nagaa, and we left Khartum by train for Wad Ba Nagaa, where we arrived in the evening. The following morning we were joined by Mr. Nevile, of the Sudan Civil Service, and we all set out to ride up the khor to Nagaa, which lies on the right bank of the Nile, about eight hours* distance from the river. The ruins of the ancient city, the site of which is marked by the remains of some temples, are in the Wadi al-Kirbikan, a few miles to the north of the point from which we started. We rode through a barren, stony waste for some three or four hours, and soon after passed Gebel Buwerib ; we then entered the Wadi Awateb, and journeying through a region filled with bushes, small trees, and halfa grass, all of which grew in a soft rich soil, we came in three hours more to the side of the stony hill on which are to be found the remains of several temples. In some places we found the ground still wet with the rains of the previous summer, which had been dammed up b}' long barriers made of earth, stones, &c. Every here and there we saw traces of patches of cultivation, which proves that the natives on the river bank walk from sixteen to twenty miles in order to grow crops, and to lead their flocks to good grazing ground. On the way we passed a few gazelle, and as we came near Gebel An-Nagaa we saw a very large herd oi ariel. Hoskins and Ferlini relate that the Wadi Awateb was infested with lions when they were in the Sudan, and it will be remembered that the former was prevented from visiting the temples at Nagaa chiefly through the great fear which his men had of the lions in that place. Ferlini went to Nagaa, and began to clear out one of the temples there, but he tells us that he was obliged to spend a day in making a sort of zeriba to prevent the lions from attacking them at night.

The site of Nagaa is a very interesting one, and the extent of 325