THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN

grieved at this state of things ; for, according to him, it was

not long since the population was Christian, and the people

only lost the faith because there was no one who had zeal

enough to consecrate himself to the instruction of this abandoned

race. In proof of this assertion, M, Poncet mentions that on

their way they passed a great number of hermitages and churches

half ruined. A contributory cause of the ignorance and

misery of the district was, no doubt, the plague which ravaged

Egypt and Nubia in 1696, in which year it is said that ten

thousand people died daily. The town of Dongola stands on

the top of a dry and sandy hill on the east bank of the river,

and M. Poncet describes the houses as ill-built, and speaks of the

half-deserted streets filled with sand brought down from the

mountains by floods. The castle is in the middle of the town. From Dongola M. Poncet passed on to Korti, and his caravan

crossed the Bayuda Desert, and struck the Nile again at Gerri, a

place which seems to have been near the Sixth Cataract (Shab-

luka). The manner in which the Nile was crossed here struck

the traveller as being " somewhat singular." The men and goods

were placed in the same boat, but the beasts had to swim across,

their heads being tied to the boat. The poof creatures suffered

greatly by this clumsy method, and many were drowned, for,

although the Nile is not wide at that place, the current is strong and the water deep. From this point M. Poncet travelled to

Halfaya, and thence into Ethiopia in a north-easterly direction, and the remainder of his narrative deals with that country. The

information which he supplies about Nubia and the Sudan is

meagre, but it must be remembered that his destination was

Ethiopia. Could he have devoted to the Valley of the Nile the same time and attention which he gave to that country he would

certainly have produced a very instructive book.

The next traveller to the Sudan of whom mention must be made was M. le Noir du Roule, who was appointed to

succeed Poncet, and to conduct a mission to the King of Abyssinia on behalf of Louis XIV., the famous patron of the arts and

sciences and learning generally. It seems that towards the close

of the seventeenth century a serious dispute broke out between the

Italian missionaries of the reformed order of St. Francis, who

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