!( ROUTES Thus was reached the kingdom of Dar Fur, and the route between that country and Egypt has practically remained unchanged for \p century after century.

The journey from Lower Egypt to the Sudan by the desert was, I in some respects, more difficult than by river, but the desert route was, on the whole, safer, quicker, and cheaper. The four great chains of cataracts on the Nile between Syene and Berber must always have formed insuperable obstacles in the way of cheap river transport, and the long bends and windings of the river lengthened the journey to the Sudan by several hundreds of miles.

Egyptian merchants who traded with the Eastern Sudan could despatch their goods by two routes. By the first they followed the road described above until the Oasis of Selima was reached, and then, bearing to the south-east, marched to Dongola and Korti. Thence they crossed the Bayuda Desert to some spot on the Nile, nearly opposite to the modern town of Shendi, and having crossed the Nile, they proceeded in a south-easterly direction to the cities on the Blue Nile, where they disposed of their wares. By the second route, which lay to the east of the Nile, merchants sailed up the river into Upper Egypt, and, making some village near the modern town of Daraw their starting point, then proceeded in a direction almost due south until the Nile was again reached near the modern village of Abu Hamed. From this place they marched along the east bank, crossed the Atbara river, and continued their route to the settlement which must have stood near the modern town of Shendi. From Shendi they bore away in a south-easterly direction, crossed the eastern end of the Wadi of Nagaa, and then directed their steps to the cities on the Blue Nile. The first of these routes has always been the more popular, for the traveller by it escaped the journey through the terrible and practically waterless desert which extends from Daraw to Abu Hamed.

The questions which will force themselves naturally into the reader's mind are : — If the Sudan consists chiefly of waterless deserts, why should merchants or travellers journey thither ? And what is it that the Sudfin produces which has, in all periods of history, drawn men irresistibly into its remotest parts ? There are no manufactories in the country, the natives have never made with their hands any goods which would find such a ready sale in 509