UNA IN THE SUDAN Una must have made his way very far to the south, probably a considerable distance beyond the modern city of Khartum, or his mission may have taken him into the neighbourhood of Sennaar.

There seems to be no possible room for doubt that Una found the wood for his barges in the " big tree country," which is situated on the west bank of the White Nile, or on the Gazira, i.e., the land on the east bank between the White and Blue Niles. Another important fact is indicated by Una's narrative, namely, that the power of Egypt in the Sudan was sufficiently firmly established to induce the governor of the countries of the south to make the men of Uauat and other districts bring the wood necessary for building the barges and lighters.

Una and his men lived in Uauat for nearly a year, a fact which suggests that he waited until the inundation filled the river bed with water sufficiently deep to enable him to float his barges through the Cataracts without difficulty. He says nothing about trouble raised by the natives, so we may assume that about B.C. 3230 the relations between Egypt and the Sudan were of such a peaceful character that an Egyptian official could, at a distance of about sixteen hundred miles from Memiphis, the capital of Egypt, carry out his king's orders without let or hindrance. The wood used in building the barges is described as " shentch of Uauat," ' and the trees from which it was cut were, no doubt, finer and larger than the trees of the same species which are found in Egypt at the present day, and are called by the same name, i.e., sunt. The inscription of Una is a very valuable document, but it only supplies us with a certain amount of information about the works which he carried out for kings Pepi I. and Mer-en-Ra, and their Governments, and tells us nothing about the Sudan except from the point of view of an administrative officer. Fortunately, however, we are enabled to gain some idea of the possibilities of the country from a trader's point of view from the inscription of IJeErkhuf, the governor of Abu, the ancient frontier city of Egypt on the south, which was represented by Syene of the Greeks, and Aswan of the Arabs. This officer was a relative of the great chief Mekhu, whose tomb is at the top of the staircase which is cut in ]) AAA/VW 4p \ -Ip \ 519