18 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

Our boat would not go on, and every moment we stuck on one

or other of the many sandbanks of the river. Our rais had

to be threatened with the kurbash (a whip made of the hide

-of the Nile-horse, or giraffe, both excellent), and he confessed

that he expected the proper rais, his brother, to whom he had sent

notice of his being compelled to sail the boat, as he himself dared

not venture to take her through the cataracts. Nor were my re-

collections of these, as I saw them on the way up, most pleasant,

although they had made a far less lasting impression on my mind

than the splendid scenery had done ; as when coming, as if from a

prison, out of the six or seven miles long rapids (el Bad) of Geb'l

Charri, all appeared so glorious, and we seemed to have arrived in

a new land. Ere long the brother came down to the banks, and we got him aboard, but hardly were we again afloat, when he again ran us ashore on the rocks at the first tschellel or foaming

rapids,—a special term for the white waters of rushing falls,—and

instantly the whole bottom of the boat was filled with water, he

howling like an old woman, as he feared for his head if he lost the

•boat. In consequence of my exertions during the last days in

•Chartura, I had, for the three days we had now been on the water,

been suffering from fever, attended with vomitings and diarrhcca weak and miserable as I was, I could not have saved myself by

swimming, had it been necessary, but, as I knew that our boat could

not sink deeper than the bottom, and that it was now firm and fast on the rocks, as the ark on Mount Ararat, I felt no alarm and con-

soled the others. The holes and splits of our really almost un-

serviceable craft were stopped up, and the rais and crew made

desperate efforts to get it off the water-covered rocks. With much

naivete the former prayed us all to get out for a single moment, which brought down on him a volley of curses and abuse from my

companions, who would hear of nothing of the sort. The hot fit

of my fever was past ; so I took off all my upper garments, keep-

ing, however, my slioes on, so that my feet might not be cut by the

anany thornmussels (etheria, Caill.), and sending Achmet first into

the water, slid, feeble as I was, down after him: on this, the others

followed my example, and in a few seconds we again had our

heavy-laden bark afloat. Hardly had the boasting rais again begun

his lies, that he was at home in Assuan, and knew the Nile as well