THE RIVER, THE CATARACTS, AND THE DESERT. 21 5 they have to depend on the direction of the wind. At Wady Haifa, however, water transport of an ordinary kind may be said to cease. The cataract itself is nine miles in length and the passages are narrow, winding, and dangerous. Even at high Nile, though the passage may be made, there is considerable risk and good pilotage is required, so that as the highest Nile occurs there about the third week in June, and only lasts fifteen days, during which alone boats of small draft can pass, the difficulties are almost insuperable, even to steamers drawing only three feet, except for this short period. The Nile valley between the first and second cataracts is only about a quarter of a mile wide, and beyond the narrow strip of cultivation on the banks extends a glaring reddish-coloured desert studded with black rocks. The distance between the second and third cataract (at Hannek) is only navigable at high Nile. At the head of the cataract, at the village of Haffir, the river flows in a broad bed between banks of the richest and best-cultivated land in Egypt; but between Wady Haifa and Saye Island in Dar-Sukkut, a distance of 140 miles, and before reaching the third cataract at Hannek, there are really eight cataracts, of which two are impassable at low Nile and difficult at high Nile, and the distance between Wad)- Haifa and Hannek is about 241 miles. The fourth cataract is above Barkal, and in the long journey between this and Abu Hamed, where there is the almost impassable cataract of Mogru Island, five miles long, there are 140 miles quite impassable at low Nile, and only to be passed by small boats at high Nile. Within this distance there are seven distinct cataracts known as the Cataracts of Shaikeyeh. Abu Hamed is, so to speak, the turning-point of the great loop of the river which incloses the Bayuda territory, and the stream then returns, and after the two cataracts of Abrashim and Bergerr reaches the fifth cataract at Drekeh and arrives at Berber, and so goes beyond the Atbara river to Shendy, and thence by the sixth cataract to Khartum. The journey from Berber to Khartum is 204 miles; the distance from Korosko to Berber, 766 miles; tinentire distance by the Nile from Cairo to Khartum, 1629 miles; while by the desert Korosko to Berber is 363 miles; and the desert