2 22 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

also the previous month, when inspecting only, that the rapids were practicable. The voyageurs, many of whom were half-breed Indians, did their work admirably, for it was soon discovered that though they made light of the first and second cataracts the rapids of the Nile differed so much from those to which they had been accustomed, and offered so many difficult and dangerous obstructions that they needed all their experience and all their practised alacrity of eye and hand to carry the expedition to the end of the journey even in comparative safety. Each of the boats employed in the Red River expedition of 1870 carried ten men, with two or three months' provisions, and could be sailed, rowed, poled, tracked, lifted, dragged, or portaged. Between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg (500 to 600 miles) were fifty interruptions from rapids, over which these boats were passed. In three months a force of one battalion of infantry, some artillery, and engineers traversed the double distance (1200 miles), having carried their boats, provisions, stores, and munitions on ninety-four occasions, a total distance of fifteen miles.

The conditions of the Nile ascent were in many respects very different from those of the Red River, and more unfavourable, although the Nile has a fall of only one foot per mile, whereas the fall of the Red River is two and two-thirds feet per mile. On the Red River portages were made by felling trees on the spot, and making slides 40 to 1800 yards in length, over which the boats were pushed, and their contents carried; moreover, rocks were easily seen and avoided, the water being clear to a depth of 20 feet. On the Nile river the banks are at the rapids (Wady Haifa to Dal) precipitous on the east bank, and of shifting sand from the Libyan desert on the west bank; there is no timber, and rocks cannot be seen, the water being laden with silt.

As eventually ordered, each whaler-boat, 30 feet long, 6 feet wide, 20 inches draught, was built of fir, and weighed about 1000 lbs. The weight when fully manned and equipped was about 10*347 tons, made up as follows, the fractions being given in decimals of a ton: — Weight of boat, 0*44; two boatmen and ten soldiers, 7*5; 100 days' supplies, 2*4; one filter, 0*007.