SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. 25 I then reached. Here the foreman of the Caughnawaga Indians was drowned." Another of the same company of voyageurs had been drowned on the 31st of October in the rapids at Wady Haifa.

Major Dorward and five pioneer boats arrived at the Ambigol Cataract on the 5th of November after a very arduous journey with hard rowing all the time. The Canadians were of opinion that the boats were too deeply laden for safety, and that the difficulty and danger would be best met by the army advancing in parties of ten boats at a time. There would then, they said, be enough voyagers to man the boats and take them up through the difficult places.

The ascent of the Ambigol Cataract was a very stiff piece ol work, as the height of the river was changing every day, and between Ambigol and Mangol the stream for twelve miles presented the appearance of a continuous rapid, with intervals in which it broke in foam over a rocky bed. The boats passed up the rapids nearest to Ambigol without accident. They were partially unladen. They were then taken up separately, two Canadians taking their places in the boat to steer her, and the united crews of fifty men laying on to the hawsers, and so hauling them one by one up the rapids. The shores near Ambigol were strewn with the timbers of wrecked boats. While the engineers' boats were ascending the rapids Alleyne's boats came down and shot the rapids with great velocity, to the immense astonishment of the native and Egyptian soldiers.

The descending of the Nile is in some respects more difficult and dangerous than the ascending. In ascending it is easy to stop the boat's way by lowering the sail, the current will then sweep her away from a danger ahead. In descending, the current constantly tends to sweep the boat on to any danger in front. In Lord Wolseley's whaler-boats, the masts being struck, the descent by oars was as sure as the ascent, save that greater care in steering was required, and that the rapids, in whole or part, could be shot instead of tracked. A course down a rapid being chosen, the men rowed as strongly as they could in order to get good steerage-way