252 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

oa the boat. Slack rowing leads to disaster. A man upset in the fairway course of a rapid must inevitably be sucked down and drowned. The nuggar descends in a manner peculiarly her own. She goes stern foremost, with the sail either closely furled or slightly unfurled to deflect her from danger, or to carry her into the strongest downward current. Thus the boat is steered partly by the great rudder acting on contrary currents and partly by the wind acting on the sail. The natives in the Upper Nile valley manage their boats with surprising skill. One instant the traveller will consider, as certain, his destruction on a rock whereon he is being swept by a furious Nile torrent, the next he is in safety, how, he can scarcely say.

It may be very well understood that the Canadians had a very poor opinion of the natives, who would squat by the shore or on a boat, and do nothing unless they were stirred up by the kourbash of the Bashi-Bazouks who were sent by the mudir to keep them at work, and who, in their gaudy uniform and with sashes full oi knives and pistols, stalked about among the labourers and waked up the skulkers. The younger generation of Dongolese boatmen and Nubians, however, elicited the admiration of the voyageurs for their cheerful alacrity and the manner in which they wrould plunge into the river, even amidst a whirlpool, and carry a rope to boat or shore. Many of these young black fellows had what to them was a jovial time. They had more to eat than they were accustomed to, and though they worked hard it was in jolly company, for the rough but good-humoured patronage of the British soldiers delighted these merry fellows, who were quickly initiated into the outdoor sports which even there were carried on by our men; and the " tug of war," the long and the high jump, and other athletic games, well suited the cheerful, active, muscular youths whose black-bronze faces were expanded in a perpetual grin.

It is necessary to pause for a moment to consider what an undertaking this expedition was committed to. The labour was enormous. There were fortifications to dig, the railways to repair and to extend, and the constant business of hauling, tracking, and transporting stores up the cataracts and at the various portages.