WADY HALFA. THE SECOND CATARACT. 79 the condition I have described, and so will remain so long as the world stands. Fragments of statues, a gateway of the time of the mighty son of Philip, an altar whose fire was long ago extinguished in the blood of its worshippers; these and similar relics remain, but nothing to indicate the shape, extent, or date of any of the buildings that formerly covered the island."

Of the first cataract itself there is not much to say. It is not really a cataract, but a number of rapids of the Nile swirling and dashing amidst a number of scattered rocks and great rugged boulders — rocks grotesque in shape and wild in aspect, apparently forming a portion of the two chains of mountains between which the Nile flows at this point. The whole scene is barren, savage, and desolate, but it has a grandeur of its own, and the trouble of passing the cataract is repaid by the change of country beyond the four miles of troubled water. For Egypt is left behind, and the land between the first and second cataract is the land of Nubia, where the scenery is more delightful, the climate in many respects to be preferred. At one time few travellers ventured beyond Assouan and Philse; but now it is common enough to pursue the journey 210 miles further to the second cataract, to Korosko, whence the direct road lies across the desert to Abu Hamed and the Upper Nile, Shendy, Sennar, and Khartum, so that the little village lying back from the river on the edge of the desert used to be the entrepot, the Nile bank being usually lined with the tents and merchandise of traders waiting for camels to take them on the long desolate journey across the wilderness, or for boats to convey them to Assouan.

The second cataract, however, is above ninety miles further up the Nile, at Wady Haifa, some fifty miles beyond the vast and magnificent ruins of the temples of Aboo Simbel, hewn out of the gritstone rock in the time of Rameses II. Wady Haifa has some vestiges of antiquity of its own, but it is not a lively place under ordinary conditions, and even when it resounded with the bustle and noise of a military encampment it could scarce!)' have been inviting; though the town, named from the halfa, a coarse grass which grows abundantly there, is not unpicturesque when, beside