72 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

There are three ways of reaching Khartoum. (1) There is the river Nile, which may be followed from Cairo to Khartoum—a distance of some 1,900 miles; (2) there is the choice of making short cuts across deserts—more especially the Nubian Desert, from Korosko to Abu Hamad, shortening the river route by some 500 miles ; (3) and there is the Suakim-Berber route, 245 miles. Each deserves notice.

The river route is long, tedious and has many disqualifications. The Nile is very circuitous, is navigable only at certain seasons of the year, is in many places shallow, and contains dangerous cataracts where the water rushes over a rocky bottom. It requires, too, many embarkations and disembarka¬ tions.' From Cairo to Assiout the journey is usually performed by train. At Assiout travellers take to the water. From thence, steamers towing barges conduct them to Assouan. At Assouan is the first cataract. To obviate this a railway has been built to Philse. From Philae to Korosko is done by steamers again. From Korosko we can go round the long bend of the Nile, or take camels across to Abu Hamad. From Abu Hamad it is possible to follow the river all the way to Khartoum, or at Korti, by means of camels, the Bahiuda Desert may be crossed to Metamneh.

The Nile itself is a terrible stream to navigate : there are great stretches of shallow and broken water, nearly all of them impassable when the river is low, and even when it is high too dangerous to be common. Passing the cataracts is most toilsome work and fraught with extreme difficulties. Great rocks jut out, the water pours over them and between them, forming swift rapids, and boats have usually to be towed up by means of ropes from the banks.

The desert routes are far worse, that from Korosko to Abu Hamad across the Nubian Desert being particularly bad. It has not a single well. It has been described as “ absolutely ferocious in its desolation.” From Korti to Metamneh is not so terrible : there are here a few wells of drinkable water to relieve the awful aridity.

The road from Suakiin to Berber passes through a very different country. In the first 195 miles there are wells at every stage. There is plenty of brush¬ wood and herbage for fuel and forage, and frequently there is the shade of trees. There is a good deal of grain in the country, and there are large flocks of sheep and goats. A railway can here be built within the space of a few months by which communication with Berber from the Bed Sea may be accom¬ plished in some sixteen hours. Tanks of water, it is said, can be deposited at regular intervals, and even a pipe line be laid down.

Of these three—or, in main, two—ways of reaching Khartoum, the first was the one chosen.

This choice has been made the object of severest criticism—expressed