The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources. Samuel White Baker

would I have left her in the luxuries of home instead of exposing her to the miseries of Africa.

      It was in vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils still blacker than I supposed they really would be: she was resolved, with woman's constancy and devotion, to share all dangers and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life before me. "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die; and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

      Thus accompanied by my wife, on the 15th April 1861, I sailed up the Nile from Cairo. The wind blew fair and strong from the north, and we flew towards the south against the stream, watching those mysterious waters with a firm resolve to track them to their distant fountain.

      On arrival at Korosko, in Lat. 22 degrees 44 minutes, in twenty-six days from Cairo, we started across the Nubian desert, thus cutting off the western bend of the Nile, and in seven days' forced camel march we again reached the river Abou Hamed. The journey through that desert is most fatiguing, as the march averages fifteen hours a day through a wilderness of scorching sand and glowing basalt rocks. The simoom was in full force at that season (May), and the thermometer, placed in the shade by the water skins, stood at 114 degrees Fahrenheit.

      No drinkable water was procurable on the route; thus our supply was nearly expended upon reaching the welcome Nile. After eight days' march on the margin of the river from Abou Hamed through desert, but in view of the palm trees that bordered the river, we arrived at Berber, a considerable town in lat. 17 degrees 58 minutes on the banks of the Nile.

      Berber is eight days' camel march from Khartoum (at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, in lat. 15 degrees 30 minutes), and is the regular caravan route between that town and Cairo.

      From the slight experience I had gained in the journey to Berber, I felt convinced that success in my Nile expedition would be impossible without a knowledge of Arabic. My dragoman had me completely in his power, and I resolved to become independent of all interpreters as soon as possible. I therefore arranged a plan of exploration for the first year, to embrace the affluents to the Nile from the Abyssinian range of mountains, intending to follow up the Atbara river from its junction with the Nile in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes (twenty miles south of Berber), and to examine all the Nile tributaries from the southeast as far as the Blue Nile, which river I hoped ultimately to descend to Khartoum. I imagined that twelve months would be sufficient to complete such an exploration, by which time I should have gained a sufficient knowledge of Arabic to enable me to start from Khartoum for my White Nile expedition. Accordingly I left Berber on the 11th June, 1861, and arrived at the Atbara junction with the Nile on the 13th.

      There is no portion of the Nile so great in its volume as that part situated at the Atbara junction. The river Atbara is about 450 yards in average width, and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep during the rainy season. It brings down the entire drainage of Eastern Abyssinia, receiving as affluents into its main stream the great rivers Taccazy (or Settite), in addition to the Salaam and Angrab. The junction of the Atbara in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes N. is thus, in a direct line from Alexandria, about 840 geographical miles of latitude, and, including the westerly bend of the Nile, its bed will be about eleven hundred miles in length from the mouth of its last tributary, the Atbara, until it meets the sea. Thus, eleven hundred miles of absorption and evaporation through sandy deserts and the delta must be sustained by the river between the Atbara junction and the Mediterranean: accordingly there is an immense loss of water; and the grandest volume of the Nile must be just below the Atbara junction.

      It is not my intention in the present work to enter into the details of my first year's exploration on the Abyssinian frontier; that being so extensive and so completely isolated from the grand White Nile expedition, that an amalgamation of the two would create confusion. I shall therefore reserve the exploration of the Abyssinian tributaries for a future publication, and confine my present description of the Abyssinian rivers to a general outline of the Atbara and Blue Nile, showing the origin of their floods and their effect upon the inundations in Lower Egypt.

      I followed the banks of the Atbara to the junction of the Settite or Taccazy river; I then followed the latter grand stream into the Abyssinian mountains in the Base country. From thence I crossed over to the rivers Salaam and Angrab, at the foot of the magnificent range of mountains from which they flow direct into the Atbara. Having explored those rivers, I passed through an extensive and beautiful tract of country forming a portion of Abyssinia on the south bank of the river Salaam; and again crossing the Atbara, I arrived at the frontier town of Gellabat, known by Bruce as "Ras el Feel." Marching due west from that point I arrived at the river Rahad, in about lat. 12 degrees 30 minutes; descending its banks I crossed over a narrow strip of country to the west, arriving at the river Dinder, and following these streams to their junction with the Blue Nile, I descended that grand river to Khartoum, having been exactly twelve months from the day I had left Berber.

      The whole of the above-mentioned rivers—i.e. the Atbara, Settite, Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and Blue Nile—are the great drains of Abyssinia, all having a uniform course from southeast to northwest, and meeting the main Nile in two mouths; by the Blue Nile at Khartoum, 15 degrees 30 minutes, and by the Atbara, in lat. 17 degrees 37 minutes. The Blue Nile during the dry season is so reduced that there is not sufficient water for the small vessels engaged in transporting produce from Sennaar to Khartoum; at that time the water is beautifully clear, and, reflecting the cloudless sky, its colour has given it the well-known name of Bahr el Azrak, or Blue River. No water is more delicious than that of the Blue Nile; in great contrast to that of the White river, which is never clear, and has a disagreeable taste of vegetation. This difference in the quality of the waters is a distinguishing characteristic of the two rivers: the one, the Blue Nile, is a rapid mountain stream, rising and falling with great rapidity; the other is of lake origin, flowing through vast marshes. The course of the Blue Nile is through fertile soil; thus there is a trifling loss by absorption, and during the heavy rains a vast amount of earthy matter of a red colour is contributed by its waters to the general fertilizing deposit of the Nile in Lower Egypt.

      The Atbara, although so important a river in the rainy season of Abyssinia, is perfectly dry for several months during the year, and at the time I first saw it, June 13, 1861, it was a mere sheet of glaring sand; in fact a portion of the desert through which it flowed. For upwards of one hundred and fifty miles from its junction with the Nile, it is perfectly dry from the beginning of March to June. At intervals of a few miles there are pools or ponds of water left in the deep holes below the general average of the river's bed. In these pools, some of which may be a mile in length, are congregated all the inhabitants of the river, who as the stream disappears are forced to close quarters in these narrow asylums; thus, crocodiles, hippopotami, fish, and large turtle are crowded in extraordinary numbers, until the commencement of the rains in Abyssinia once more sets them at liberty by sending down a fresh volume to the river. The rainy season commences in Abyssinia in the middle of May, but the country being parched by the summer heat, the first rains are absorbed by the soil, and the torrents do not fill until the middle of June.

      From June to the middle of September the storms are terrific; every ravine becomes a raging torrent; trees are rooted up by the mountain streams swollen above their banks, and the Atbara becomes a vast river, bringing down with an overwhelming current the total drainage of four large rivers—the Settite, Royan, Salaam, and Angrab—in addition to its own original volume. Its waters are dense with soil washed from most fertile lands far from its point of junction with the Nile; masses of bamboo and driftwood, together with large trees, and frequently the dead bodies of elephants and buffaloes, are hurled along its muddy waters in wild confusion, bringing a rich harvest to the Arabs on its banks, who are ever on the look-out for the river's treasures of fuel and timber.

      The Blue Nile and the Atbara receiving the entire drainage of Abyssinia, at the same time pour their floods into the main Nile in the middle of June. At that season the White Nile is at a considerable level, although not at its HIGHEST; and the sudden rush of water descending from Abyssinia into the main channel, already at a fair level from the White Nile, causes the annual inundation in Lower Egypt.

      During