had undoubtedly his reasons for this, among which not the least important was, to be near enough to Halfya to have the town within reach of his cannon, as the Malek of Halfya had not as yet submitted.  The Pasha, however, had like to have had serious cause to repent of having taken this position, when the river rose, and threatened to inundate his camp.  Luckily it did not reach the ammunition, otherwise we should probably have been left without the means of defending ourselves.

This overflowing of the Nile was occasioned by the rise of the Bahar el Abiud, which, this year at least, commenced its annual augmentation nearly a month sooner than the Nile.]

[Footnote 47:  The troops of Shouus and the Abbadies swam their horses and dromedaries over the river.  Cogia Achmet, one of the chiefs of the army, in endeavoring to imitate the cavalry of Shageia, lost seventy horses and some soldiers.  The rest of the horses and camels of the army were taken over by arranging them by the sides of the boats, with their halters held in hand by the people in the boats.  Another large portion of our horses and camels was taken over by the Shageias and the Abbadies, who fastened at the breast of each horse, and over the neck of each camel of ours, so carried over, an empty water-skin blown up with air, which prevented the animal from sinking, while their guides swam by their sides, and so conducted them over.]

[Footnote 48:  The same day that the camp marched from the Bahar el Abiud, Mr. Caillaud and Mr. Frediani embarked in the boats to go to Sennaar, by the river, in order to have an opportunity of visiting the ruins of “Soba,” which lie on the east side of the Nile, not far above from its junction with the Bahar el Abiud.  When these gentlemen rejoined us at Sennaar, they informed me that almost the very ruins of this city have perished; they found, however, there some fragments of a temple, and of some granite, statues of lions:  the city itself, they said, had been built of brick.  This city of “Soba” probably takes its name from “Saba,” the son of Cush, who first colonized this country, which is called, in the Hebrew Bible, “the land of Cush and Saba.”—­See Gen. x. 7.  See the references in a Concordance to the Hebrew Bible, under the heads of “Cush,” and “Saba.”

If there were any pyramids near Saba, I should believe it to be the ancient Meroe, because Josephus represents that the ancient name of Meroe was “Saba.”  “Nam Saba urbs eadem fuisse perhibetur quae a Cambyse Meroe in uxoris honorem dicta est:”  quoted from Eichom’s ed. of Sim.  Heb.  Lex. artic.  Sameh Bet Alef

It was impossible for me to ask of the Pasha liberty to accompany the gentlemen abovementioned, as a battle was expected in a few days between us and the king of Sennaar, from which I would not have been absent on any consideration.]

[Footnote 49:  The people of Dongola, Shageia, Berber, Shendi, and Sennaar, do not use mills to make meal.  They reduce grain to meal by rubbing it a handful at a time between two stones—­one fixed in the ground, and one held by the hands.  By long and tedious friction, the grain is reduced to powder.  This labor is performed by the women, as is almost all the drudgery of the people of the Upper Nile.]