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 the year that I passed in the northern portion of Abyssinia and its frontiers, the rains continued with great violence for three months, the last shower falling on the 16th September, from which date there was neither dew nor rain until the following May. The great rivers expended, and the mountain torrents dried up; the Atbara disappeared, and once more became a sheet of glaring sand. The rivers Settite, Salaam, and Angrab, although much reduced, are nevertheless perennial streams, flowing into the Atbara from the lofty Abyssinian mountains; but the parched, sandy bed of the latter river absorbs the entire supply, nor does one drop of water reach the Nile from the Atbara during the dry season. The wonderful absorption by the sand of that river is an illustration of the impotence of the Blue Nile to contend unaided with the Nubian deserts, which, were it not for the steady volume of the White Nile, would drink every drop of water before the river could pass the twenty-fifth degree of latitude.