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When Diocletian reached the southern limits of Egypt he was able to judge of the difficulty, and indeed the uselessness, of trying to hold any part of Ethiopia; and he found that the tribute levied there was less than the cost of the troops required to collect it. He therefore made a new treaty with the Nobatæ, as the people between the first and second cataracts were now called.
With a few native carpenters a good vessel could be built on the Lake nearly as quickly as one could be carried past the Cataracts, and at a vastly less cost. Juma said that no money would induce him to part with this dhow. He was very busy in transporting slaves across the Lake by means of two boats, which we saw returning from a trip in the afternoon.
Christopher made a violin setting of it which Barbara used to accompany on the pianoforte, a setting in which the poor old song was tortured into wild cadenzas and dizzy cataracts of caterwauling after the approved Italian manner. The days went by, days that were halcyon under love's own sunshine. What matter if the mere skies were clouded, the mere material sun shut out, the wind bitter?
In the caverns where the mummies and skeletons of the nation of the Atures are found, even in the midst of the cataracts, and in the most inaccessible islets, the Indians long ago discovered boxes bound with iron, containing various European tools, remnants of clothes, rosaries, and glass trinkets.
Another half hour, and a descent of 127 feet placed us under a stunted calabash, 100 feet above the water, and commanding a full view of the Yellala. On the whole, the impression was favourable. Old Shimbah, the Linguister at Porto da Lenha, and other natives had assured me that the Cataracts were taller than the tallest trees.
A little longer, and the sun again decreases; the cataracts draw their heads back into the ice as tortoises into their shells; the winds creep into their hollows, and the snows rest. So here. At ten the tumult of trade will begin: at four it will quickly freeze again into stillness. One might even carry this parallelism into more fanciful extremes.
They were like barbarous hordes, exterminating one another or falling into dissolution, while devastating everything in their course. There was a frantic revelry, an indescribable pandemonium of transformations. Lofty plumes of foam fell into hoary, flattened sheets; curling and howling cataracts became suddenly deep hollows.
The Nile rose sufficiently to enable the passage of the cataracts, and on the 30th June we took leave of all friends in Khartoum, and of my very kind agent, Michael Latfalla, well known as Hallil el Shami, who had most generously cashed all my bills on Cairo without charging a fraction of exchange. On the morning of 1st July, we sailed from Khartoum to Berber.
The lugger, which was really a very powerful vessel, of some two hundred and fifty tons, tore through the seas, which came in cataracts over her bows, deluging her fore and aft. I was glad that Toby and I were near the companion-hatch, that we might hold on tight to it. The scene was stirring in the extreme; rather more than was pleasant indeed.
Such also are the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; the only cataracts which, situated in the equinoctial region of the New World, are adorned with the noble growth of palm-trees. At all seasons they exhibit the aspect of cascades, and present the greatest obstacles to the navigation of the Orinoco, while the rapids of the Ohio and of Upper Egypt are scarcely visible at the period of floods.
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