meeting of the two rivers is a striking one. In flood the Blue Nile brings down an immense volume of chocolate-coloured water, and holds back the discharge of the White Nile, ponding this river up and flooding the marshes for many hundred miles up-stream of the junction.
Even during the winter months the contrast between the waters of the two streams is a remarkable one. The colour of the White Nile never varies, and is at all times an olive-green—almost gray; while, when the Blue Nile flood has passed away, the water of that river is exceptionally clear, and in sunshine the reflection of the sky causes its surface to assume a brilliant blue. A hard-and-fast line marks the meeting of the two currents for a long way down-stream of the junction.
No description is here necessary of either Khartoum or Omdurman. Interesting as both these places are, full details of their environments are to be found in almost every Egyptian guide-book.
Space does not permit of more than a very brief account of the Nile in its journey to the north, conveying the united waters of the two great streams which combine to form that single river to which Egypt owes its prosperity. As, moreover, its valley north of Wadi Halfa is now almost as well known as that of the Rhine, the scantiest allusion will suffice for that portion of its course.
North of Khartoum the trough of the Nile is of considerable breadth, and full of sandbanks and of large islands, many of which are highly cultivated. To the west the desert stretches an expanse of broken ground, relieved by occasional rocky ridges and ranges of low hills. On the east the country is flat, and, although now waste and bush-covered, its soil is good, and only requires irrigation to render it capable of producing excellent crops. This area forms a portion of the famous island of Meroe—in ancient times renowned for its fertility—comprised within the triangle formed by the Nile, the Rahad, and the Atbara.
