The boys regretted their inability to go farther than the first cataract of the Nile, and as the steamer headed down the river they gave a longing and lingering look behind them. They were consoled with the reflection that they had seen a great deal in their journey from Cairo, and were farther relieved when Doctor Bronson informed them that comparatively few travellers ever went beyond the first cataract. "Down to within twenty years," said he, "the island of Philæ was the _Ultima Thule_ of nearly all tourists on the Nile, and any one who had penetrated farther was regarded as a sort of Mungo Park or Dr. Livingstone. Once in a while somebody went to the second cataract, two hundred and forty miles above the first, and on rare occasions an Englishman or other foreigner visited Khartoom, at the junction of the Blue and White Nile. Bayard Taylor was one of these adventurous travellers, and he went some distance up the White Nile to the country of the Shillook negroes.
"In 1850," he continued, "very little was known of the Nile beyond the point reached by our enterprising countryman. Exploring parties had been up the river considerably beyond the Shillook region, but in most instances the explorers had died while beyond the limits of civilization, or their accounts were insignificant. For a long time it was supposed that the Blue Nile was the principal stream, and as its head-waters had been reached by the famous traveller Bruce, he was credited with the discovery of the sources of the mysterious river. But it was afterward found that the White Nile was the longer of the two and the greater in volume, and many lives were sacrificed in the attempt to find its origin. The discovery and exploration of the lakes of Central Africa, where the Nile rises, belongs to our day; and the names of Burton, Speke, Grant, Livingstone, Stanley, Baker, Long, and others, will go down in history for solving a mystery which has puzzled the world for centuries."
One of the boys asked what they would have seen in case they had been able to ascend the Nile a few hundred miles farther?
"That is a difficult question to answer," was the Doctor's reply, "but I will try to meet it. The second cataract is much like the first, and is a succession of rapids rather than a fall. It is two hundred and forty miles from Assouan to Wady Halfa, a village at the second cataract, and the point where nearly all tourists who go beyond here turn back. On the way thither you pass a few ruined temples and other remains of ancient Egypt; but there are none of great importance, with the exception of Abou Simbel, which ranks next after the pyramids and the temples of Thebes. There are two temples there hewn in the solid rock, and dating from the time of Rameses the Great. A good deal of the history of that monarch has been gathered from the sculptures in these temples, and the door-way of the principal one of them is guarded by a couple of enormous statues that recall the Sitting Colossi of Thebes. They have been pronounced the finest statues of their size in all Egypt, and certainly I do not know of any that can rival them in grandeur and beauty.