For most Englishmen Assuan has also a tragic interest in its association with the expedition for the relief of General Gordon, and the subsequent Mahdist wars, when regiment after regiment of British soldiers passed through her streets on their way towards those burning deserts from which so many of them were destined never to return. Those were exciting, if anxious, days for Assuan, and many visitors will remember how, some years ago, the presence of Dervish horsemen in its immediate vicinity rendered it unsafe for them to venture outside the town. Those days are happily over, and there is now little use for the Egyptian forts which to the south and east guarded the little frontier town. From a ruined Roman fort which crowns a low hill at the south end of the town we have our first view of the cataract, and the sudden change in the character of the scenery is remarkable. In place of the broad fields and mountains to which we have been accustomed, the river here flows in a basin formed by low, precipitous hills, and is broken by innumerable rocky islets on different levels, which form the series of rapids and little cascades which give the cataract its name. These little islets are formed by a collection of boulders of red granite filled in with silt, and have a very strange effect, for the boulders are rounded by the action of the water, which, combined with the effect of the hot sun, has caused the red stone to become coated with a hard skin, black and smooth to touch, just as though they had been blackleaded. Many of the islets are simply rocks of curious shapes which jut out of the water; others are large enough to be partially cultivated, and their little patches of green are peculiarly vivid in contrast with the rock and sand which form their setting. The scenery is wildly fantastic, for while the rocks which form the western bank are almost entirely covered by the golden sand-drifts which pour over them, smooth as satin, to the water's edge, those on the east are sun-baked and forbidding, a huge agglomeration of boulders piled one upon the other and partially covered by shingle, which crackle under foot like clinkers; between are the islands, many crowned by a hut or pigeon-cote, and with their greenery often perfectly reflected in the rapidly flowing water. Though navigation here is difficult, and a strong breeze is necessary to enable vessels to ascend the river, boat sailing is a popular feature of European life in Assuan, a special kind of sailing-boat being kept for visitors, who organize regattas and enjoy many a pleasant picnic beneath the shade of the dôm palms or mimosa-trees which grow among the rocks. In the old days the great excursion from Assuan was by water to the "Great Gate," as the principal rapid was called, often a difficult matter to accomplish. To-day the great dam has replaced it as the object of a sail.