If the White Nile carried its waters in a channel in any way resembling that of the Blue Nile, there would be small cause for anxiety over the summer supply of Egypt. As far as Lado, indeed, the Bahr el Gebel, or Mountain River, as it is called, does flow with as good a slope and as sound a rocky bed as any Egyptian could desire. Then it enters upon the great plain which extends practically as far as Khartoum, but until Bor is reached it has not to encounter more than the ordinary troubles of a flat country. The swamps are still well above the summer level of the river, and the loss of volume is not great. At Bor, however, the real difficulties begin, and the ‘shorn and parcelled river strains’ miserably along for some 350 miles through the real sudd country. The river that leaves Lado in April or March with a volume of 600 cubic metres per second is reduced to less than half this amount by the time it emerges from the maze on the further side, and that, too, although it has nominally received at Lake No through the Bahr el Ghazal the drainage of a vast province. Lake No is the remains of an inland sea which once covered all this desolate region. Gradually this lake became silted up with peaty deposits, and formed a series of swamps and lagoons through which the Bahr el Gebel from the south and the Bahr el Ghazal from the west wander in a series of loops and curves without any certain banks. The smallest rise in the level of the river floods an immense tract of country, and at all times of the year the sudd region is one gigantic evaporating pan. The Bahr el Ghazal, so far as any active contribution to the volume of the Nile is concerned, is practically lost altogether, though by spreading out over the marshes it fills a space which the Bahr el Gebel would otherwise occupy, and so helps to form a sort of reservoir, which prevents any rapid fall in the level of the White Nile. All these swamps are covered with a dense growth of reeds and water-weeds. Of these, the most important is the papyrus, which grows in great abundance, and often reaches a height of 10 to 16 feet. Once the papyrus was common in Egypt, but now it is not found north of Abu Zeid, 190 miles south of Khartoum. In Europe it is not found, except on the river Anapo in Sicily, where, however, it does not attain anything like the same luxuriant growth. There are also great stretches of the reed called in Arabic ‘um soof,’ or the mother of wool. It is no wonder that the party sent by Nero to explore the river was intimidated by these interminable forests of papyrus and reeds, and turned back. No travellers have a good word to say for this country, unless they only pass through it extremely quickly. It is monotonous and desolate in the extreme, the air is always hot and steamy, and after dark mosquitoes rage in countless myriads.