The Nile quest is practically ended. It may be safely said that every important branch or affluent or lake-source of this the longest river in Africa (very nearly the longest in the world) has been discovered, named, and partially or completely mapped. The only portion of the Nile basin which presents any noticeable blank on the map is the unknown district--some say of swamp alternating with arid steppe--which stretches like a tongue of white in our charts between the tributaries of the Mountain Nile and the Giraffe on the west, and the affluents of the Sobat on the east. In all probability whilst these lines are written and printed this blank is being filled up by industrious surveyors sent out by the Anglo-Egyptian government of the Sudan. Fate has ordained that the entire basin of this river and its tributaries (with the trifling exceptions of the upper waters of those which rise within the political limits of Abyssinia, a portion of the extreme source of the Nile (the Kagera), of Lake Albert Edward, and of the Semliki) should come under the political control of Great Britain. We have, therefore, cast our ægis over one of the most wonderful regions, in some respects one of the most productive portions, of Africa. On the north there is the oldest country in the world, so far as history goes,--Egypt, with its ten millions of Egyptians, Arabs, Europeans, and Nubians; its cotton and wheat, maize, barley, beans, sugar-cane, dates, rice, and clover; its petroleum, gold, and emeralds in the eastern desert, and its alum and soda in the Libyan wastes; Egypt, with its European or Mediterranean fauna and flora. Then comes Nubia, producing little at present but fierce men of mixed Hamitic, Semitic, and Negro blood; then the richer countries of Darfur, Kordofan, Sennar, Bogos, Kasalá, and Galabat. Here there is no lack of trade goods,--copper, camels, asses, and, above all, acacia gum. The vegetation in these lands is no longer that of the Mediterranean. It is African. On the hills above three thousand feet, appear dracænas and euphorbias. In the lowlands there are baobabs, acacias, giant fig-trees, wild-date palms, and the branching hyphæne. Here begins the great fauna of Africa,--baboons, elephants, antelopes, lions, zebras, cheetahs, leopards, spotted hyænas, wild asses, rhinoceroses, giraffes. [Illustration: NUBIA: A “WASHOUT” ON THE SUDAN RAILWAY.]