[48]The Arabian historians and geographers give the cataracts of the Nile the appellation of Shellal, or Djenadel (شلّال), (جنادل). Of the latter generic term, the proper name, Jan Adel, has been framed, and applied exclusively to this cataract, on European maps.
[49]The reports of my guide, and of many other persons, had made me very anxious to see the second Cataract, the water of which, I was told, “fell down, as if from heaven!” When, after seeing it, I reprimanded my guide for his extravagant description, he replied, “Why, have you seen a finer cataract, from Cairo to Mahass?” But the reports of these people are still less to be depended upon than even those of the Syrian Arabs. I was told by many Nubians that the distance from Derr to Mahass was sixteen days and nights journeys; but I found it to be only ten; they in like manner endeavoured to deceive me, in numberless other instances, whenever I asked questions which appeared to them out of the common course of conversation, the continual topic of which is, the price of dates and Dhourra, the taxes on the water-wheels, and complaints on the injustice of the governors.
[50]The word dromedary is here used (according to a custom general among the Franks in the Levant), to distinguish the camel of lighter make, fit for riding, from the camel of burthen.
[51]A sort of shawl worn about the neck and shoulders by the Egyptians.
[53]It is a curious fact, which has been attested to me by many persons, that the small-pox has never been known to visit the Wady Kenous or the narrow shore from the Cataract up to Korosko. This disease is well known at Derr, where it is much dreaded.
[54]This narrow room behind the pronaos is peculiar to some of the temples of Nubia; I have not seen it in Egypt; nor do I know whether I should be right in calling it the cella.
[55]In Nubia the figure of Briareus has the hair of the head cut like that of the Arabs and the Noubas, with rings in the ears, exactly resembling the Noubas and inhabitants of Mahass at the present day. It is possible that the Briareus may have originated in some great chieftain of the desert, vanquished by the king of Egypt, and converted by the priests into a many-headed monster, in conformity with an adage current in the East, in speaking of the Bedouin robbers, “Cut off one head and a hundred will spring up in its stead:” (اقطع راس الواحد تطلع ماية عَوضَه).