ll available for transit runs from the village of Aesha on the Arabian
side, winds capriciously from one bank to another, and emerges into calm
water a little above Nakhiet Wady Haifa. During certain days in August
and September the natives trust themselves to this stream, but only with
boats lightly laden; even then their escape is problematical, for they
are in hourly danger of foundering. As soon as the inundation begins to
fall, the passage becomes more difficult: by the middle of October it
is given up, and communication by water between Egypt and the countries
above Wady Haifa is suspended until the return of the inundation. By
degrees, as the level of the water becomes lower, remains of wrecks
jammed between the rocks, or embedded in sandbanks, emerge into view,
as if to warn sailors and discourage them from an undertaking so fraught
with perils. Usirtasen I. realized the importance of the position, and
fortified its approaches.

[Illustration: 346.jpg THE SECOND CATARACT AT LOW NILE]

He selected the little Nubian town of Bohani, which lay exactly opposite
to the present village of Wady Haifa, and transformed it into a strong
frontier fortress. Besides the usual citadel, he built there a temple
dedicated to the Theban god Amon and to the local Horus; he then set
up a stele commemorating his victories over the peoples beyond the
cataract.

[Illustration: 349.jpg THE TRIUMPHAL STELE OF USIRTASEN I.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
the museum at Florence.

Ten of their principal chiefs had passed before Amon as prisoners, their
arms tied behind their backs, and had been sacrificed at the foot of
the altar by the sovereign himself: he represented them on the stele by
enclosing their names in battlemented cartouches, each surmounted by
the bust of a man bound by a long cord which is held by the conqueror.

Nearly a century later Usirtasen III. enlarged the fortress, and finding
doubtless that it was not sufficiently strong to protect the passage of
the cataract, he stationed outposts at various points, at Matuga, Fakus,
and Kassa. They served as mooring-places where the vessels which went
up and down stream with merchandise might be made fast to the bank at
sunset. The bands of Bedouin, lurking in the neighbourhood, would
have rejoiced to surprise them, and by their depredations to stop the
commerce between the Said and the Upper Nile, during the few weeks in
which it cou