ld be carried on with a minimum of danger. A narrow gorge
crossed by a bed of granite, through which the Nile passes at Semneh,
afforded another most favourable site for the completion of this
system of defence. On cliffs rising sheer above the current, the
king constructed two fortresses, one on each bank of the river, which
completely commanded the approaches by land and water. On the right bank
at Kummeh, where the position was naturally a strong one, the engineers
described an irregular square, measuring about two hundred feet each
side; two projecting bastions flanked the entrance, the one to the
north covering the approaching pathways, the southern one commanding
the river-bank. A road with a ditch runs at about thirteen feet from the
walls round the building, closely following its contour, except at the
north-west and south-east angles, where there are two projections which
formed bastions. The town on the other bank, Samninu-Kharp-Khakeri,
occupied a less favourable position: its eastern flank was protected by
a zone of rocks and by the river, but the three other sides were of easy
approach. They were provided with ramparts which rose to the height
of eighty-two feet above the plain, and were strengthened at unequal
distances by enormous buttresses. These resembled towers without
parapets, overlooking every part of the encircling road, and from them
the defenders could take the attacking sappers in flank.

[Illustration: 351.jpg THE RAPIDS OF THE NILE AT SEMNEH, AND THE TWO
FORTRESSES BUILT BY USIRTASEN III]

Map drawn up by Thuillier from the somewhat obsolete survey
of Cailliaud

The intervals between them had been so calculated as to enable the
archers to sweep the intervening space with their arrows. The main
building is of crude brick, with beams laid horizontally between; the
base of the external rampart is nearly vertical, while the upper part
forms an angle of some seventy degrees with the horizon, making the
scaling of it, if not impossible, at least very difficult. Each of the
enclosing walls of the two fortresses surrounded a town complete in
itself, with temples dedicated to their founders and to the Nubian
deities, as well as numerous habitations, now in ruins. The sudden
widening of the river immediately to the south of the rapids made a
kind of natural roadstead, where the Egyptian squadron could lie without
danger on the eve of a campaign against Ethiopia; the galiots of the
negroes