Position 93 - Kasr Ibrim (the Fort Of Ibrim) And A Nile Vista To The North-northeast In Lower Nubia

There is the reach of river up which we have come. We are stationed on a lofty fortified rock on the east bank known as the Kasr Ibrim, and we look down river, which flows at this point about northeastward. We have now covered nearly two-thirds of our journey to the second cataract, the first being behind that northern horizon some 135 miles away. From this fine elevation we obtain an excellent and correct impression of the land of Nubia. The river winds through the sandstone table-land, with the merest narrow fringe of vegetation demarking it from the desert behind on either hand, and that scanty margin of cultivable land is Nubia, so far as habitable territory is concerned.

Wild and hostile tribes have, to be sure, inhabited the desert on either side, particularly the east side, from time immemorial, but the settled towns have depended solely upon these narrow shores for their sustenance. Way back in the days of Abraham, in the 12th Dynasty, nearly 2000 years before Christ, the Pharaohs made conquest of this territory between the two cataracts, which we are now traversing, thus adding over 200 miles of Nile valley to their kingdom.

With the rise of the 18th Dynasty, about 1580 B. C., the conquest was gradually pushed further south, until the fourth cataract was made the frontier (Map 3). Thus the bulk of this cataract region, upon which we have entered, became a dependency of Egypt under an Egyptian viceroy, and so remained for some 800 years, until, in the 8th century B. C., it regained its independence, made an ephemeral conquest of Egypt, and after the dissipation of such dreams, maintained itself as a separate kingdom far down into the Christian centuries.

Its attempts at aggression here in lower Nubia were beaten back by the Romans, who, as well as the Ptolemies, held their southern frontier at Hierasykaminos, some sixty-five miles below us, behind yonder horizon (Map 3). Now and again, however, they even reached this fortress in which we stand. At this place, therefore, we are crossing the extremest limits of the vast Roman empire, the other end of which was lost in the forests of the northern British isles.

The Nubians did eventually thrust the Romans out of this territory, however, and even altogether out of Nubia, and having been Christianized from the 4th century on, continued as a Christian power until the conquest of the Moslems in 640 A. D., when Mohammedanism gradually gained the upper hand. You remember the New Testament story of the Ethiopian eunuch and Queen Candace. A whole series of Christian queens of that name are known in this region south of us. In 1173 A. D., Shems ed-Din, brother of the great Saladin, the conqueror of the crusaders, occupied this fortress, and in 1811 the Mamlukes, fleeing from death at the hands of Mohammed Ali in the very citadel of Cairo, which Saladin first built, took refuge in this stronghold. Dilapidated and crudely built as it seems to be, this castle is an important historical landmark.

The precipitous rock upon which it stands early drew the attention of the Egyptians, looking for points easily defended, and you see the traces of their occupation in the stone masonry of a temple at the other end of these ruins. A Christian church once met in these chambers, and it was plundered by Shems ed-Din in 1173. Finally the last transition took place, and a mosque of Islam occupied part of these ruinous halls. We thus have before us the material remains of the three successive religions of Egypt: the old native religion of the Pharaohs, with its many gods; then Christianity; and finally Islam.

As the refuge of the Mamlukes at the rise of Mohammed Ali, it is also a memorial of the new Egypt, which has recovered Nubia, save for the interval of independence won by the Nubian tribes under their fanatical leader, Mohammed Ahmed, who called himself the “Mahdi,” (the “guided”), as it was believed that he was the object of especial divine guidance and illumination. Of this fatal war, which cost England so dearly, we shall see more as we proceed.

We next visit one of the greatest monuments of the old Egypt, Abu Simbel. This unique temple is but a short distance south from our present standpoint on the west bank of the Nile. The red lines numbered 94 on Map 3 show that we shall look northwest. This position is given also on the detailed plan of this temple, Plan 190.