Egj^pt proper is boxinded definitely enough on the north
by the Mediterranean, from Cape Hazaif to El-Arish on
the frontier of Palestine; westward, by the Libyan desert;
east, by a line drawn from El-Arish to Akabah at the
head of the gulf of that name, and thence enclosing the
peninsula of Sinai, down the western shore of the Red
Sea to Cape Benas; and on the south by the First Cata-
ract, between Assouan and Philse. But the regular paral-
lelogram thus described forms less than one-fifth of the
whole geographical area over which the Cairo Government
now claims dominion. In 1821-2, an expedition under
Ismail Pasha, the third son of Mehemet Ali, over-ran and
annexed Nubia; and since then have been added the



BEYOND TEE FIRST OATABAOT. 3

whole of the western coast of the Red Sea, and that of
the Indian Ocean as far as Berbera, opposite Aden, and
inland the Nile basin, anywhere between Khartoum and
the Equator.* But beyond Khartoum, the authority of
the Khedive is as yet only in course of consolidatioL, and
no definite Une can be drawn as its exact southern bound-
ary. Practically, however, its limit may for the present
be fixed at Gondokoro (lat. 4° 55' N.), beyond which
Gordon Pasha is now operating to complete the work be-
gun by Sir Samuel Baker, by effectively annexing the
country between that point and the shores of the Albert
and Victoria Lakes. A rough extension of the western
boundary Une from the parallel of PhUse, up through the
Desert, so as to iaclude Darfour, the Darfertit country,
Gondokoro, and the territory south of Sennaar, round con-
terminously with Abyssinia to the Red Sea at Massowah,
would therefore more or less accurately describe the
present limits of Egyptian sovereignty towards the Equa-
tor. A glance at the map will show that the vast tract of
Eastern Africa thus enclosed measures more than 1,600
miles from north to south, and has an average breadth of
about 350 miles from the Red Sea into the Libyan desert.
