In the Turin Museum are preserved two papyri with rough drawings of gold mines established by Sesostris in the Nubian Desert.'
The Somali belong to the Eastern (Ethiopic) Hamitic family of tribes, of which the other chief members are the neighbouring Galla and Afar, the Abyssinian Agau and the Beja tribes between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea.
The greater part of the region between the coast and the Nile is known as the Nubian Desert.
The oldest rocks consist of granite and schist, penetrated by intrusive dykes, and upon this foundation rest the flat-lying sedimentary deposits, beginning with a sandstone like the Nubian sandstone of Egypt.
It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko.
