Travels in the upper Egyptian deserts

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Title: Travels in the upper Egyptian deserts
Author: Weigall, Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Travels in the upper Egyptian deserts" ***
DESERTS ***

[Illustration: The head of Wady Gatâr.—Page 100.]

Travels in the
Upper Egyptian Deserts

BY
ARTHUR E. P. WEIGALL
INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF UPPER EGYPT, DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES
AUTHOR OF ‘A REPORT ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF LOWER NUBIA,’ ‘A CATALOGUE
OF THE WEIGHTS AND BALANCES IN THE CAIRO MUSEUM,’ ‘A GUIDE TO
THE ANTIQUITIES OF UPPER EGYPT,’ ‘DIE MASTABA DES
GEMNIKAI’ (WITH PROFESSOR VON BISSING), ETC.

SECOND IMPRESSION

William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1913

_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_

_TO
SIR GASTON MASPERO, K.C.M.G.,
ETC., ETC., ETC.,
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
ANTIQUITIES, EGYPT,
THIS BOOK IS
RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED._

PREFACE.
* * * * *

Some of the chapters in this book have appeared as articles in
‘Blackwood’s Magazine.’ The various journeys here recorded
have been made in the ordinary course of the work of inspection,
and have been reported in the usual official manner. These less
technical descriptions have been written in leisure hours, and the
illustrations here published are selected from a large number of
photographs and drawings rapidly made by the wayside. The journey to
Wady Hammamât and Kossair was made in the company of three painters,
Mr Charles Whymper, Mr Walter Tyndale, and Mr Erskine Nicol, to whom
my thanks are due, as also they are to Mr John Wells, with whom
I travelled to Gebel Dukhân. I am indebted to Prof. Sayce and Mr
Seymour de Ricci for several notes on the Greek inscriptions at
Wady Abâd. On some of the journeys I was accompanied by Mahmoud
Effendi Rushdy and Mahmoud Effendi Muhammed, Inspectors of the
Department of Antiquities, whose assistance was valuable.

ARTHUR E. P. WEIGALL.

LUXOR,
UPPER EGYPT.

CONTENTS.
* * * * *

PAGE
I. THE EASTERN DESERT AND ITS INTERESTS 1
II. TO THE QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMÂT 28
III. THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 56
IV. THE IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 90
V. THE QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 115
VI. THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD 141
VII. A NUBIAN HIGHWAY 169

ILLUSTRATIONS.
* * * * *

PLATE PAGE

THE HEAD OF WADY GATÂR _Frontispiece_

I. IN THE DESERT. THE AUTHOR IS SEEN ON THE NEAR 10
CAMEL

ON THE EDGE OF THE EASTERN DESERT 10

II. DESERT VEGETATION. THE COLOQUINTIDA PLANT 16

A NEAR VIEW OF THE COLOQUINTIDA PLANT. 16
PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE WADY ABÂD

III. ONE OF THE RIDING CAMELS 20

ONE OF THE CAMELS 20

IV. MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS ON ROCKS 30

V. UNDER THE TAMARISKS OF THE OASIS OF LAGÊTA 36

BIR HAMMAMÂT, LOOKING SOUTH 36

VI. CARTOUCHES OF SETY II. ON THE ROCKS BETWEEN BIR 40
HAMMAMÂT AND WADY FOWAKHÎEH

INSCRIPTIONS ON THE ROCKS BETWEEN BIR HAMMAMÂT 40
AND WADY FOWAKHÎEH

VII. INSCRIPTIONS AND MARKS 46

VIII. THE CAMP IN WADY FOWAKHÎEH, LOOKING DOWN FROM 50
THE HILLS ON THE NORTH SIDE. THE CAMEL TRACKS
ARE SEEN PASSING ALONG THE VALLEY

WADY FOWAKHÎEH, LOOKING EAST. THE CAMEL TRACKS 50
WILL BE NOTICED AGAIN

IX. ABANDONED SARCOPHAGUS ON THE HILLSIDE IN WADY 54
FOWAKHÎEH

A TYPICAL VALLEY NEAR WADY FOWAKHÎEH 54

X. ROCK INSCRIPTIONS AT WADY FOWAKHÎEH AND KOSSAIR 60

XI. BIR ES SID, THE WELL AT THE HIGHEST POINT OF 66
THE RED SEA HIGHROAD

THE ROMAN FORTRESS OF ABU ZERAH, LOOKING 66
SOUTHEAST

XII. DESERT PANORAMA FROM A HILL-TOP TWO HOURS’ RIDE 74
EAST OF BIR ES SID, LOOKING EAST. THE ROAD IS
SEEN PASSING TO NORTH AND SOUTH OF THIS HILL
AND JOINING UP FURTHER TO THE EAST

XIII. KOSSAIR. ARABIAN BOATS ON THE BEACH 80

A STREET IN KOSSAIR 80

XIV. THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE AT KOSSAIR 86

THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE FORTRESS AT KOSSAIR 86

XV. THE START FROM KENEH. NATIVE POLICE LOADING THE 90
CAMELS

MIDDAY REST AT EL GHAITEH. CAMELS FEEDING FROM 90
THE BUSHES

XVI. THE ROMAN STATION AT EL GHAITEH, LOOKING DOWN 96
FROM THE OFFICERS’ QUARTERS ON THE HILL. A DRY
RIVER-BED BORDERED BY BUSHES RUNS ACROSS THE
PLAIN

A TANK FOR STORING WATER INSIDE THE STATION OF 96
EL GHAITEH

XVII. THE EXCAVATION INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE OF EL 104
SARGIEH

THE ROMAN STATION AT EL GREIYEH. THE ANIMAL 104
LINES. THE BRICK PILLARS SUPPORTED THE ROOF
UNDER WHICH WERE THE NIGHT-STALLS

XVIII. GRANITE HILLS TO THE SOUTH OF WADY BILEH. THE 108
GEBEL DUKHÂN RANGE IS TO THE NORTH OF THIS WADY

RUINS OF THE ROMAN TEMPLE AT GEBEL DUKHÂN, 108
SHOWING THE HILLSIDE FROM WHICH THE PORPHYRY
WAS TAKEN

XIX. THE RUINS OF THE TOWN OF GEBEL DUKHÂN. THE 114
UPRIGHT PILLARS OF GRANITE SUPPORTED A ROOF

THE ROMAN TOWN OF MONS CLAUDIANUS, LOOKING 114
SOUTH FROM THE CAUSEWAY LEADING TO THE MAIN
QUARRY. THE ROUND PILES OF STONE IN THE
FOREGROUND ARE BUILT AT INTERVALS ALONG THE
CAUSEWAY

XX. MONS CLAUDIANUS. THE TOWN 120

MONS CLAUDIANUS. CHAMBERS ON THE WEST SIDE OF 120
THE FORECOURT OF THE TEMPLE. THE THRESHOLD AND
BASE OF A COLUMN OF THE GRANITE PORTICO ARE
SEEN ON THE RIGHT

XXI. MONS CLAUDIANUS. EAST END OF THE TEMPLE 124

MONS CLAUDIANUS, LOOKING OVER THE TOWN TO THE 124
TEMPLE ON THE HILLSIDE

XXII. MONS CLAUDIANUS. DOORWAY LEADING FROM THE HALL 128
OF THE BATH-HOUSE INTO THE ROOM IN WHICH WAS
THE PLUNGE-BATH. ORIGINALLY THE WALLS WERE
PLASTERED

MONS CLAUDIANUS. PEDESTAL OF THE ALTAR IN THE 128
FORECOURT OF THE TEMPLE. THE ALTAR ITSELF IS
SEEN BROKEN IN THE FOREGROUND

XXIII. MONS CLAUDIANUS. THE FIRST HEATED ROOM OF THE 132
BATH-HOUSE. THE DOORWAY ON THE LEFT LEADS INTO
THE WARMER ROOM. THE PERPENDICULAR CUT IN
THE LEFT WALL NEAR THE CORNER IS ONE OF THE
RECESSES IN WHICH THE HOT-AIR PIPES WERE FIXED

MONS CLAUDIANUS. THE SAME DOORWAY—NEARER VIEW 132

XXIV. MONS CLAUDIANUS. A LARGE GRANITE COLUMN LYING 138
TO THE NORTH-EAST OF THE TOWN. THE BACK WALL
OF THE TOWN IS SEEN BEHIND THE COLUMN, ABOVE
WHICH THE TEMPLE BUILDINGS ARE SEEN AT THE
FOOT OF THE GRANITE HILLS

MONS CLAUDIANUS. LARGE GRANITE COLUMNS LYING AT 138
THE FOOT OF A QUARRY WEST OF THE TOWN

XXV. THE ROMAN STATION OF ABU GEHÂD. SOME OF THE 142
ROOMS AS SEEN FROM THE COURT, LOOKING WEST

FRONT VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD 142

XXVI. THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD. THE EAST END OF 146
THE PORTICO. THE SQUARE PILLAR WAS BUILT
IN GRÆCO-ROMAN TIMES TO SUPPORT THE BROKEN
ARCHITRAVE

THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD. THE EAST WALL OF THE 146
PORTICO. THE KING IS SEEN SMITING A GROUP OF
NEGROES

XXVII. THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE ROMAN STATION OF WADY 150
ABÂD, LOOKING WEST FROM INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE

THE PILES OF STONE ERECTED OPPOSITE THE TEMPLE 150
OF WADY ABÂD

XXVIII. INSCRIPTIONS AND DRAWINGS IN AND NEAR THE 154
TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD

XXIX. ARCHAIC DRAWINGS OF SACRED BOATS ON ROCKS NEAR 156
TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD

XXX. ARCHAIC DRAWINGS OF SACRED BOATS, ANIMALS, 162
ETC., ON ROCKS NEAR TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD

XXXI. GREEK INSCRIPTION RELATING TO AN ELEPHANT HUNT. 166
ON A ROCK TO THE EAST OF THE TEMPLE OF WADY
ABÂD

SKETCH-PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD 166

XXXII. THE INSCRIBED ROCK, FROM THE NORTH-WEST 174

THE INSCRIBED ROCK, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST 174

XXXIII. THE ELEPHANTINE ROAD, LOOKING ALONG IT TOWARDS 184
ASWÂN

VIEW OF THE ISLANDS IN THE RIVER, ETC., FROM 184
NEAR THE INSCRIBED ROCK AT THE HEAD OF THE
ELEPHANTINE ROAD

Travels in the
Upper Egyptian Deserts.
* * * * *
I.

THE EASTERN DESERT AND ITS INTERESTS.

I know a young man who declares that after reading a certain
explorer’s description of a journey across the burning Sahara, he
found to his amazement that his nose was covered with freckles. The
reader will perhaps remember how, on some rainy day in his childhood,
he has sat over the fire and has read sea-stories and dreamed
sea-dreams until his lips, he will swear, have tasted salt. Alas,
one’s little agility in the art of narration is wholly inadequate
for the production, at this time of life, of any such phenomena
upon the gentle skins of those who chance to read these pages. Were
one a master-maker of literature, one might herewith lead the
imaginative so straight into the boisterous breezes of Egypt, one
might hold them so entranced in the sunlight which streams over
the desert, that they would feel, wherever they might be seated,
the tingling glow of the sun and the wind upon their cheeks,
and would hold their hands to their eyes as a shelter from the
glare. The walls of their rooms would fall flat as those of Jericho;
and outside they would see the advancing host of the invaders—the
sunshine, the north wind, the scudding clouds, the circling eagles,
the glistening sand, the blue shadows, and the rampant rocks. And
the night closing over the sack of their city, they would see the
moonlight, the brilliant stars, the fluttering bats, the solemn owls;
and they would hear the wailing of the hyænas and the barking of
the dogs in the distant camps. If one only possessed the ability,
one might weave such a magic carpet for those who knew how to ride
upon it, that, deserting the fallen Jericho of their habitation,
they would fly to the land of the invaders which they had seen,
and there they would be kept as spell-bound and dazzled by the eyes
of the wilderness as ever a child was dazzled by a tale of the sea.

But with this ability lacking it is very doubtful whether the reader
will be able to appreciate the writer’s meaning; and, without
the carpet, it is a far cry from Upper Egypt, where these words
are written, to the fireside where they are read. Nevertheless I
will venture to give an account here of some journeys made in the
Upper Egyptian desert, in the hope rather of arousing interest in
a fascinating country than of placing on record much information
of value to science; although the reader interested in Egyptian
archæology will find some new material upon which to speculate.

The Upper Egyptian desert is a country known only to a very few. The
resident, as well as the visitor, in Egypt raises his eyes from the
fertile valley of the Nile to the bare hills, and lowers them once
more with the feeling that he has looked at the wall of the garden,
the boundary of the land. There is, however, very much to be seen and
studied behind this wall; and those who penetrate into the solitudes
beyond will assuredly find themselves in a world of new colours, new
forms, and new interests. In the old days precious metal was sought
here, ornamental stone was quarried, trade-routes passed through to
the Red Sea, and the soldiery of Egypt, and later of Rome, marched
from station to station amidst its hills. The desert as one sees
it now is, so to speak, peopled with the ghosts of the Old World;
and on hidden hill-slopes or in obscure valleys one meets with the
remains of ancient settlements scattered through the length and
breadth of the country.

The number of persons who have had the energy to climb the garden
wall and to wander into this great wilderness is so small that
one might count the names upon the fingers. Lepsius, the German
Egyptologist, passed over some of the routes on which antiquities
were to be met with; Golénischeff, the Russian Egyptologist,
checked some of his results; Schweinfurth, the German explorer,
penetrated to many of the unknown localities, and mapped a great
part of the country; Bellefonds Bey, the Director-General of Public
Works in Egypt under Muhammed Aly, made a survey of the mineral
belt lying between the river and the Red Sea; and during the last
score of years various prospectors and miners have visited certain
points of interest to them. The Government Survey Department is
now engaged in mapping this Eastern Desert, and two most valuable
reports have already been published; while for a few years there
existed a Mines Department, whose director, Mr John Wells, made
himself acquainted with many of the routes and most of the mining
centres. Thus, most of the journeys here to be recorded have not
been made over absolutely new ground; though, except for the expert
reports of the Survey Department and some papers by Schweinfurth,
it would be a difficult matter to unearth any literature on the
subject. In describing these journeys, however, one is often enabled
to indulge in the not unpleasing recollection that one is writing
of places which no other European eyes have seen.

Those who have travelled in Egypt will not need to be told how
the Nile, flowing down from the Sudan to the distant sea, pushes
its silvery way through the wide desert: now passing between the
granite hills, now through regions of sandstone, and now under
the limestone cliffs. A strip of verdant cultivated land, seldom
more than six or eight miles wide, and often only as many yards,
borders the broad river; and beyond this, on either side, is the
desert. In Upper Egypt one may seldom take an afternoon’s ride
due east or due west without passing out either on to the sun-baked
sand of a limitless wilderness or into the liquid shadows of the
towering hills. For the present we are not concerned with the
western desert, which actually forms part of the great Sahara,
and one’s back may therefore be turned upon it.

Eastwards, behind the hills or over the sand, there is in most parts
of the country a wide undulating plain, broken here and there by
the limestone outcrops. Here the sun beats down from a vast sky,
and the traveller feels himself but a fly crawling upon a brazen
table. In all directions the desert stretches, until, in a leaden
haze, the hot sand meets the hot sky. The hillocks and points of
rock rise like islands from the floods of the mirage in which they
are reflected; and sometimes there are clumps of withered bushes
to tell of the unreality of the waters.

The scenery here is often of exquisite beauty; and its very monotony
lends to it an interest when for a while the grouping of the hills
ceases to offer new pictures and new harmonies to the eye. Setting
out on a journey towards the Red Sea one rides on camel-back over
this rolling plain, with the sun bombarding one’s helmet from
above and the wind charging it from the flank; and, as noonday
approaches, one often looks in vain for a rock under which to find
shade. Naturally the glaring sand is far hotter than the shady
earth under the palms in the cultivation; but the stagnant, dusty,
fly-filled air of the groves is not to be compared with the clear
atmosphere up in the wilderness. There are no evil odours here,
breeding sickness and beckoning death. The wind blows so purely that
one might think it had not touched earth since the gods released
it from the golden caverns. The wide ocean itself has not less to
appeal to the sense of smell than has the fair desert.

Descending from the camel for lunch, one lies on one’s back
upon the sand and stares up at the deep blue of the sky and the
intense whiteness of a passing cloud. Raising oneself, the Nile
valley may still be seen, perhaps, with its palms floating above the
vaporous mirage; and away in the distance the pale cliffs rise. Then
across one’s range of sight a butterfly zigzags, blazing in the
sunlight; and behind it the blue becomes darker and the white more
extreme. Around one, on the face of the desert, there is a jumbled
collection of things beautiful: brown flints, white pebbles of
limestone, yellow fragments of sandstone, orange-coloured ochre,
transparent pieces of gypsum, carnelian and alabaster chips,
glittering quartz. Across the clear patches of sand there are all
manner of recent footprints, and the incidental study of these is
one of the richest delights of a desert journey. Here one may see
the four-pronged footprints of a wagtail, and there the larger
marks of a crow. An eagle’s and a vulture’s footmarks are
often to be observed, and the identification of those of birds
such as the desert partridge or of the cream-coloured courser is
a happy exercise for one’s ingenuity. Here the light, wiggly
line of a lizard’s rapid tour abroad attracts the attention,
reminding one of some American globe-trotter’s route over Europe;
and there footprints of the jerboa are seen leading in short jumps
towards its hole. Jackals or foxes leave their dainty pad-marks in
all directions, and one may sometimes come across the heavy prints
of a hyæna, while it is not unusual to meet with those of a gazelle.

In the afternoon one rides onwards, and perhaps a hazy view of the
granite hills may now be obtained in the far distance ahead. The
sun soon loses its strength, and shines in slanting lines over the
desert, so that one sees oneself in shadow stretched out to amazing
lengths, as though the magnetic power of night in the east were
already dragging in the reluctant darknesses to its dark self. Each
human or camel footprint in the sand is at this hour a basin filled
with blue shade, while every larger dent in the desert’s surface is
brimful of that same blue; and the colour is so opaque that an Arab
lying therein clad in his blue shirt is almost indistinguishable
at a distance. Above one the white clouds go tearing by, too busy,
too intent, it would seem, on some far-off goal to hover blushing
around the sun. The light fades, and the camp is pitched on the open
plain; and now one is glad to wrap oneself in a large overcoat,
and to swallow the hot tea which has been prepared over a fire of
the dried scrub of the desert.

The nights in the desert are as beautiful as the days, though in
winter they are often bitterly cold. With the assistance of a warm
bed and plenty of blankets, however, one may sleep in the open
in comfort; and only those who have known this vast bedroom will
understand how beautiful night may be. If one turns to the east,
one may stare at Mars flashing red somewhere over Arabia, and
westwards there is Jupiter blazing above the Sahara. One looks up
and up at the expanse of star-strewn blue, and one’s mind journeys
of itself into the place of dreams before sleep has come to conduct
it thither. The dark desert drops beneath one; the bed floats in
mid-air, with planets above and below. Could one but peer over
the side, earth would be seen as small and vivid as the moon. But
a trance holds the body inactive, and the eyes are fixed upon the
space above. Then, quietly, a puff of wind brings one down again
to realities as it passes from darkness to darkness. Consciousness
returns quickly and gently, points out the aspect of the night,
indicates the larger celestial bodies, and as quickly and gently
leaves one again to the tender whispers of sleep.

When there is moonlight there is more to carry the eye into the
region of dreams on earth than there is in the heavens; for the
desert spreads out around one in a silver, shimmering haze, and
no limit can be placed to its horizons. The eye cannot tell where
the sand meets the sky, nor can the mind know whether there is
any meeting. In the dimness of coming sleep one wonders whether the
hands of the sky are always just out of reach of those of the desert,
whether there is always another mile to journey and always another
hill to climb; and, wondering, one drifts into unconsciousness. At
dawn the light brings one back to earth in time to see the sun
pass up from behind the low hills. In contrast to the vague night
the proceeding is rapid and business-like. The light precedes its
monarch only by half an hour or so; and ere the soft colours have
been fully appreciated, the sun appears over the rocks and flings a
sharp beam into the eyes of every living thing, so that in a moment
the camp is stirred and awakened.

[Plate I:

Illustration: In the Desert. The Author is seen on the near camel.

Illustration: On the edge of the Eastern Desert.—Page 30.]

During the second or third day’s ride one generally enters the
granite regions, and one is lost amidst the intricate valleys which
pass between the peaks of the hills. Here one may find plenty of
shelter from the sun’s rays in the shadow of the cliffs; and as
the camel jogs along over the hard gravel tracks, or as one sits
for refreshment with the back propped against a great grey boulder,
the view which is to be enjoyed is often magnificent. On the one
side the dark granite, porphyry, or breccia rocks rise up like the
towered and buttressed walls of some fairy-tale city; while on the
other side range rises behind range, and a thousand peaks harmonise
their delicate purples and greys with the blue of the sky. When
the sun sets these lofty peaks are flushed with pink, and, like
mediators between earth and heaven, carry to the dark valleys the
tale of a glory which one cannot see. There is usually plenty of
scrub to be found in the valleys with which to build the evening
fires, and with good luck one might replenish the food-supplies
with the tender flesh of the gazelle. Every two or three days one
may camp beside a well of pure water, where the camels may drink,
and from which the portable tanks may be refilled.

Near these wells there are sometimes a few Bedwin to be found tending
their little herds of goats: quiet, harmless sons of the desert,
who generally own allegiance to some Shêkh living in the Nile
valley. One’s guides and camel-men exchange greetings with them,
and pass the latest news over the camp fires. Often, however, one
may journey for many days without meeting either a human being or
a four-footed animal, though on the well-marked tracks the prints
of goats and goatherds, camels and camel-men, are apparent.

No matter in what direction one travels, hardly a day passes on which
one does not meet with some trace of ancient activity. Here it will
be a deserted gold-mine, there a quarry; here a ruined fortress
or town, and there an inscription upon the rocks. Indications
of the present day are often so lacking, and Time seems to be so
much at a standstill, that one slips back in imagination to the
dim elder days. The years fall from one like a garment doffed,
and one experiences a sense of relief from their weight. A kind of
exhilaration, moreover, goes with the thought of the life of the
men of thousands of years ago who lived amongst these changeless
hills and valleys. Their days were so full of adventure: they were
beset with dangers. One has but to look at the fortified camps,
the watch-towers on the heights, the beacons along the highroads,
to realise how brave were the “olden times.” One of the peculiar
charms of these hills of the Eastern Desert is their impregnation
with the atmosphere of a shadowy adventurous past. One’s mind is
conscious, if it may be so expressed, of the ghosts of old sights,
the echoes of old sounds. Dead ambitions, dead terrors, drift through
these valleys on the wind, or lurk behind the tumbled rocks. Rough
inscriptions on these rocks tell how this captain or that centurion
here rested, and on the very spot the modern traveller rests to
ease the self-same aches and to enjoy the self-same shade before
moving on towards an identical goal in the east.

On the third or fourth day after leaving the Nile one passes beneath
the mountains, which here rise sometimes to as much as 6000 feet; and
beyond these the road slopes through the valleys down to the barren
Red Sea coast, which may be any distance from 100 to 400 miles from
the Nile. Kossair is the one town on the coast opposite Upper Egypt,
as it was also in ancient times; and Berenice, opposite Lower Nubia,
was the only other town north of Sudan territory. Kossair does
a fast-diminishing trade with Arabia, and a handful of Egyptian
coastguards is kept mildly busy in the prevention of smuggling. The
few inhabitants of the Egyptian coast fish, sleep, say their prayers,
or dream in the shade of their hovels until death at an extremely
advanced age releases them from the boredom of existence. Those of
them who are of Arab stock sometimes enliven their days by shooting
one another in a more or less sporting manner, and by wandering to
other and more remote settlements thereafter; but those of Egyptian
blood have not the energy even for this amount of exertion. There
is a lethargy over the desert which contrasts strangely with one’s
own desire for activity under the influence of the sun and the wind,
and of the records of ancient toil which are to be observed on all
sides. It must be that we of the present day come as the sons of a
race still in its youth; and in this silent land we meet only with
the worn-out remnant of a people who have been old these thousands
of years.

There was a threefold reason for the activities of the ancients in
the Eastern Desert. Firstly, from Koptos, a city on the Nile not
far from Thebes, to Kossair there ran the great trade-route with
Arabia, Persia, and India; from Suez to Koptos there was a route by
which the traders from Syria often travelled; from Edfu to Berenice
there was a trade-route for the produce of Southern Arabia and the
ancient land of Pount; while other roads from point to point of
the Nile were often used as short-cuts. Secondly, in this desert
there were very numerous gold mines, the working of which was one
of the causes which made Egypt the richest country of the ancient
world. And thirdly, the ornamental stones which were to be quarried
in the hills were in continuous requisition for the buildings and
statuary of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Rome.

There is much to be said in regard to the gold-mining, but here
space will not permit of more than the most cursory review of the
information. Gold was used in Egypt at a date considerably prior to
the beginning of written history in Dynasty I., and there are many
archaic objects richly decorated with that metal. The situation of
many of the early cities of the Nile valley is due solely to this
industry. When two cities of high antiquity are in close proximity
to one another on opposite banks of the river, as is often the case
in Upper Egypt, one generally finds that the city on the western
bank is the older of the two. In the case of Diospolis Parva and
Khenoboskion, which stand opposite to one another, the former,
on the west bank, is the more ancient and is the capital of the
province, and the latter, on the east bank, does not date earlier
than Dynasty VI. Of Ombos and Koptos, the former, on the west bank,
has prehistoric cemeteries around it; while the latter, on the
east bank, dates from Dynasty I. at the earliest. Hieraconpolis
and Eileithyiapolis stand opposite to each other, and the former,
which is on the west bank, is certainly the more ancient. Of
Elephantine and Syene, the latter, on the east bank, is by far the
less ancient. And in the case of Pselchis and Baki (Kubbân), the
former, on the west bank, has near it an archaic fortress; while
the latter, on the east bank, does not date earlier than Dynasty
XII. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that most of the
early cities were engaged in gold-mining, and despatched caravans
into the Eastern Desert for that purpose. These cities were usually
built on the western bank of the river, since the main routes of
communication from end to end of Egypt passed along the western
desert. Mining stations had, therefore, to be founded on the eastern
bank opposite to the parent cities; and these stations soon became
cities themselves as large as those on the western shore. Thus the
antiquity of the eastern city in each of these cases indicates at
least that same antiquity for the mining of gold.

[Plate II:

Illustration: Desert vegetation. The Coloquintida plant.

Illustration: A near view of the Coloquintida plant. Photographed
in the Wady Abâd.]

Throughout what is known as the old kingdom, gold was used in
ever-increasing quantities, but an idea of the wealth of the mines
will best be obtained from the records of the Empire. About 250,000
grains of gold were drawn by the Vizir Rekhmara in taxes from Upper
Egypt, and this was but a small item in comparison with the taxes
levied in kind. A king of a north Syrian state wrote to Amonhotep
III., the Pharaoh of Egypt, asking for gold, and towards the end
of his letter he says: “Let my brother send gold in very large
quantities, without measure, and let him send more gold to me than
he did to my father; for in my brother’s land gold is as common
as dust.” To the god Amon alone Rameses III. presented some 26,000
grains of gold, and to the other gods he gave at the same time very
large sums. In later times the High Priest of Amon was made also
director of the gold mines, and it was the diverting of this vast
wealth from the crown to the church which was mainly responsible
for the fall of the Ramesside line.

A subject must here be introduced which will ever remain of interest
to the speculative. Some have thought that the southern portion
of this desert is to be identified with the Ophir of the Bible,
and that the old gold-workings here are none other than “King
Solomon’s Mines.” In the Book of Kings one reads, “And King
Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth,
on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent
in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea,
with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched
from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it
to King Solomon.” Ophir cannot be identified with Arabia, since
there is no gold there; and hence one may seek this land of ancient
wealth at the southern end of the Eastern Egyptian Desert. If it is
argued that the Hebrews would have found difficulties in carrying
on mining operations unmolested in Egyptian territory, it may be
contended on the other hand that King Solomon may have made some
bargain with the Pharaoh: for example, that the former might mine
in a certain tract of desert if the latter might cut timber in the
Lebanon. The purchase of cedar-wood by the Egyptians is known to
have taken place at about this period, payment in gold being made;
and therefore it does not require an undue stretch of the imagination
to suppose that the Hebrews themselves mined the gold. Again, at
the time when King Solomon reigned in all his glory in Palestine,
the short-lived Pharaohs of Egypt sat upon tottering thrones, and
were wholly unable to protect the Eastern Desert from invasion. The
Egyptians often state that they encountered hostile forces in this
land, and these may not always have consisted of Bedwin marauders.

No savant has accepted for a moment the various theories which
place Ophir at the southern end of the African continent; and the
most common view is that Solomon obtained his gold from the land of
Pount, so often referred to in Egyptian inscriptions. This country
is thought to have been situated in the neighbourhood of Suakin; but,
as Professor Naville points out, it is a somewhat vague geographical
term, and may include a large tract of country to the north and south
of this point. One cannot imagine the Hebrews penetrating very far
over the unknown seas to the perilous harbours of Middle Africa:
one pictures them more easily huddled in the less dangerous ports
of places such as Kossair or Berenice, or at farthest in that of
Suakin. It is thus quite probable that some of the gold-workings
in the desert here described are actually King Solomon’s Mines,
and that the country through which the reader will be conducted
is the wonderful Ophir itself. Certainly there is no one who can
state conclusively that it is not.

Work continued with unabated energy during the later periods of
Egyptian history, and the Persian, Greek, and Roman treasuries were
filled consecutively with the produce of the mines. Several classical
writers make reference to these operations, and sometimes one is
told the actual name and situation of the workings. Diodorus gives a
description of the mines in the Wady Alagi, and tells how the work
was done. The miners wore a lamp tied to their forehead. The stone
was carried to the surface by children, and was pounded in stone
mortars by iron pestles. It was then ground to a fine powder by
old men and women. This powdered ore was washed on inclined tables,
the residue being placed in earthen crucibles with lead, salt, and
tin for fluxes, and was there baked for five days. Agatharchides
describes how the prisoners and negroes hewed out the stone, and,
with unutterable toil, crushed it in mills and washed out the grains
of gold. The Arabic historian, El Macrizi, states that during the
reign of Ahmed ben Teilun there was great activity in the mining
industry throughout the Eastern Desert, and Cufic inscriptions of
this date found in the old workings confirm this statement. From
then, until modern times, however, little work was done; but in
recent years, as the reader will no doubt know, many of the ancient
workings have been reopened, and one must admit that if these are
really to be regarded as King Solomon’s Mines, that potentate must
have had a somewhat lower opinion of Ophir than tradition indicates.

[Plate III:

Illustration: One of the riding-camels.

Illustration: One of the camels.]

The other cause for the ancient activity in the Eastern Desert was,
as has been said, the need of ornamental stone for the making of
vases, statues, and architectural accessories. From the earliest
times bowls and vases of alabaster, breccia, diorite, and other fine
stones were used by the Egyptians, and the quarries must have already
formed quite a flourishing industry. Soon the making of statuettes,
and later of statues, enlarged this industry, and with the growth
of civilisation it steadily increased. The galleries of the Cairo
Museum, and those of European museums, are massed with statues
and other objects cut in stone brought from the hills between
the Nile and the Red Sea. The breccia quarries of Wady Hammamât
were worked from archaic to Roman days; the Tourquoise Mountains,
not far from Kossair, supplied the markets of the ancient world;
white granite was taken from the hills of Um Etgal; there were two
or three alabaster quarries in constant use; and in the time of
the Roman Empire the famous Imperial porphyry was quarried in the
mountains of Gebel Dukhân. One may still see blocks of breccia
at Hammamât, of granite at Um Etgal, or of porphyry at Dukhân,
lying abandoned at the foot of the hills, although numbered and
actually addressed to the Cæsars. The towns in which the quarrymen
lived still stand in defiance of the years, and the traveller who
has the energy to penetrate into the distant valleys where they are
situated may there walk through streets untrodden since the days
of Nero and Trajan, and yet still littered with the chippings from
the dressing of the blocks.

In the old days the provisioning of the mining and quarrying
settlements must have taxed the ingenuity even of the Egyptians;
and the establishing of workable lines of communication with the
distant Nile must have required the most careful organisation. The
caravans bringing food were of great size, for there were often
several thousands of hungry miners to be fed. In Dynasty VI. one
reads of 200 donkeys and 50 oxen being used in the transport, and
in Dynasty XI. 60,000 loaves of bread formed the daily requirements
in food of one expedition. In late Ramesside times the food of an
expedition of some 9000 men was carried on ten large carts, each
drawn by six yoke of oxen, while porters “innumerable” are said
to have been employed. The families of the workmen generally lived on
the spot, and these also had to be fed—a fact which is indicated,
too, by an inscription which states that in one expedition each
miner required twenty loaves of bread per diem.

Whenever this organisation broke down the consequences must have been
awful. In this quarrying expedition in Ramesside times, consisting
of 9000 men, 10 per cent of them died from one cause or another;
and later writers speak of the “horrors” of the mines. In summer
the heat is intense in the desert, and the wells could not always
have supplied sufficient water. The rocks are then so hot that they
cannot be touched by the bare hand, and one’s boots are little
protection to the feet. Standing in the sunlight, the ring has to
be removed from one’s finger, for the hot metal burns a blister
upon the flesh. After a few hours of exercise there is a white
lather upon the lips, and the eyes are blinded with the moisture
which has collected around them; and thus what the quarrymen and
miners must have suffered as they worked upon the scorching stones
no tongue can tell.

In ancient Egyptian times the camel was regarded as a curious beast
from a far country, and was seldom, if ever, put to any use in
Egypt. Only three or four representations of it are now known, and
it never occurs amongst any of the animals depicted upon the walls
of the tombs, although bears, elephants, giraffes, and other foreign
and rare creatures, are there shown. It was an Asiatic animal, and
was not introduced into Egypt as an agent of transportation until the
days of the ubiquitous Romans. Donkeys, oxen, and human beings were
alone used in Pharaonic days for transporting the necessities of the
labourers and the produce of their work; and probably the officials
were carried to and fro in sedan-chairs. Even in Roman days there
is nothing to show that the camel was very largely employed, and one
may not amuse oneself too confidently with the picture of a centurion
of the Empire astride the hump of the rolling ship of the desert.

Nowadays, of course, one travels entirely by camel in the desert. For
an expedition of fifteen days or so one generally requires about a
dozen camels all told, and one or two guides. Some of the animals
carry the water in portable tanks; others are loaded with the
tents and beds; and others carry the boxes of tinned food and
bottled drinks. The whole caravan rattles and bumps as it passes
through the echoing valleys, and one’s cook rises from amidst a
clattering medley of saucepans and kettles which are slung around
his saddle. The camels are obtained, at the rate of two to three
shillings per diem, from some Shêkh, who holds himself more or less
responsible for one’s safety. With a steady steed and a good saddle
there are few means of locomotion so enjoyable as camel-riding. Once
the art is learnt it is never forgotten, and after the tortures of
the first day or so of the first expedition, one need never again
suffer from stiffness, though many months may elapse between the
journeys. This preliminary suffering is due to one’s inability
at the outset to adjust the muscles to the peculiar motion; but
the knowledge comes unconsciously after a while and ever remains.

One jogs along at the rate of about four and a half or five miles an
hour, and some thirty miles a-day is covered with ease. The baggage
camels travel at about three miles an hour. They start first,
are passed during the morning, catch one up at the long rest for
luncheon, are again passed during the afternoon, and arrive about
an hour after the halt has been called. If possible, all the camels
drink every second day, but they are quite capable of going strongly
for three or four days without water, and, when really necessary,
can travel for a week or more through a land without wells.

While the Mines Department was in existence experiments were
tried with automobiles and motor bicycles, which were by no means
unsuccessful. Many of the main roads in the Eastern Desert pass
over hard gravel, and a motor may be driven with safety over the
unprepared camel tracks. If wells were sunk every ten or fifteen
miles, there would be no dangers to be feared from a breakdown;
and under favourable circumstances the journey from the Nile to
the Red Sea might be accomplished in a morning. In the future one
may picture the energetic tourist leaving his Luxor or Cairo hotel,
whirling over the open plains where now one crawls, rushing through
the valleys in which the camel-rider lingers, penetrating to the
remote ruins and deserted workings, and emerging breathless on
to the golden coast of the sea, to wave his handkerchief to his
friends upon the decks of the Indian liners.

The time must surely come when the owners of automobiles in Egypt
will sicken of the short roads around Cairo, and will venture
beyond the garden wall towards the rising sun. Whether it will
be that the re-working of the gold mines and the quarries of
ornamental stone will attract the attention of these persons to
this wonderful wilderness, or that the enterprising automobilists
will pave the way for the miners and the quarrymen, it is certain
that some day the desert will blossom with the rose once more, and
the rocks reverberate with the sound of many voices. Had I now in
my two open hands pearls, diamonds, and rubies, how gladly would I
give them—or some of them—for the sight of the misty mountains
of the Eastern Desert, and for the feel of the sharp air of the
hills! One looks forward with enthusiasm to the next visit to these
unknown regions, and one cannot but feel that those who have it in
their power to travel there are missing much in remaining within the
walls of the little garden of the Nile. One hears in imagination
the camels grunting as their saddles are adjusted; one feels the
tingle of the morning air; and one itches to be off again, “over
the hills and far away,” into the solitary splendour of the desert.

II.

TO THE QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMÂT.

The so-called Breccia Quarries of Wady Hammamât are known to
all Egyptologists by name, owing to the important historical
inscriptions which are cut on the rocks of the valley. In reality
the stone quarried there was mainly tuff, or consolidated volcanic
ash; and the real name of the locality is Wady Fowakhîeh, “the
Valley of the Pots”; but such niceties do not trouble the average
archæologist. Many of the inscriptions were copied by Lepsius,
the late German Egyptologist, and further notes were made by
Golénischeff, a Russian savant; but except for these two persons no
Egyptologist has studied the quarries. They have been seen, however,
on a few occasions by Europeans; and, as the caravan road to Kossair
passes along the valley in which they are situated, they are known
to all the natives who have crossed the desert at this point. In
November 1907 I found it possible to visit this historic site,
and I was fortunate enough to obtain the companionship of three
English friends who happened, very opportunely, to be in search of
mild excitement at the time.

We set out from Luxor one morning in November, our caravan consisting
in all of twenty-three camels, nine of which were ridden by our four
selves, my servant, two guards, the Shêkh of the camelmen, and the
guide, while fourteen were loaded with the three tents, the baggage,
and the water-tanks, and were tended by a dozen camelmen who made the
journey mainly on foot. Our road led eastwards from Luxor past the
temple of the goddess Mut at Karnak, reflected in its sacred lake,
and so along the highroad towards the rising sun. The day was cool,
and a strong invigorating breeze raced past us, going in the same
direction. Before us, as we crossed the fields, the sunlit desert
lay stretched behind the soft green of the tamarisks which border
its edge. Away to the right the three peaks of the limestone hills,
which form the characteristic background of Thebes, rose into the
sunlight; and to the left one could discern the distant ranges
behind which we were to penetrate.

On reaching the desert we turned off northwards towards these hills,
skirting the edge of the cultivated land until we should pick up the
ancient road which leaves the Nile valley some twenty miles north
of Luxor. After luncheon and a rest in the shade of the rustling
tamarisks the ride was continued, and we did not again dismount
until, in the mid-afternoon, the Coptic monastery which is situated
behind the town of Qus, and which marks the beginning of the road to
the Red Sea, was reached; and here the camp was pitched. The quiet
five-hours’ ride of about twenty miles had sufficed to produce
healthy appetites in the party, and, when the sun went down and
the air turned cold, we were glad to attack an early dinner in the
warmth of the mess-tent—one of the camel-boxes serving as a table,
and the four saddles taking the place of chairs.

The next morning we set out soon after sunrise, and rode eastwards
into the desert, which here stretched out before us in a blaze
of sunlight. The road passed over the open gravel and sand in a
series of parallel tracks beaten hard by the pads of generations
of camels. Gebel el Gorn, “the Hill of the Horn,” was passed
before noon; and, mounting a ridge, we saw the wide plain across
which we were to travel, intersected by a dry river-bed marked
for its whole length by low bushes. Unable to find shade, and
these bushes being still some distance ahead, we lunched in the
open sunlight at a spot where the wind, sweeping over the ridge,
brought us all the coolness which we could desire.

[Plate IV:

Illustration:

1-3. Marks on a rock near Quft.
4-6. On a rock near Qus. Old kingdom drawings
7. On a stone at Lagêta.—Page 32.
8, 9. Inside Kasr el Benât.—Page 33.
10-12. On rocks opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page 34.
13, 14. Sinaitic inscription opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page 34.
15-20. Opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page 34.
21-24. Marks on rocks of Abu Kueh.—Page 34.
25-32. Middle kingdom inscriptions, and marks at Abu
Kueh.—Page 34.]

We were now on the great mediæval highway from Qus to Kossair, by
which the Arabian and Indian trade with Egypt was once conducted. The
quarries of Hammamât lie on the main road to the sea. Nowadays the
road starts from Keneh; in ancient times it started from Koptos, now
called Quft, about ten miles south of Keneh; and in mediæval days
it started from Qus, about ten miles south of Quft again. The roads
from these different places join at the little oasis of Lagêta,
which lies some four-and-twenty miles back from the Nile valley.

Riding into Lagêta in mid-afternoon the scene was one of great
charm. The flat desert stretched around us in a haze of heat. In
the far distance ahead the mountains of Hammamât could be seen,
blue, misty, and indistinct. The little oasis, with its isolated
groups of tamarisks, its four or five tall palms, its few acacias,
and its one little crop of corn, formed a welcome patch of green
amidst the barren wilderness; and the eyes, aching from the glare
around, turned with gratitude towards the soft shadows of the
trees. A large, and probably ancient, well of brackish water forms
the nucleus around which the few poor huts cluster; and two or three
_shadufs_, or water-hoists, are to be seen here and there. A ruined,
many-domed building which may have been a caravanserai, or perhaps
a Coptic monastery, stands picturesquely under a spreading acacia;
and near it we found the fragment of a Greek inscription in which,
like a light emerging momentarily from the darkness of the past,
the name of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius was to be seen. The few
villagers idly watched us as we dismounted and walked through the
settlement, too bathed in the languor of their monotonous life to
bother to do more than greet with mild interest those of our camelmen
whom they knew; and while we sat under the tamarisks to drink our
tea, the only living thing which took any stock of us and our doings
was a small green willow-wren in search of a crumb of food.

The camp was pitched to the east of the oasis, and at dawn we
continued our way. The temperature was not more than 38° Fahrenheit
when the sun rose, and we were constrained to break into a hard
trot in order to keep warm. Two desert martins circled about us as
we went, now passing under the camels’ necks, and now whirling
overhead; while more than once we put up a few cream-coloured
coursers, who went off with a whirr into the space around. After a
couple of hours’ riding over the open, hard-surfaced desert, we
topped a low ridge and came into view of a ruined Roman station,
called in ancient times the Hydreuma, and now known as Kasr el
Benât, “the Castle of the Maidens.” The building stands in a
level plain around which the low hills rise, and to the east the
distant Hammamât mountains form a dark background. From the outside
one sees a well-made rectangular wall, and entering the doorway on
the north side one passes into an enclosure surrounded by a series
of small chambers, the roofs of which have now fallen in. In these
little rooms the weary Roman officers and the caravan masters rested
themselves as they passed to and fro between the quarries and the
Nile; and in this courtyard, when haply the nights were warm, they
sang their songs to the stars and dreamed their dreams of Rome. The
building is so little ruined that one may picture it as it then
was without any difficulty; and such is the kindness of Time that
one peoples the place with great men and good, intent on their work
and happy in their exile, rather than with that riff-raff which so
often found its way to these outlying posts.

Across the plain, opposite the entrance to the Hydreuma, there
is a large isolated rock with cliff-like sides, upon which one
finds all manner of inscriptions and rough drawings. Here there
are two Sinaitic inscriptions of rare value and several curious
signs in an unknown script, while Ababdeh marks and Arabic letters
are conspicuous.

We mounted our camels again at about eleven o’clock, and rode
towards the wall of the Medîk es-Salâm hills ahead, passing
into their shadows soon after noonday. We halted for luncheon
in the shade of a group of rocks, and our meal was enlivened by
the presence of two butterflies which seemed out of place in the
barren desert, and yet in harmony with the breezy, light-hearted
spirit of the place. Early in the afternoon we rode on, but an hour
had not passed when some obvious inscriptions on the rocks to the
left of the track, opposite a point where the road bends sharply
to the right, attracted my attention. These proved to date from
the Middle Empire, about B.C. 2000, and no doubt marked a camp of
that date. The names of various officials were given, and a prayer
or two to the gods was to be read. Rounding the corner, we had no
sooner settled ourselves to the camels’ trot than another group
of inscriptions on the rocks to the right of the path necessitated
a further halt. Here there were two very important graffiti of the
time of Akhnaton; and considerable light is thrown by one of them
upon the fascinating period of the religious revolution of that
king. One sees three cartouches, of which the first is that of
Queen Thiy, the second reads Amonhotep (IV.), and the third seems
to have given the name Akhnaton; but both this cartouche and that
of Thiy are erased. The three cartouches are placed together above
the symbols of sovereignty, and below the rays of the sun’s disk,
thus showing that Akhnaton was but a boy of tender years under his
mother’s guidance when he first came to the throne, and that the
Aton worship had already begun. It would be too long a matter to
explain the significance of this inscription here, but those who
are of an inquiring mind may turn to the article on this subject
in the October number of ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’ for 1907,
where I have described how the recently found mummy of Akhnaton
proved to be that of a very young man.

The shadows were lengthening when we once more mounted and trotted
up the valley, which presently led into more open ground; but
after half an hour’s ride a second Roman station came into sight,
and again the grumbling camels had to kneel. The building is much
ruined, and is not of great interest to those who have already
seen the Hydreuma and other stations. As we continued the journey
the sun set behind us, and in the growing moonlight the valley
looked ghostly and wonderfully beautiful. The shapes of the rocks
became indistinct, and one was hardly aware when the well known
as Bir Hammamât was at last reached. This well lies in a flat,
gravelly amphitheatre amidst the rugged hills, which press in on all
sides. It is in all about six hours’ ride—_i.e._, twenty-eight
or thirty miles—from Lagêta; but our several halts had spread
the journey over twice that length of time. The well is circular
and fairly large, and stones dropped into its pitch-dark depths
seemed a long time in striking the water. A subterranean stairway,
restored in recent years by a mining company, runs down at one side
to the water’s level; and at its doorway in the moonlight we sat
and smoked until the baggage camels came up.

The next morning we rode up a valley which was now tortuous and
narrow. This is the Wady Hammamât of the archæologist, and the
Wady Fowakhîeh of the natives. Dark, threatening hills towered
on either side, as though eager to prison for ever the deeds once
enacted at their feet. One’s voice echoed amongst the rocks,
and the wind carried the sound down the valley and round the bend,
adding to it its own quiet whispers. A ride of about half an hour’s
length brought us to some ruined huts where the ancient quarrymen
had lived in the days of the Pharaohs. From this point onwards for
perhaps a mile the rocks on either side are dotted with inscriptions,
from which a part of the history of the valley may be learnt. The
place is full of whispers. As the breeze blows round the rocks and
up the silent water-courses it is as though the voices of men long
since forgotten were drifting uncertainly by. One feels as though
the rocks were peopled with insistent entities, all muttering
the tales of long ago. Behind this great rock there is something
laughing quietly to itself; up this dry waterfall there is a sort
of whimpering; and here in this silent recess one might swear that
the word to be silent had been passed around. It is only the wind
and the effect of the contrast between the exposed and the still
places sheltered by the rocks; but, with such a history as is writ
upon its walls, one might believe the valley to be crowded with
the ghosts of those who have suffered or triumphed in it.

[Plate V:

Illustration: Under the tamarisks of the oasis of Lagêta.—Page 31.

Illustration: Bir Hammamât, looking south.—Page 36.]

Wady Fowakhîeh extends from the Bir Hammamât to the well known
as Bir Fowakhîeh, which lies in the open circus at the east end
of the valley. Although the tuff quarried here is of a blue or
olive-green colour, the surface of the rocks, except where they
are broken, is a sort of chocolate-brown. One thus obtains an
extraordinary combination of browns and blues, which with the
flush of the sunset and the dim purple of the distant hill-tops
forms a harmony as beautiful as any the world knows. The flat,
gravel bed of the valley is from fifty to a hundred yards wide,
and along this level surface run numerous camel-tracks, more or less
parallel with one another. Besides the inscriptions there are other
traces of ancient work: an unfinished shrine, and a sarcophagus,
abandoned owing to its having cracked, are to be seen where the
workmen of some five-and-twenty centuries ago left them; and here
and there a group of ruined huts is to be observed.

Amidst these relics of the old world our tents were pitched,
having been removed from Bir Hammamât as soon as breakfast had
been finished; and with camera, note-book, and sketching apparatus,
the four of us dispersed in different directions, my own objective,
of course, being the inscriptions. The history of Wady Fowakhîeh
begins when the history of Egypt begins, and one must look back into
the dim uncertainties of the archaic period for the first evidences
of the working of the quarries in this valley. Many beautifully
made bowls and other objects of this tuff are found in the graves
of Dynasty I., fifty-five centuries ago; and my friends and I,
scrambling over the rocks, were fortunate enough to find in a little
wady leading northwards from the main valley a large rock-drawing and
inscription of this date. A “vase-maker” here offers a prayer to
the sacred barque of the hawk-god Horus, which is drawn so clearly
that one may see the hawk standing upon its shrine in the boat, an
upright spear set before the door; and one may observe the bull’s
head, so often found in primitive countries, affixed to the prow;
while the barque itself is shown to be standing upon a sledge in
order that it might be dragged over the ground.

In Dynasties II. to IV. the objects in the museums show that the
quarries were extensively worked, and in Dynasty V. one has the
testimony of local inscriptions as well. An official under King
Asesa, B.C. 2675, has left his name on the rocks on the south of
the valley; and the name of another who lived in the reign of Unas,
B.C. 2650, is to be seen there. Of the reign of Pepy I., B.C. 2600,
of Dynasty VI., one has more definite information. Scanning the
rocks one reads of chief architects, master builders, assistant
artisans, scribes, treasurers, ship-captains, and their families
stationed at the quarries to procure stone for the ornamentation
of the pyramid buildings of the king, which are still to be seen
at Sakkâra, near Cairo; and these inscriptions mention a certain
Thethi, who was the “master pyramid-builder of the king,” and
therefore was probably in charge of the expedition.

In the reign of Aty, B.C. 2400, a ship’s captain named Apa came
to procure stone for his master’s pyramid; and with him were
200 soldiers and 200 workmen. King Imhotep, B.C. 2400, sent his
son Zaty with 1000 labourers, 100 quarrymen, and 1200 soldiers,
to obtain stone; and he supplied 200 donkeys and 50 oxen daily for
its transport. But the first really interesting inscription on
the rocks of the valley dates from Dynasty XI., B.C. 2050. Here
an all too brief story is told by a great official named Henu,
recording an expedition made by him to the distant land of Pount
in the eighth year of the reign of Menthuhotep III. The king had
ordered Henu to despatch a ship to Pount in order to bring fresh
myrrh from that land of spices, and he had therefore collected an
army of 3000 men. He set out from Koptos, travelled over the open
desert to the little oasis of Lagêta, and so struck the road which
we had followed. He seems to have had much consideration for his men,
for he says, “I made the road a river, and the desert a stretch of
field. I gave a leather bottle, a carrying pole, two jars of water,
and twenty loaves of bread to each one of the men every day.”
When one considers that this means 60,000 loaves of bread per day,
one’s respect for the organising powers of the ancient Egyptians
must be considerable. At Wady Fowakhîeh he seems to have organised
some quarry works for the king, and presently he pushed on towards
the Red Sea, digging wells as he went. The expedition, which will
be recorded later, is then described; and Henu states that, on his
return to Wady Fowakhîeh, he organised the transport of some five
blocks of stone which were to be used for making statues.

[Plate VI:

Illustration: Cartouches of Sety II. on the rocks between Bir
Hammamât and Wady Fowakhîeh.

Illustration: Inscriptions on the rocks between Bir Hammamât and
Wady Fowakhîeh.]

In the second year of the reign of Menthuhotep IV., B.C. 2000,—so
runs another long rock inscription,—the Vizier Amonemhat was sent
to the quarries with an expedition of 10,000 men, consisting of
miners, artificers, quarrymen, artists, draughtsmen, stone-cutters,
gold-workers, and officials. His orders were to procure “an
august block of the pure costly stone which is in this mountain,
for a sarcophagus, an eternal memorial, and for monuments in the
temples.” The presence of gold-workers indicates that the gold
mines near Bir Fowakhîeh were also opened. Ancient workings
are still to be seen near this well, and in recent times an
attempt was made to reopen them, which, however, was not very
successful. One must imagine this expedition as camping at that
well—Bir Hammamât—where we had camped on the previous night,
and as passing up the valley each day to and from the quarries. This
was a tedious walk, and a nearer water-supply must have been much
needed. One day there was a heavy fall of rain, which must have
lasted several hours, for when it had ceased the sandy plain at the
head of the valley was found to be a veritable lake of water. Rain is
not at all a common occurrence in Upper Egypt. Even now the peasants
are peculiarly alarmed at a heavy downpour; and in those far-off days
the quarrymen were ready enough to see in the phenomenon a direct act
of the great god Min, the patron of the desert. “Rain was made,”
says the inscription, “and the form of this god appeared in it;
his glory was shown to men. The highland was made a lake, the water
extending to the margin of the rocks.” The presence of the water
seems to have dislodged an accumulation of sand which had formed
over an ancient and disused well; and when the lake subsided the
astonished labourers discovered its mouth, ten cubits in length on
its every side. “Soldiers of old and kings who had lived aforetime
went out and returned by its side; yet no eye had seen it.” It was
“undefiled, and had been kept pure and clean from the gazelle,
and concealed from the Bedwin.” If this well is, as I suppose,
the Bir Fowakhîeh, it must have been a great boon to the workmen,
for it is but a few minutes’ walk from the quarries, and must
have saved them that weary tramp down to the Bir Hammamât at the
end of their hard day’s work.

When the great stone for the lid of the sarcophagus had been
prised out of the hillside, and had been toppled into the valley,
another wonder occurred. Down the track there came running “a
gazelle great with young, going towards the people before her,
while her eyes looked backward, though she did not turn back.”
The quarrymen must have ceased their work to watch her as she ran
along the hard valley, looking back with startled eyes as the
shouts of the men assailed her. At last “she arrived at this
block intended for the lid of the sarcophagus, it being still in
its place; and upon it she dropped her young, while the whole army
of the king watched her.” One can hear the quarrymen, as they
clattered into the valley, shouting, “A miracle, a miracle!”
and surrounded the incapacitated creature. The end of the tale
is told briefly. “Then they cut her throat upon the block, and
brought fire. The block descended to the Nile in safety.”

Another inscription states that this sarcophagus lid was dragged
down to the river by an army of 3000 sailors from the Delta, and
that sacrifices of cattle, goats, and incense were constantly made
in order to lighten the labour. It must have been an enormous block
to drag along; for even after it was dressed into the required shape
and size by the masons in Egypt, it was some 14 feet in length, 7
feet in width, and 3½ feet in thickness. Two other blocks brought
down from these quarries at about the same date are said to have
been 17 feet in length, while a third was about 20 feet long.

In the reign of Amonemhat I. of Dynasty XII., B.C. 2000, an officer
named Antef was sent to the quarries to procure a special kind of
stone, so rare that “there was no hunter who knew the marvel of it,
and none that sought it had found it.” “I spent eight days,”
says Antef, “searching the hills for it, but I knew not the place
wherein it might be. I prostrated myself before Min, before Mut,
before the goddess great in magic, and before all the gods of the
highlands, burning incense to them upon the fire.” At last, after
almost giving up the search in despair, he found the required block
one morning just as the sun had topped the dark hills of the valley,
and while his men were just scattering in all directions to renew the
search. Although so many centuries have passed since Antef found his
stone, one feels, when one reads this inscription upon the rocks,
that it was but yesterday; and one may picture the sunlit scene
when, as he says, “the company were in festivity and the entire
army was praising, rejoicing, and doing obeisance.”

Under other kings of this dynasty one reads, as one walks up the
valley, of works being carried on. One man quarried and carried
down to the river ten blocks which were later converted into seated
statues 8½ feet high. Another official speaks of his army of 2000
men which he had with him in this now desolate place; and a third
has left an inscription reading, “I came to these highlands with
my army in safety, by the power of Min, the Lord of the Highlands.”

So the work continued from generation to generation, and the
quarrymen, as they sat at noon to rest themselves in the shade,
could read around them the names of dead kings and forgotten
officials carved upon the rocks, and could place their own names
in the illustrious company. The troubled years of the Hyksos rule
checked the quarrying somewhat; but in Dynasty XVIII. the labours
were renewed, though unfortunately no long inscriptions have been
left to illuminate the darkness of the history of the valley. An
inscription of the time of Akhnaton is to be seen high up on the
rocks, but other figures have been cut over it by Sety I.

Various kings of Dynasties XIX. and XX. are mentioned on the rocks;
but the only important inscription dates from the second year of
the reign of Rameses IV., B.C. 1165. It seems that this king, with
a degree of energy unusual in a Pharaoh of this debased period,
made a personal visit to the quarries. “He led the way to the
place he desired; he went around the august mountain; he cut an
inscription upon this mountain engraved with the great name of the
king.” This inscription is to be seen on the rocks of the valley,
almost as fresh as when the scribes had written it. On his return
to Egypt he organised an expedition for the purpose of quarrying
the stone he had selected. A complete list of the _personnel_ of
the expedition is recorded, and, as it gives one an idea of the
usual composition of a force of this kind, I may be permitted to
give it in some detail.

[Plate VII:

Illustration:

1. Inscription at Abu Kueh.
2, 3. Foreign inscriptions at Abu Kueh.
4. Inscription at Abu Kueh.
5-12. Inscriptions and marks near Abu Kueh.
13, 14, 16. Inscriptions at Abu Kueh, reign of Akhnaton.—Page 35.
15. Aramaic inscription at Abu Kueh.
17. Archaic drawing and inscription in a valley leading from Wady
Fowakhîeh.—Page 39.]

The head of the expedition was none other than the High Priest of
Amon, and his immediate staff consisted of the king’s butlers, the
deputy of the army and his secretary, the overseer of the treasury,
two directors of the quarry service, the court charioteer, and the
clerk of the army lists. Twenty clerks of the army, or of the War
Office as we would say, and twenty inspectors of the court stables
were attached to this group. Under a military commandant there were
20 infantry officers and 5000 men, 50 charioteers, 200 sailors,
and a mixed body of 50 priests, scribes, overseers, and veterinary
inspectors. Under a chief artificer and three master quarrymen there
were 130 stone-cutters and quarrymen; while the main work was done
by 2000 crown slaves and 800 foreign captives. Two draughtsmen
and four sculptors were employed for engraving the inscriptions,
&c. A civil magistrate with 50 police kept order amongst this large
force, which altogether totalled 8362 men, not including, as the
inscription grimly states, the 900 souls who perished from fatigue,
hunger, disease, or exposure.

The supplies for this large expedition were transported in ten
carts each drawn by six yoke of oxen; and there were many porters
laden with bread, meat, and various kinds of cakes. The inscription
then tells us of the sacrifices which were continuously made to the
gods of the desert. “There were brought from Thebes the oblations
for the satisfaction of the gods of heaven and earth. Bulls were
slaughtered, calves were smitten, incense streamed to heaven,
_shedeh_ and wine was like a flood, beer flowed in this place. The
voice of the ritual-priest presented these pure offerings to all
the gods of the mountains so that their hearts were glad.”

In this remote desert how easy it is to dream oneself back in the
elder days! The valley, pressed close on either side by the rocks
around which the whispers for ever wander, echoes once again with
the ring of the chisels; and in the wind that almost ceaselessly
rushes over the ancient tracks, one can see the fluttering garments
of the quarrymen as they pass to and from their work. As we sat at
the door of our tents in the cool of the afternoon, the present day
seemed now as remote as the past had seemed before; and, when that
great moment of sunset was approached, one almost felt it fitting
to burn a pan of incense to the old gods of heaven and earth,
as the officers of Rameses IV. had done.

The names of later kings, Shabaka, Taharka, Psametik, Nekau,
Aahmes II., and others, look down at one from the rocks; and
sometimes the date is precisely given, and the names of the
officials are mentioned. During the Persian period the green
tuff was in considerable demand for the making of those lifelike
portrait statuettes so many of which are to be seen in the various
museums; and the coarser tuff, which is practically breccia, was
much used for shrines and sarcophagi. It is curious to see in this
distant valley the names of the Persian kings, Cambyses, Darius I.,
Xerxes I., and Artaxerxes I., written in Egyptian hieroglyphs in
the rock inscriptions, together with the year of their reigns in
which the quarrying was undertaken. Nectanebo I. and II., B.C. 370
and B.C. 350, have left their names in the valley; and dating from
this and the subsequent periods there are various Egyptian and
Greek inscriptions.

In the reign of Ptolemy III., B.C. 240, a little temple was
built near the Bir Fowakhîeh at the east end of the valley of the
quarries. Wandering over this amphitheatre amidst the hills we came
upon the remains of the little building, which had been constructed
of rough stones augmented by well-made basalt columns. It was
dedicated to the god Min, the patron of the Eastern Desert; but as it
was only about 12 feet by 22 in area the priests of the god could not
have commanded the devotion of more than a few of the quarrymen. Near
the temple there are three or four groups of ruined huts, nestling
on the hillsides amongst the rocks; and here the quarrymen of
the Ptolemaic and Græco-Roman ages dwelt, as the broken pottery
indicates. There are many traces of ancient gold workings near by,
and a ruined house of modern construction stands as a sad memorial
of the unsuccessful attempt to reopen them. In the inscriptions of
Dynasties XVIII.-XX. one reads of “the gold of Koptos,” which
must be the gold brought into Koptos from this neighbourhood; and at
this later period the mines appear to have been worked. A very fine
pink granite began to be quarried just to the east of this well in
Roman days, and one may still see many blocks cut from the hillside
which have lain there these two thousand years awaiting transport.

In Wady Fowakhîeh itself there are many blocks of tuff, addressed
to the Cæsars, but never dispatched to them; nor is there anything
in this time-forsaken valley which so brings the past before one as
do these blocks awaiting removal to vanished cities. There are many
Greek inscriptions to be seen, the majority being grouped together
in a recess amidst the rocks on the south side of the valley. Here
one reads of persons who worked for Tiberius, Nero, Domitian, and
other emperors; and there are their drawings of men, animals, and
boats before one, as fresh as when an hour at noon was whiled away
in their making. From these the last days of the quarrying dates a
causeway which passes up the hillside on the south of the valley,
and which was intended to ease the descent of blocks quarried higher
up. The Romans have also left watch-towers on the hill-tops, which
indicate that peace did not always reign in the desert.

[Plate VIII:

Illustration: The camp in Wadi Fowakhîeh, looking down from the
hills on the north side. The camel tracks are seen passing along
the valley.—Page 38.

Illustration: Wady Fowakhîeh, looking east. The camel tracks will
be noticed again.]

The night which closed in on us all too soon brought with it the
silence of the very grave. The wind fell, and the whisperings almost
ceased. The young moon which lit the valley seemed to turn all things
to stone under its gaze; and not a sound fell from the camelmen or
from the camels. The evening meal having been eaten and the pipes
smoked, we quietly slipped into our beds; and when the moon had set
behind the hills and absolute darkness had fallen upon the valley,
one might have believed oneself as dead and as deep in the underworld
as the kings whose names were inscribed upon the black rocks around.

On the following morning we continued our journey eastwards towards
the Red Sea, along the old trade route. This expedition forms a
subject which will be treated by itself in the next chapter, and
therefore one may here pass over the week occupied by the journey,
and may resume the thread of the present narrative at the date when
we set out from Wady Fowakhîeh on our homeward way. The day was
already hot as we trotted down the valley and past the Bir Hammamât,
where, by the way, we put up another family of cream-coloured
coursers. A couple of hours’ trotting brought us to a cluster of
sandstone rocks on the north of the now open and wide road, these
having been passed in the dusk on the outward journey. Here I found
one or two inscriptions in unknown letters, a few Egyptian graffiti,
and a little Græco-Roman shrine dedicated to the great god Min. On
these rocks we ate our luncheon, and rested in the shade; and in
the early afternoon we mounted once more, passing the second Roman
station half an hour later. A ride of two and a half hours brought us
to the Hydreuma about sunset, and here we halted to smoke a pipe and
stretch our legs. Then in the moonlight we rode on once more over the
open desert, which stretched in hazy uncertainty as far as the eye
could see. The oasis of Lagêta was reached at about seven o’clock,
and, the night having turned cold, we were glad to find the camp
fires already brightly burning and the kettle merrily boiling.

We were on the road again soon after sunrise, and, riding towards
Koptos, about ten or twelve miles from Lagêta we passed another
Roman enclosure now almost entirely destroyed. Our route now lay to
the north of the hills of el Gorn, the south side of which we had
seen on our outward journey; and after three and a half hours’
riding we came into sight of the distant Nile valley. The thin
line of green trees seemed in the mirage to be swimming in water,
as though the period of the inundation were upon us again. At the
point where this view is first obtained there are some low hills
on the south side of the tracks, and in one of these there is a
small red-ochre quarry. The sandstone is veined with ochre, and the
quarry had been opened for the purpose of obtaining this material
for the making of red paint; but whether the few red markings on
the rocks are ancient or mediæval one cannot say. Here we ate an
early luncheon, and about noon we rode on over the sun-bathed plain
down to the cultivation. Leaving the desert our road passed between
the fields towards the Nile; and by two o’clock we reached the
picturesque village of Quft, which marks the site of the ancient
Koptos. We spent the afternoon in wandering over the ruins of the
once famous caravanserai, and in the evening we took the train back
to Luxor.

Such are the quarries of Hammamât, and such is the road to
them. It is a simple journey, and one able to be undertaken by any
active person who will take the trouble to order a few camels from
Keneh. There will come a time when one will travel to the quarries
by automobile, for even the present road is hard-surfaced enough
to permit of that form of locomotion, and with a little doctoring
it will be not far from perfection. A place such as this wonderful
valley, with its whispers and its echoes, seems to beckon to the
curious to come, if only to be lost for awhile in the soothing
solitudes and moved by the majestic beauty of the hills. To those
interested in the olden days the rocks hold out an invitation which
one is surprised to find so seldom responded to; but let any one
feel for an hour the fine freedom of the desert, and see for an
hour the fantasy of the hills, and that invitation will not again
be so lightly set aside. On camel or automobile he will make his
way over the ancient tracks to the dark valley of the quarries;
and there he will remain entranced, just as we, until the business
of life calls him back to the habitations of present-day men.

[Plate IX:

Illustration: Abandoned sarcophagus on the hillside in Wady
Fowakhîeh.—Page 38.

Illustration: A typical valley near Wady Fowakhîeh.]

III.

THE RED SEA HIGHROAD.

In the reach of the Nile between Quft and Keneh, a few miles below
Luxor, the river makes its nearest approach to the Red Sea, not
more than 110 miles of desert separating the two waters at this
point. From Quft, the ancient Koptos, to Kossair, the little seaport
town, there runs the great highroad of ancient days, along which
the Egyptians travelled who were engaged in the Eastern trade. It
happened by chance that this route led through the Wady Fowakhîeh
in which the famous quarries were situated; and in the last chapter
I have recorded an expedition made to that place in 1907. From
the quarries I set out with my three friends for the sea; and,
as the route from the Nile to Wady Fowakhîeh has already been
described, it now remains to record its continuation eastwards and
our journeying upon it.

The history of this highroad is of considerable interest, for it may
be said to be the most ancient of the routes of which the past has
left us any record; and its hard surface has been beaten down by the
fall of feet almost continuously from the dawn of human things to the
present day. It has been thought by some that a large element of the
prehistoric inhabitants of the Nile valley came into Egypt by this
road. Excavations at Quft (Koptos) have shown the city to date from
Dynasty I., if not earlier; and the great archaic statues of Min,
the god of the desert, one of which is to be seen at the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, were here found. The ancient Egyptians always
believed that the home of their ancestors was in the land of Pount,
the region around Suakin; and since so many archaic remains have
been found at Koptos, the terminus of a route which in historical
times was sometimes used by persons travelling to Pount, it seems
not unlikely that there was a certain infiltration of Pountites
into Egypt by way of Kossair and Quft. These people travelling in
ships along the coast, Arabians sailing from the eastern shores
of the Red Sea, or Bedwin journeying by land from Sinai and Suez,
may have passed over this road to trade with the inhabitants of
Upper Egypt; but, on the other hand, there is no evidence to show
that any extensive immigration or invasion took place. The coast of
the Red Sea is utterly barren, and the wells are few in number; and
one could more readily imagine the prehistoric inhabitants of Egypt
pushing eastwards on hunting expeditions until they encountered the
sea, and thus opening up the route, than one could picture these
Eastern peoples penetrating from an untenable base to a hostile
country at the dawn of known days.

Upon the archaic statues of the god Min at Koptos there are many rude
drawings scratched on the stone surface. These represent _pteroceras_
shells, the saws of sawfish, a stag’s head, the forepart of an
elephant, a hyæna, a young bull, an ostrich, and a flying bird. It
is evident that these drawings would not have been scratched upon
the statue of the tribal god without some sort of meaning being
attached to them, and it seems probable that one may see in them
the articles of commerce which the people of Koptos imported from
the Red Sea: shells, horn, ivory, feathers, and skins.

The earliest written record of a journey to Kossair dates from
Dynasty XI., B.C. 2020, when an official named Henu travelled from
Koptos to Kossair, and thence to Pount. “The king sent me,” says
Henu, “to dispatch a ship to Pount to bring for him the fresh
myrrh from the chieftains of the desert which had been offered to
him by reason of the fear of him in those countries. Then I went
forth from Koptos upon the road as his Majesty commanded me. Troops
cleared the way before me, overthrowing those hostile to the king;
and the hunters and the children of the desert were posted as the
protection of my limbs. . . . Then I reached the Red Sea, and I built
this ship, and I dispatched it with everything, after I had made for
it a great oblation of cattle, bulls, and ibexes.” Henu, no doubt,
carried the material for building the vessel across the desert,
and settled down on the coast to build it, his supplies being sent
to him from Koptos as often as necessary. He tells us in another
part of the inscription that he dug several wells in the desert;
and one can imagine his little company living quite happily beside
one of these wells near the seashore while the vessel was hammered
together on the beach below. After the lapse of four thousands of
years one may still picture these scenes: the launching of the ship
into the blue waters, when the savour of burnt-offerings streamed up
to heaven, and the shouts of the workmen rang across the sandy beach;
the tedious journey along the barren coast, always the yellow hills
upon one’s right and always the boundless sea upon one’s left;
the landing on the strange shores of Pount, where the precious
myrrh-trees abundantly grew and there was talk of gold as of a
thing of little worth; where sleek, bearded men and amazingly fat
women sat at the doors of bee-hive huts raised from the ground upon
piles; and where, walking abroad, one might meet with giraffes and
other surprising creatures whose existence would not be credited by
one’s friends at home. An Englishman feels that it would almost
have been worth the four thousand years of subsequent oblivion to
have seen what these adventurers saw!

During the next twenty centuries the road seems to have been in
almost continual use, but there are no interesting inscriptions
recording expeditions made along it, though one may be sure that many
of the trading expeditions passed over this route to the land of
Pount. The town of Kossair seems to have been called Thaau at this
period, but in Græco-Roman days this name has developed into Tuau
or Duau, a word written in hieroglyphs simply with three stars. The
trade with Arabia and India which flourished during the rule of the
Ptolemies brought the road into very general use, and Kossair became
as important a trading town as any in Egypt. The harbour, however,
was so poor that a new port and town was constructed some five miles
to the north, where a natural bay was easily able to be improved
into a very fair harbour. This new town was named Philoteras,
in honour of the sister of Ptolemy Philadelphos (B.C. 285), while
the older port was now known as Aennum by foreigners, though to
the Egyptians both towns were called Duau. I was fortunate enough
to find some blocks of a Ptolemaic temple at the older Kossair,
and on one of them was the name Duau, followed by the hieroglyph
representing a town written twice to indicate the existence of
the two ports. Not infrequently one finds at Koptos and elsewhere
short inscriptions of this period relating to journeys made along
this route to Kossair, and thence over the high seas. One example
may here be quoted: “To the most high goddess Isis, for a fair
voyage for the ship _Serapis_, Hermæus dedicates this.”

[Plate X:

Illustration:

1, 2. Inscriptions near the archaic inscription on Plate vii.
3. Old Kingdom inscription, Wady Fowakhîeh.
4. Inscription giving name of King Unas, Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 39.
5, 6, 7. Drawings of the Greek period in Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 51.
8. Archaic drawing, Wady Fowakhîeh.
9. Greek inscriptions on blocks of quarried stone, Wady Fowakhîeh.—
Page 50.
10, 11, 12. Old Kingdom inscriptions at Wady Fowakhîeh.
13. Misspelt inscription of Thothmes III. at Wady Fowakhîeh.
14. Inscription of Rameses IV., Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 46.
15, 16, 17, 18. Inscriptions on Temple at Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 49.
19. Archaic drawing near Bir el Ingliz.—Page 70.
20. Typical blue-glazed bowl found on ruins of Old Kossair.—Page 86.
21-24. Fragments of Temple at Kossair.—Page 81.]

I must be permitted to give in full a very interesting tariff of
taxes imposed on persons using the road during the Roman occupation,
which was found in a ruined guard-house just behind Koptos, at the
beginning of the highway. It reads as follows:—

BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR OF EGYPT.—The dues which the lessees of
the transport service in Koptos, subject to the Arabian command,
are authorised to levy by the customary scale, are inscribed on
this tablet at the instance of L. Antistius Asiaticus, Prefect of
the Red Sea slope.

For a Red Sea helmsman drachmas 8
„ „ bowsman „ 10
„ an able seaman „ 5
„ a shipyard hand „ 5
„ a skilled artisan „ 8
„ a woman for prostitution „ 108
„ „ immigrant „ 20
„ a wife of a soldier „ 20
„ a camel ticket obols 1
„ sealing of said ticket „ 2
„ each ticket for the husband,
if mounted, when a caravan
is leaving drachmas 1
„ all his women, at the rate of „ 4
„ a donkey obols 2
„ a waggon with tilt drachmas 4
„ a ship’s mast „ 20
„ „ yard „ 4

The ninth year of the Emperor Cæsar Domitian Augustus Germanicus
on the 15th of the month of May.

In the above tariff it will be seen that the persons or articles
on which taxes were levied were such as one might expect to have
passed between the Nile and the sea; and only those items concerning
women seem to call for explanation. The very large tax imposed
upon prostitutes must indicate that Indian or Arabian females
coming into Egypt along this route, and liable to bring with them
the evils of the East, could only be admitted when they were of
the richest and, consequently, best and highest class. Such women
were always taxed in the Roman Empire, and in this regard a rather
humorous story is told in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of
Tyana. That holy man was accosted by a tax-collector when about
to cross the Euphrates, and was asked his wares. He replied with
the somewhat _banal_ remark that he had with him _Sōphrosúnē
kai Dikaiosúnē kai ’Andreia_—“Temperance, Righteousness,
and Courage.” The official at once assessed these as _Doúlas_,
“Female slaves,” and would have taxed them as prostitutes, had
not the prophet hastily corrected him by saying that they were not
_Doúlas_ but _Despoínas_, “Ladies of the House”! The “wives
of soldiers” mentioned in the tariff shows that Mommsen was right
in stating that the rule of the emperors was laxer in Egypt than
elsewhere, for before the time of Severus it was not possible for
legionaries to contract legal marriages while on active service; but
in Egypt the marriages were so far recognised that the wives could
be taxed as such, and the children could be enrolled as legionaries.

During mediæval times this Red Sea highroad was much used by
traders, but its river terminus was now removed from Koptos to Kus,
a town a few miles farther up-stream, which soon became second
only to Cairo in size and wealth. A pottery figure of Buddha, some
mediæval Chinese vases, and a few Arabian antiquities, found in
Upper Egypt, are records of the use of this route at that time. In
later days the terminus again shifted to Keneh, a few miles to the
north of Koptos, and to that town there still come Arabian traders
from across the Red Sea, and pilgrims sometimes use it as the base
of the journey to Mecca.

From Wady Fowakhîeh our party set out along this highroad at about
7 A.M. on a bracing morning in November. From Bir Fowakhîeh the
road branched off to the right along a fine valley, shut in by
hills fantastic in shape and colour. Clustering on either side of
the path for some distance there were groups of huts, and in the
hillsides there were traces of gold mines long since abandoned. The
road beneath one was hard, flat, and blue-grey in colour, as though
some mighty torrent had brought down masses of gravel and had
laid it level over the bottom of the valley. Gradually it sloped
upwards, and as the hills drew in on either side one felt that the
highest point of the whole road was soon to be reached. We were
already half-way between the Nile and the sea, and so far there
had been a continuous slope upwards, so gradual as to be almost
imperceptible. The valley now twisted and turned narrowly between
the dark hills, and the gravel bed became humped and banked up where
the early waters had raced down some narrow gauge and had churned
themselves through a natural basin into the wide bed beyond. The
cold wind beat in our faces as we trotted up the narrowing valley,
and the sun had not yet gained much power when, after a ride of two
hours, we reached the rugged pass which forms the apex of the route.

The scenery here is superb. The pathway, such as it is, threads its
way through a cluster of great grey boulders tumbled into the few
yards’ width between the rocks of the hillside, so that on foot
one may jump from stone to stone up the whole length of the pass,
and on camelback one has to twist and turn, rise and descend,
until the saddle-straps come near to bursting. Amidst the rocks
there is a well, known as Bir es Sid, which may have been opened in
ancient times, perhaps by the redoubtable Henu. A few natives were
encamped near by, and not far away their goats were to be seen in
the charge of a small girl, whose dark dress fluttering in the wind
caught one’s eye amidst the pale grey of rocks and the cold blue
of the shadows.

Riding on for another two hours we reached an open ridge from which
an extraordinary prospect of rolling hills and innumerable humps
was obtained. On the left of the pathway there was a hill at the
top of which stood a ruined Roman watch-tower, one of a chain of
such posts which crowned the higher peaks all along the route. Up
this hill we scrambled on foot, and climbed the tower at the summit,
burning a pipeful of tobacco to the gods of Contentment thereon. The
array of hills around us, as closely packed and yet as individual
as the heads of a vast crowd of people, were of a wonderful hue in
the morning light. Those to the north were a dead grey, those to
the east were pink and mauve, and those to the south every shade
of rich brown, while the shadows throughout were of the deepest
blue. The wind tore past us as we sat contemplating the fair world
at our feet, and two black ravens sailed by on it to take stock
of us. Far below the path wound its way through the humps; and in
the distance the peaks and spires of the darker rocks into which
it penetrated bounded the scene, and hid the sea from view.

[Plate XI:

Illustration: Bir es Sid, the well at the highest point of the Red
Sea highroad.—Page 65.

Illustration: The Roman fortress of Abu Zerah, looking
south-east.—Page 67.]

Mounting the camels once more we defiled down the steep path, and
for a time were lost amidst the hills. We lunched an hour later
in more open country; and riding on afterwards for somewhat over
two hours we reached the Roman station of Abu Zerah, which lies
in the plain at the foot of a range of fine purple hills. As is
usual in these buildings, the station consists of a rectangular
enclosure, the wall being still some twelve feet in height in
parts. The door-posts of the main entrance are made of sandstone,
and upon one of them is the almost obliterated Latin inscription:
SER . . . INV. . . . There are several rooms inside the enclosure,
built against the wall, a space being left open in the middle. Just
to the north there are a few graves, around which some broken
pottery of Roman date lies scattered.

A ride of less than an hour brought us to another Roman station
known as Hosh el Homra, “the Red Enclosure,” where we only
halted for a moment or so in order to ascertain that there was
no unique feature in this building. In the afternoon light the
scene was of great beauty. Range upon range of hills surrounded us,
which assumed a thousand varying colours: pink, rose, purple, blue,
and olive-green in the foreground. Spires of rock shot up to a soft
sky in which floated the already visible moon, and overhead seven
black ravens soared past upon the wind. Soon the sun went down, and,
resting in the lee of a group of dark rocks, we watched the pageant
of colours go by and waited for the baggage camels to come up.

The journey was resumed at an early hour next morning, and after a
trot of about three-quarters of an hour we reached the well and Roman
station of Hagi Suliman. The ancient well, lying within the enclosing
wall, has been restored in modern times, and upon a tablet let into
the wall is rudely written: “Briggs, Hancock, and Wood, 1832.” At
this point the road is joined by another from the north-west, along
which we made our return journey to Bir Fowakhîeh by way of Wady el
Esh and Wady Adolla. From Bir Hagi Suliman to Bir Fowakhîeh by this
route is a trot of about six hours. The morning was bitterly cold,
and the wind swinging up the valley chilled one to the bone. The
tracks led now this way and now that, around sharp corners where
the wind buffeted one suddenly, across patches of sunlight where
there was some hope of warmth, and then again up shaded valleys
where one might see an occasional wagtail or sand-martin puffing
its feathers out against the cold airs. A trot of two and a half
hours brought us to yet another Roman ruin, called El Litêmah. Here
there is as usual an enclosing wall surrounding an area in which
several chambers are built and a well is dug. The door-posts of
the entrance are made of sandstone, and some Cufic inscriptions are
written upon one of these by travellers in the middle ages. As we
entered the building a number of sand-grouse rose from the midst
of the ruins and went off to the north, their swift flight being
visible for some time against a background of pale limestone hills,
which told of our approach to the sea. Near here we passed a party
of Arabian traders, some riding camels and others walking. A more
evil-looking set of men I have seldom seen, and as they eyed us
and whispered together one felt that some mischief was afoot. It
was therefore not surprising to learn when we returned to the Nile
that a caravan had been attacked with considerable bloodshed at
about that place and time, by Arabians answering to this description.

An hour and quarter later we emerged from the hills into an open
plain in which the well known as Bir el Ingliz is situated. This well
was dug by English troops at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
during operations against Napoleon’s generals, of which further
mention will be made. A few Ababdeh natives were here encamped, and
hastened to draw water for our thirsty camels, begging a cigarette as
a reward for the labour. In the shade of some rocks to the south-east
we partook of our luncheon. The seat which I selected for myself
proved to be that chosen by a prehistoric hunter some sixty centuries
ago, for upon the face of the rock beside it there is a rude archaic
drawing of a man holding a bow. Two French soldiers of 1799 have
here written their names—Forcard and Materon—which remain as
memorials of a page of history little remembered at the present time.

In the afternoon we trotted over open desert and through shady
valleys for about the space of an hour, at the end of which we
reached the spring known as Bir Ambagi, situated in a fine wady,
with grey-green cliffs on either hand and pink limestone hills
ahead. In this fair setting there grew the greenest reeds and
rushes amidst pools of the bluest water. A few Ababdeh goats
grazed across the valley, bleating merrily as they went; and not
a few birds added their notes to the happy fluting of the wind,
which, blowing from over-seas, seemed to set the rushes nodding to
“songs of Araby and tales of old Cashmere.” Leaving this valley
we travelled down a rather dull wash-out sloping towards the sea,
which at length opened sufficiently to show us a glimpse of the blue
water. There is always something which penetrates to the heart in
one’s first view of the sea after an interval of months; and now,
the eyes having accustomed themselves to the barren desert, the
old wonder came upon one with new weapons, and attacked the senses
with new vigour. One might have shouted for the sheer pleasure of
it; and when, presently, a group of green palms passed into view
lit by the afternoon sun, and stood between the sand and the sea,
one felt to the full the power of the assault.

As the hills fell back on either side we passed on to the wide, flat
beach and headed our camels towards the blue sea, dismounting at last
a hundred yards from the rippling water. Except for the slow pulse of
the waves there was an unbroken silence over the world. Southwards
the sand stretched to the foot of the hills, beyond which rose the
dreamy peaks of the Tourquoise Mountains; northwards the little town
of Kossair lay basking in the sunlight; to the west the dark hills
through which we had passed stood waiting breathlessly to surround
the setting sun; and to the east the wonderful sea seemed quietly to
be sleeping and sighing in its sleep. Had one stumbled against the
slumbering forms of the lotos-eaters themselves one would hardly
have felt surprise; for here one might suppose that one was in a
land “where it was always afternoon,” a land “where all things
always seemed the same.” In the little bay, or high and dry upon
the sand, lay vessels of a bygone age—two-masted hulks with high
ponderous sterns. Beside them one could just discern two men fast
asleep; and had one awakened them there seemed hardly a doubt that
they would have been found to be as mildeyed and melancholy as the
men of Tennyson’s poem.

Presently, as we sat listening to the sea, the sun set, and from the
minaret of a mosque in the town a boy called to the sleepy Faithful
their daily summons to prayer. His voice drifting to us on the quiet
air was the first human sound which had risen from the little town;
but hardly had it died away before the distant sound of voices, and
the grunts of camels, warned us of the arrival of our baggage. A
few figures sauntered idly out of the town to watch us, as the
tents were pitched on the beach; and thus the dream was broken,
and we awoke, as it were, to the knowledge that once more a human
habitation had been reached and officials had to be interviewed.

A note to the Maltese _Mudir_ or governor of the town brought that
gentleman speedily to our tents, obviously pleased almost to tears
to have the opportunity of relieving for an hour the utter boredom
of his existence. The Mudir is an enforced lotos-eater. Corpulent
of figure, and suffering the discomforts of a wall-eye; having
practically no duties to perform other than those of the brief
official routine; and having no European to talk to except his wife,
his little daughter, and an Austrian mechanic, there is nothing left
for him to do but to dream of the time when a benevolent government
shall transfer him to a less isolated post. The four of us will
not soon forget the ample figure of our guest, clad in white duck,
as he sat upon the edge of our one real chair in the candle-light,
and told us in disused English how little there is to tell regarding
a man’s life in this sleepy town. There was never a more desolate
smile than that which wreathed his face as he spoke of the _ennui_
of life, nor a braver twinkle than that which glinted in his single
eye as the humour of his misfortunes touched him; and though we
should meet again in many a merrier situation—for officials are
not left over long at Kossair—none of us will cease to picture
this uncomplaining servant of the government as, with unsmoked
cigarette and untasted whisky-and-soda, he told us that evening
the meaning of four years of exile.

Kossair, when he first entered upon his duties, was a town of 1500
inhabitants; but these persons were so miserably poor, and found so
little to do, that at their own request the government transported
about a thousand of them to Suez and the neighbourhood, where the
lotos does not grow and a man has to keep awake. Now there are but
500 souls in the town, 300 of whom are women and children. These
people wed very young, and there is much family intermarriage;
but, though they are a poor lot to look at, there is little mental
degeneracy which can be traced to this cause. The Mudir, who is
also in charge of the coastguards, is responsible for law and order
in Kossair; there is a Syrian doctor in charge of the government
dispensary; the above-mentioned Austrian mechanic looks after the
engine for distilling the salt water; a coastguard officer and three
men patrol the coast; four or five sailors are attached to the port;
and a native schoolmaster teaches the children to read and write:
this constitutes the official element in the town. The inhabitants
are all either of Arab or Ababdeh stock, Egyptians being entirely
wanting. They live mainly on fish and a little imported bread; but
before the population was reduced some of the poorer families were
actually eating chopped straw and other food fit only for animals.

[Plate XII:

Illustration: Desert panorama from a hill-top two hours’ ride east
of Eir es Sid, looking east. The road is seen passing to north and
south of this hill and joining up further to the east.—Page 66.]

There is very little to be done here, and most of the inhabitants
sleep for two-thirds of the day. A fast-diminishing trade
necessitates the occasional building or mending of a boat. This
trade is done with camels and goats, which are brought across from
Arabia and are led over the desert to the Nile, where they are sold
at Keneh or elsewhere, the money being partly expended on grain,
which is then carried back to Arabia. Pilgrims on the way to and
from Mecca use these vessels occasionally, but the mariners of
Kossair cannot be bothered to extend the tariff.

Except for one small group of palms there is absolutely no vegetation
whatsoever in the neighbourhood, and even an attempt to grow a few
bushes or flowers near the governor’s quarters, though carefully
persisted in for some time, proved an utter failure. For his
supplies the Mudir is entirely dependent on the arrival of the
government steamer every second month; and if, as had happened
at the time of our visit, this steamer was late, the unfortunate
gentleman becomes comparatively thin from sheer starvation. Except
for occasional travellers or prospectors no white men ever visit
Kossair; though if there is cholera at Mecca an English doctor
is sometimes sent to prevent the disease from passing into Egypt
along this route. Letters and telegrams are every week conveyed
across the desert by an express rider to Keneh, and an answer to
a telegram might be expected in about a week.

A large sea-water distillery, set up some twelve or fourteen
years ago, provides the town with pure water; but so few are the
inhabitants that it is only worked twice a month. This good supply
of water is largely responsible for the lack of sickness in the
town. During the last four years only twenty persons have died, and
of these ten were very young children and ten very old people. During
these years the serious illnesses have only consisted of two cases
of diphtheria: there has been no cholera, enteric, dysentery, or
plague. Many of the inhabitants live to be centenarians, and in
the town we saw several tottering old Methuselahs, who looked as
though the gods of the underworld had forgotten them utterly.

Of sports there are none for the Mudir to indulge in. There is no
shooting; he cannot bathe even if he desired to, because of the
sharks; there are no boats to sail in worthy the names; he cannot
leave his post to make camel trips to interesting localities, even if
that amused him, which it does not; and the one pastime, the catching
of crayfish on the coral reefs, bores him to distraction. The climate
is so monotonously perfect that it does not form a topic even of
thought: in winter it is mild and sunny, in summer it is mild and
sunnier. It is never very cold nor very hot, except for the few
days in summer when a hot east wind is blowing. The Mudir says that
he neither increases nor decreases the amount of his clothing the
whole year round, but always he wears his underclothes, his tight
white-duck tunic, his loose white-duck trousers, his elastic-sided
boots, and his red _tarbush_ or fez.

After breakfast next morning we walked along the beach to the stiff,
mustard-coloured government buildings, which stand on a point of land
projecting somewhat into the sea. A spick-and-span pier and quay,
ornamented with three or four old French cannon and some neat piles
of cannonballs, gave us the impression that we had been transported
suddenly to a second-rate English watering-place; but passing into
the building that impression was happily removed at once. Through
the sunny courtyard we went, and up the stair, saluted at intervals
by the coastguardsmen, who had donned their best uniforms for the
occasion, and at last we were ushered into the presence of our
Maltese friend, now seated in state at his office table at the far
end of a large airy room. The windows overlooked the glorious blue
sea, and the breath of an English summer drifted into the room,
bringing with it the sigh of the waves. Nothing could have been
more entrancing than the soft air and the sun-bathed scene, but to
the Mudir it was anathema, and his back was resolutely turned to
the windows.

After coffee and a brief conversation we were taken to see the
water distillery, of which the town is immensely proud; and
from thence we were conducted to the chief mosque of the place,
a picturesque old building which has seen better days. We were
readily admitted by the Reader, who, however, turned up the grass
matting which covered the floor in order, so the Mudir said, that
our feet might not be dirtied by it, but in reality in order that
the footstep of a Christian should not defile it. A few men were
praying languidly at one side of the building, and in the opposite
corner a man lay snoring upon his back. There was the silence of
sleep upon the place, and, returning to the almost deserted lanes
between the houses outside, there was hardly a sound to disturb the
stillness of the morning. In the bazaar a few people were gathered
around the two or three shops, at which business had nigh ceased. A
limp-limbed jeweller was attempting to sell a rough silver ring to a
yawning youth, and, if I am not mistaken, a young girl who watched
the transaction with very mild interest from the opposite side of
the road was to be the recipient of the jewel. Soon we passed the
open door of the schoolroom, where a dozen children chanted their
A B C in a melancholy minor; and presently we came to the chief
sight of Kossair—the old fortress built by the French at the end
of the eighteenth century.

One enters the building through a masonry archway, closed by a heavy
wooden door clamped with iron. There are still three or four cannon
inside it to tell of its past life, but now the rooms and courts
are whitewashed and are used as camel stables by the coastguards. I
have no books here in Upper Egypt which will tell me the details
of the Anglo-French struggle for the possession of Kossair, and
I must therefore leave it to my readers to correct my ignorant
statements. It appears, then, that a French force occupied the
fortress during the time of Napoleon’s rule in Egypt, and that
one fine day in the year 1800 there came sailing over the sea a
squadron of English men-o’-war, which landed a storming party so
formidable that the French were constrained to evacuate the place
and to retreat across the desert to Keneh. With the English force
there were a large body of Indian troops, and these were marched
across to the Nile in pursuit of the French; but ere more serious
operations had taken place the capitulation of Napoleon’s army
brought the campaign to a close. It is said that when the Indian
soldiers saw representation of the sacred cow of Hathor upon the
walls of the temples of Koptos and Kus, they fell upon their knees
and did obeisance as in their own temples.

The inhabitants of Kossair live to such an age and in such
stagnation that the stirring events of these old days are still
talked of, and Englishmen are here still endowed with the prestige
of conquerors. Involuntarily one held one’s head higher as an old
Shêkh pointed out the gate through which the French fled, and that
through which the English bluejackets entered; and, walking through
the quiet streets back to the tents, one gave a nautical hitch to
the trousers, talked contemptuously of “Boney,” discussed the
plans of Lord Nelson, named the yawning natives whom we passed
“lazy lubbers,” murmured “Shiver my timbers,” called one
another “me hearty,” and, in a word, acted faithlessly to the
_entente cordiale_.

[Plate XIII:

Illustration: Kossair. Arabian boats on the beach.—Page 72.

Illustration: A street in Kossair.]

In camp the remainder of the day was spent in that vague pottering
which the presence of the sea always induces. There were some
beautiful shells upon the shore to attract one, and natives brought
others for sale, lying down to sleep in the shade of the kitchen
tent until we deigned to give them attention. There were sketches
to be made and photographs to be taken. Amidst the houses at the
south end of the town some fragments of a Ptolemaic temple were
stumbled upon, and the inscriptions thereon had to be copied. These
were too fragmentary to be of much importance, and, except for the
above-mentioned ancient name of Kossair there written, no point
of particular interest requires to be noted here. We lunched and
dined off the most excellent fish, a species named _belbul_ being
particularly palatable, while crayfish and a kind of cockles were
immoderately indulged in. Having arranged to try our hand at the
catching of crayfish during the night hours, we turned in early to
sleep for a short time until the fishermen should call us.

The summons having come at about 11 P.M., we set out along the
moonlit shore, two fishermen and a boy accompanying us, carrying
nets and lanterns. Our destination was a spot at which the coral
reefs, projecting into the sea, presented so flat a surface that
the incoming tide would wash over the whole area at a depth of not
more than a few inches. In the shallow water, we were told, the
crayfish would crawl, attracted by our lanterns, and we could then
pick them up with our fingers. These crayfish are not at first sight
distinguishable from larger lobsters, though a second glance will
show that the difference lies in the fact that they have no claws,
and therefore can be caught with impunity. They are fearsome-looking
creatures, nevertheless, often measuring twenty inches or so from
head to tail. In eating them it is hard to believe that one is not
eating the most tasty of lobsters.

A tedious walk of over three miles somewhat damped our ardour; and
as the fishermen told us that the moon was too high and the tide
too low for good hunting, we were not in the best spirits when at
last we turned on to the coral reef. Here, however, the scene was
so weirdly picturesque that the catching of the crayfish became
a matter of secondary import. The surface of the reef, though
flat, was broken and jagged, and much seaweed grew upon it. In
the uncertain light of the moon it was difficult to walk without
stumbling; but the ghostly figures of the fishermen hovered in
front of us, and silently led the way out towards the sea, which
uttered continuously a kind of sobbing as it washed over the edges
of the coral reef. This and the unholy wail of the curlews were
the only sounds, for the fishermen had imposed silence upon us,
and the moonlight furthered their wishes.

As we walked over the reef we had to pick our way between several
small patches of water some five or six feet in breadth, which
appeared to be shallow pools left by the last tide in the slight
depressions of the rock. Presently one noticed that in these pools
white clouds appeared to be reflected from the sky, but quickly
looking up one saw that the heavens were cloudless. Staring closer
at the water, it suddenly dawned upon one that these white clouds
were in reality the sand at the bottom of the pools, and as suddenly
came the discovery that that bottom lay at a depth of fifteen feet
or more. Now one went on hands and knees to gaze down at those
moonlit depths, and one realised that each pool was a great globular
cavern, the surface area being but the small mouth of it. One found
oneself kneeling on a projecting ridge of coral which was deeply
undermined all round; and, looking down into the bowl, one was
reminded of nothing so much as of an aquarium tank seen through
glass. In the moonlight the cloudy bottom of the caverns could be
discerned, whereon grew great anemones and the fair flowers of the
sea. Sometimes an arched gallery, suffused with pale light, led from
one cavern to the next, the ceiling of these passages decorated
with dim plants, the floor with coloured shells. Not easily could
one have been carried so completely into the realms of Fairyland
as one was by the gazing at these depths. Presently there sailed
through the still water the dim forms of fishes, and now through
the galleries there moved two shining lamps, as though carried by
the little men of the sea to light them amidst the anemones. Two
more small lamps passed into the cavern and floated through the
water, now glowing amidst the tendrils of the sea plants, now rising
towards the surface, and now sinking again to the shells, the sand,
and the flowers at the bottom.

It was not at once that one could bring oneself to realise that
these lights were the luminous eyes of a strange fish, the name
of which I do not know; but now the fishermen, who had suddenly
drawn their net across the edge of the reef and had driven a dozen
leaping creatures on to the exposed rock, beckoned us to look at this
curious species at close quarters. Their bodies were transparent,
and from around their mouths many filmy tentacles waved. The eyes
were large and brown in colour, and appeared as fantastic stone orbs
set in a glass body. Many other varieties of fish were caught as
the tide came in; but it appeared that the moon was too powerful for
successful sport in regard to the crayfish, and the catch consisted
of but four of these. The sight of the fairy caverns, however, was
entertainment sufficient for one night; and it was with discontent
that one turned away from these fair kingdoms of the sea to return
in the small hours of the morning to the tents. The moonlight,
the sobbing of the ocean, the deep caverns lit by unearthly lamps,
left an impression of unreality upon the mind which it was not easy
to dispel; and one felt that a glance had been vouchsafed through the
forbidden gates, and a glimpse had been obtained of scenes unthought
of since the days of one’s childhood. Had we also tasted of the
lotos, and was this but one of the dreams of dreamy Kossair?

Upon the following day I rode northwards along the coast to visit
the site of the Ptolemaic port, which lies about five miles from
the modern town. An hour’s ride against a hard wind brought us
to the little inlet, around which the mounds and potsherds of the
town are scattered. The water in the bay was of the deepest blue;
a rolling plain of yellow sand lay eastwards, backed by the darker
ranges of mountains; and overhead the white clouds raced by. The sea
washed up in a line of white breakers on to a rising bar of sand,
sparkling with a thousand varieties of shells. Behind this bar there
were pools of water passing inland, and here there may have been an
artificial harbour. On the south side of the bay bold rocks jutted
into the sea, and on the north there rose a series of mounds upon
which the remains of the old town were strewn. Walking over these
mounds, where the rhythmic roar of the waves falls continuously upon
the ears, one’s mind was filled with thoughts of the ancient port
which has so utterly fallen, and of that ancient commerce with the
East which must have been so full of adventure and romance to the
men of old. Here from these mounds the townspeople have watched
the great galleys set out over the seas for the mysterious land of
Hind, and have seen the wealth of Pount and Arabia unloaded upon the
quay; and here so many centuries later the labours of Egyptologists
are beginning to permit one to recall something of what they saw,
though the spade of the excavator has not yet touched this site.

[Plate XIV:

Illustration: The interior of the mosque at Kossair.—Page 78.

Illustration: The main entrance of the fortress at Kossair.—Page
79.]

There are two wells within reach of this spot, but both are two or
three hours’ journey away, and the water question must have been a
serious one. The well to the north is named Bir Guah, and the other
to the west is called Bir Mahowatât. This latter is the name of a
tribe of Bedwin living at Suez, who state that they came originally
from El Wij in Arabia. It is interesting to find that a well here
should be named after them, for El Wij is nearly opposite this point,
and one may realise thus what intercourse there is and always has
been between Arabia and Egypt, even as far south as Kossair.

Returning with the wind at our backs we soon reached Kossair, and
rode through the streets of the sleepy town to our tents. To tea in
the afternoon came the Mudir, who for an hour or so entertained us
with tales of _ennui_. Kossair fell asleep when the Roman Empire
fell, awoke for a moment in the days of Napoleon, but slid into
slumber once more over a century ago. There was a time when the east
coast steamers used to call here, but now even they have left the
town to its long siesta. As one listened to the story of decaying
trade and languid idleness the vision of Tennyson’s lotos-eater
was ever in the mind; and one’s sympathy was as profound for an
official stationed here as was one’s envy of the man who might
be permitted to rest himself for awhile from his labours upon
this mild, sunny shore. The Mudir was, at the time of our visit,
anxiously awaiting the tardy arrival of the steamer which was to
take him and his family to Suez for three months’ leave, and his
eye fixed itself upon the sea at every pause in the conversation;
and when he bid us farewell at the door of the tent, it was but
to return to his own doorway, where he might watch for the distant
smoke until the sun should set.

Early next morning we commenced the return journey to the Nile. As
we rode away over the sloping sand towards the hills in the west we
turned in our saddles to obtain a last view of the strange little
dream-town which was sinking so surely to its death. The quiet sea
rippled upon the sunlit shore in one long line of blue from the
houses on the north to the Tourquoise Mountains on the south. Not
a trace of smoke nor a sound rose from the town. On the beach a
group of three men lay sleeping with their arms behind their heads,
while two others crouched languidly on their haunches watching
our disappearing cavalcade. Then, in the silence of the morning,
there came to us on the breeze the soft call to prayer from the
minaret of the mosque. One could not hear the warbled words; but
to the sleeping figures on the beach, one thought, they must surely
be akin to those of the song of the lotos-eaters:—

“How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To hear each other’s whispered speech;
Eating the lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy. . . .

On the quay in the far distance we could just discern a portly white
figure gazing steadfastly out to sea to catch the first glimpse of
the steamer which had been awaited so patiently for so long.

IV.

THE IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES.

Those who have travelled in Italy, and, in the museums and in
the ruins there, have studied the sculpture and the architectural
accessories of the Roman Imperial age, will be familiar with that
magnificent purple stone known as Imperial Porphyry. It was one of
the most highly prized of the ornamental stones employed by the great
artists and architects of that age of luxury; and the great distance
which it had to be brought, over parched deserts and perilous seas,
must have sent its price up beyond the reach of all save the rulers
of the earth.

The quarries from which this porphyry was obtained are situated
in the region known as Gebel Dukhân, “the Hills of Smoke,”
in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, some twenty-seven miles from the
Red Sea, opposite the southern end of the Peninsula of Sinai. Two
or three travellers during the last century have visited them,
and recently the Survey Department of the Egyptian Government
has published a technical report on the whole district; but
with the exception of this and an article by the German explorer
Schweinfurth, the literature on the subject, such as it is, seems
to be more or less untraceable. In 1887 a gentleman of the name
of Brindley obtained a concession there for the re-working of the
quarries, but the project fell through owing to the difficulties
of transporting the stone. In 1907 Mr John Wells, the Director of
the now defunct Department of Mines, decided to make an expedition
to Gebel Dukhân to report on the possibilities of reopening the
old works; and it was with considerable pleasure that I received,
and found myself able to accept, his invitation to accompany him,
in order to see how far the Department of Antiquities could concur
in the projects of modern engineers.

[Plate XV:

Illustration: The start from Keneh. Native police loading the
camels.—Page 91.

Illustration: Midday rest at El Ghaiteh. Camels feeding from the
bushes.—Page 96.]

We set out from Keneh, a town on the Nile some 400 miles above Cairo,
in the middle of March: a time of year when one cannot be sure
of good weather in Egypt, for the winter and the summer together
fight for the mastery, and the hot south winds vie with the cold
north winds in ferocity. Sand-storms are frequent in the desert in
this month, and these, though seldom dangerous, can be extremely
disagreeable. We were, however, most fortunate in this respect; and,
in spite of the fact that the winds were strong, I do not recall
any particular discomfort experienced from them, though memory
brings back the not rare vision of men struggling with flapping
tents and flying ropes. Our caravan consisted of some fifty camels,
of which about thirty-five carried the baggage and water; a dozen
were ridden by ourselves, Mr Wells’ police, our native assistants,
and others; and two or three belonged to the Shêkh and the guides.

The business of setting out is always trying to the patience. The
camelmen attempt to load their beasts lightly in order that more
may be employed; they dawdle over the packing that the day’s
journey may be short; the camels, unused to their burdens, perform
such antics as may rid them the most quickly of the incubus; the
untried ropes break as the last knot is tied, and the loads fall to
the ground; the riding-camels are too fresh, and, groaning loudly,
revolve in small circles, as though one’s whistle of encouragement
were a waltz. There are no people in the world so slovenly, so
unpractical, or—if one may use a very slang word—so _footling_,
as the inhabitants of the Eastern Desert. One has heard so often
of the splendid desert tribes, of fine figures and flashing eyes,
of dignity and distinction, of gracious manners and lofty words,
that one has come to expect the members of one’s caravan to be
as princely as they are picturesque. It is with a shock that one
finds them to be but ragged weaklings, of low intelligence and little
dignity. Is this, one asks, the proud Bedwi whose ears are now being
boxed by one’s servant? And are these the brave sons of the desert
who are being kicked into shape by that smart negro policeman, the
son of slaves? Look now, eight or ten of the Bedwin have quarrelled
over their camels, and are feeling for their knives in preparation
for a fight: shall we not see some stirring action, redolent of the
brave days of old? No; the black policeman seizes his camel-whip
and administers to as many as he can catch of the flying wretches
as sound a beating as any naughty boys might receive. Lean-faced,
hungry-eyed, and rather upright in carriage, one may expect them to
be quick-witted and endowed with common-sense. Yet of all stupid
people these unwashed miseries are the stupidest; and as one sees
them at the starting of a caravan, muddling the ropes, upsetting
the loads, yawning, scratching themselves, squabbling in high, thin
voices, and tripping over their antiquated swords and long guns,
one’s dream of the Bedwin in this part of the desert fades and
no more returns.

Perhaps, however, it is the point of view which is at fault. Did
one live in the desert without a deed to do or a thought to think
beyond those connected with the little necessities of life, and
with so vague a knowledge of time and distance as such an existence
requires, one’s notion of the practical might be different, and
one’s idea of intelligence might be less lofty. Perhaps, too,
one has not yet met with the genuine types of the race; for the
camel-drivers employed by an economical Shêkh, and the goatherds
who wander through the valleys, may be but the riff-raff cast off
from the more remote tribes. Moreover, there are a few exceptions
to the general rule which may be met with even amongst the camelmen,
but these are hardly sufficiently notable to record.

At last a start was made; and riding north-eastwards over the hot,
sandy plain, we trotted slowly towards the distant limestone hills
which rose above a shifting mirage of lake-like vapour. For some
miles our road led over the hard, flat desert; but opportunely at the
lunching hour we passed a spur of rock which afforded welcome shade,
and here we rested for an hour or so. At this point there is a well,
known as Bir Arras, rather prettily situated amidst tamarisk-bushes
and desert scrub; but as it is only ten miles distant from Keneh
it is not much used by travellers. Riding on in the afternoon,
we verged somewhat to the left, and passed along a valley much
broken up by low mounds of sand collected round the decayed roots
of bushes; and here several thriving tamarisks and other small
trees lent colour to the scene. Soon we turned again to the left,
and presently crossed two projecting spurs of the low hills, upon
which beacons of stone had been erected in Roman days, on either
side of the track, to mark the road. It is interesting to find that
along the whole length of the route from Keneh to the quarries these
piles of stone have been placed at irregular intervals in order that
the traveller should have no difficulty in finding his way. Towards
evening the tracks led us up the clearly marked bed of a dry river,
bordered by tamarisks and other bushes; and, passing along this for
a short distance, we called a halt, and pitched the tents amongst
the sand hillocks to one side. The following morning we were on
the road soon after sunrise; and, riding along the dry river-bed,
we presently reached the Roman station of El Ghaiteh, which lies,
in all, some seven and a half hours’ trot from Keneh. This is the
first of the Roman posts on the road from Keneh to Gebel Dukhân,
and here the ancient express caravans halted for the night. At
the foot of a low hill there is a fortified rectangular enclosure,
in which several rooms with vaulted roofs are built. The walls are
constructed of broken stones, and still stand some twelve feet or
more in height. The entrance is flanked by round towers, and passing
through it one sees on the left a large tank, built of burnt bricks
and cement, in which the water, brought from the well in the plain,
was stored. Just to the north of the station there are the ruins
of the animal lines, where rough stone walls have been built on a
well-ordered plan, forming a courtyard in which the stalls run in
parallel rows. Above the enclosure, on the hill-top, there are some
carefully constructed buildings of sun-dried brick, which may have
been the officers’ quarters. Resting in the shade of the ruins,
one’s eye wandered over the sun-burnt desert to the hazy hills
beyond, and thence back along the winding river-bed to the bushes at
the foot of the hill, where the camels lazily cropped the dry twigs,
and where green dragon-flies hovered against the intensely blue
sky. Then again the ruins claimed one’s attention, and presently
one seemed to forget the things of the present time, and to drift
back to the days when the blocks of Imperial Porphyry were heaved and
hoisted, carried and dragged along this road to the Nile and to Rome.

[Plate XVI:

Illustration: The Roman station at El Ghaiteh, looking down from
the officers’ quarters on the hill. A dry river-bed bordered by
bushes runs across the plain.—Page 96.

Illustration: A tank for storing water inside the station of El
Ghaiteh.—Page 96.]

A ride of somewhat over three hours across wide, undulating,
gravel plains brought us to the next Roman station, known as Es
Sargieh, which lies between two low mounds just to the north of
the main track. Here a large excavation has been made in order
to obtain water, and at its edge there are the remains of troughs
and tanks constructed of brick and cement. The sand and clay from
the excavation has been thrown up in an embankment, so as to form
a rectangular enclosure. At one end there are the ruins of a few
chambers, and the animal lines near by are clearly marked. Es Sargieh
marks the point where the road divides, one track leading to Gebel
Dukhân, and the other to the white granite quarries of Um Etgal;
and it was thus an important watering-station.

From this point for the rest of the day our road lay across a
hard flat plain, bounded in the distance ahead by the dim peaks
of granite mountains. As we had stopped some considerable time at
the two Roman ruins, the baggage camels and men had pushed far in
advance, and, with characteristic stupidity, continued to do so,
though the sun went down and the stars came out. It was not till
long past dinner-time that, riding furiously through the darkness,
we managed to catch them up; and hungry, aching, and cross, we
quickly devoured a cold meal and rolled into bed. During the night
a gale of wind came near to overthrowing the tents, for we had
bivouacked where we had overtaken the caravan, upon the exposed
plain. The night air felt bitterly cold as, clad in pyjamas, one
pulled at ropes and hammered at pegs; but it was a surprise to find
the thermometer standing at 32° Fahrenheit at this time of year.

Having camped in the darkness, it was not till daybreak that we
realised that we had now crossed the plain, and were already near
the mouth of a valley which led into a region of dark rocks between
two ranges of hills. Not long after sunrise we mounted our camels,
and presently passed into this valley. Jagged cliffs towered above
the road, and behind them the soft brown hills rose in an array of
dimly seen peaks. A ride of two hours up this valley—that is to
say, altogether about five hours’ trot from Es Sargieh—brought
us to the Roman station of El Atrash. There is a fortified enclosure
containing several regularly arranged buildings, a tank, and a deep,
circular well constructed of brick. The gateway is flanked by brick
towers up which the steps can still be traced. Outside the enclosure
there are the usual animal lines; and near by there lies a large
block of porphyry which must have been abandoned for some reason on
its way to the river. The scenery here is wild and desolate. There
was a feeling, as the eye passed from range to range of menacing
hills and up to the grey clouded sky, that one was travelling in
the moon. The day was cold and misty, and the sharp air already
told of the altitude to which we had risen—now nearly 2000 feet.

From here the road led through valleys lying between hills of
ever-increasing height. The colour of the rocks now changed from a
deep brown to a kind of soft purple; while the ground over which we
were moving, being composed of particles of red granite, turned to
a curious rosy hue. It was as though one were looking through tinted
glass; and these combinations of colour—the red valley, the purple
hills, and the grey sky—gave to the scene a beauty indescribable.

We lunched in the shadow of the rocks, and sleeping on the ground
thereafter one’s dreams were in mauves and burnt-siennas.

Mounting again and riding along this wonderful valley, feeling
more than ever like Mr H. G. Wells’ men in the moon, early in the
afternoon we reached the Roman station of Wady Gatâr, which lies
in a hollow amidst lofty hills, some three and a half hours’ ride
from El Atrash. The station consists, as before, of an enclosure,
chambers, disused well, and animal lines; but it is more ruined
than the other posts which we had seen. There is a well not far from
this point, to which the camels were sent to be watered; and we were
thus able to spend a quiet afternoon in our camp amongst the hills.

Towards sunset I climbed to the top of a low mound of rocks which
overlooked the fortress, and there the silence of the evening and the
strangeness of the surrounding hues enhanced to a point almost of awe
the sense of aloofness which this part of the desert imposes upon
one. On the right the line of a valley drew the eyes over the dim,
brown waves of gravel to the darkness of the rugged horizon. Behind,
and sweeping upward, the sky was a golden red; and this presently
turned to green, and the green to deep blue. On the left some
reflected light tinged the eastern sky with a suggestion of purple,
and against this the nearer mountains stood out darkly. In front the
low hills met together, and knit themselves into shapes so strange
that one might have thought them the distortions of a dream. There
was not a sound to be heard, except once when an unseen flight
of migratory birds passed with a soft _whir_ high overhead. The
light was dim,—too dark to read the book which I carried. Nor
was there much desire to read; for the mind was wandering, as the
eyes were, in an indistinct region of unrealities, and was almost
silent of thought.

Then in the warm, perfect stillness, with the whole wilderness laid
prone in that listless haze which anticipates the dead sleep of
night, there came—at first almost unnoticed—a small, black,
moving mass, creeping over an indefinite hill-top. So silently
it appeared, so slowly moved nearer, that one was inclined to
think it a part of the dream, a vague sensation passing across
the solemn, sleepy mind of the desert. Presently, very quietly,
the mass resolved itself into a compact flock of goats. Now it was
drawing nearer, and one could discern with some degree of detail
the little procession—the procession of dream-ideas one might have
said, for it was difficult to face facts in the twilight. Along the
valley it moved, and, fluttering in the wind, there arose a plaintive
bleating and the wail of the goatherd’s pipe. He—one could see
him now—was walking in advance of his flock, and his two hands
held a reed from which he was pouring the ancient melodies of his
race. From the hill-top I could soon look down on the flock as it
passed below. It had become brown in colour; and as the pipe ceased
awhile the shuffle and patter of a hundred little creatures could
be heard. It was a gentle sound, more inclined to augment than to
diminish the dreamy character of the procession. Behind the flock
two figures moved, their white garments fluttering in the wind,
changing grotesquely the form and shape of the wearers. Over the
gravel they went, and at a distance followed the dogs of the herd,
growling as they passed. Over the gravel and down the valley, and
with them went the gentle patter and the wandering refrain of the
reed pipe. Then a bend in the path, or may be the fading of the
dream, and the flock was seen no more. But in the darkness which
had gathered one was almost too listless to feel that aught had
passed beyond one’s pale.

We left Wady Gatâr the next day soon after lunch and entered another
fine valley. On the right the granite cliffs sloped up to the misty
sky in clean, sheer faces of rock. On the left range after range of
dimly peaked hills carried one’s thoughts into the clouds. The
afternoon was sunless and the air bracing and keen. The camels,
after their long drink, were ready for work, and we were soon
swinging up the valley at a brisk trot. The road turned from side
to side, now leading in a dozen clear tracks up the wide, gravelled
bed of some forgotten torrent, and now passing in a single narrow
path from one valley to the next. With every turn new groups of
mountains became visible and higher peaks slid into sight. The
misty air lent a softness to these groups, blending their varied
colours into almost celestial harmonies of tone. Gradually the
ranges mounted, until at last, as the afternoon began to draw in,
the towering purple mountains of Gebel Dukhân rose from behind
the dark rocks to the left of our road.

It was almost sunset before we reached the foot of this range,
and the cloudy sun was passing behind the more distant hills as a
halt was called. We were now in a wide, undulating valley, which was
hemmed in by the superb mountains on three sides and disclosed low,
open country towards the north-east. The beams of the hidden sun
shot up from behind the dark hills in a sudden glare of brightness,
and presently the clouded sky turned to a deep crimson. The lofty
peaks of the southern mountains now caught the disappearing sunshine
and sprang out of the mist in a hundred points of vivid red. For only
a few minutes the conflagration lasted, but before it had fully died
out the vaporous outlines in the far distance towards the north-east
took form and colour, and the last gleam of sunlight revealed,
some twenty miles away, the thin line of the sea, and above it the
stately mountains of Sinai. A moment later the vision had passed,
the sun had set, and in the gathering darkness the baggage camels,
lumbering round a bend, came into sight, calling our attention to
more material things.

In the semi-darkness, while our meal was being prepared, we visited
a Roman station which stands in the Wady Bileh at the foot of the
Gebel Dukhân mountains, about three and a quarter hours’ trot
from the fortress of Wady Gatâr. The porphyry quarries and the
settlement lay in the valley at the other side of the range of
hills at the foot of which we were now standing; and to reach them
one might either climb by an ancient path over a pass in the range,
or one might ride round by the tortuous valley—a journey said to
be of nearly thirty miles. This station was thus the first night’s
halting-place for express caravans returning from the quarries. At
one side of the wide, ancient road stands the usual small enclosure,
having a doorway flanked with towers, and containing a few ruined
chambers and a well. At the other side a cluster of granite rocks
rising into a small mound had been surrounded by a stout wall,
either in order that it should serve as a fortress, or because these
rocks were for some reason sacred. There was nothing particularly
noteworthy about the station, but, lying amidst such wild and
magnificent scenery, it assumed in the half-light a charm which
will not soon be forgotten.

[Plate XVII:

Illustration: The excavation inside the enclosure of El
Sargieh.—Page 97.

Illustration: The Roman station at El Greiyeh. The animal lines. The
brick pillars supported the roof under which were the night
stalls.—Page 139.]

At dawn next morning we set out on foot to climb over the pass
to the quarries. The sun was struggling to penetrate the soft
mists as we started the actual ascent, and the air was cold and
invigorating. Here and there one could detect the old Roman path
passing up the hillside, but it was so much broken that a climb up
the dry watercourse, across which it zigzagged, was preferable. At
the immediate foot of the pass there is a small Roman fort
containing three or four rooms, and at the highest point, which
is 3150 feet above sea-level, there is a ruined rest-house, where
the tired climber, no doubt, was able to obtain at least a pot of
water. Here at the summit we had a wonderful view of the surrounding
country. Behind us the mountains rose in a series of misty ranges,
and before us lay the valley of Gebel Dukhân winding between the
porphyry hills, while beyond them the northern mountains rose to some
6000 feet in the distance. The Roman road, descending on this side,
was well preserved, and we were able to run down the 1200 feet or so,
which brought us breathless to the level of the valley. The temple,
town, and quarries lay about a mile down the Wady, at a point where
there was a considerable breadth of flat gravel between the hills
on either side.

The town ruins—a cluster of crowded houses enclosed by a fortified
wall—stand on the slope of the hill. A fine terrace runs along the
east side, and up to this a ramp ascends. Passing through the gateway
one enters the main street, and the attention is first attracted
by an imposing building on the right hand. Here there are several
chambers leading into an eight-pillared hall, at the end of which
a well-made and well-preserved plunge-bath eloquently tells of the
small pleasures of expatriated Roman officers. A turning from the
main street brings one into an open courtyard, where there are two
ovens and some stone dishes to be seen, besides a large quantity of
pottery fragments. Around this in every direction the little huts
are huddled, narrow lanes dividing one set of chambers from the
next. The town is, of course, very ruined; but it does not require
much imagination to people it again with that noisy crowd of Greek,
Roman, and Egyptian quarrymen. One sees them prising out the blocks
of purple porphyry from the hillside high above the valley, returning
in the evening down the broad causeway to the town, or passing up
the steps to the temple which stands on a knoll of granite rocks
a couple of hundred yards to the north-east.

The steps lead one up to a platform which formed the forecourt
of the temple. This court is now covered with the ruins of what
was once a fine granite portico rising on the east side. Four
columns supported an inscribed architrave and decorated cornice,
above which was the pediment or pointed roof. Behind this portico
stood the sanctuary, built of broken stones carefully mortared and
plastered to the necessary smoothness. A granite doorway led from
one side into the vestry. In the forecourt, amidst the ruins,
stands the granite altar, in its original position; and near
it lies the architrave with the proud inscription: “For the
safety and the eternal victory of our Lord Cæsar Trajan Hadrian,
absolute, august, and all his house; to the Sun, the great Serapis,
and to the co-enshrined gods, this temple, and all that is in it,
is dedicated.” Then follow the names of the Governor of Egypt,
the Superintendent of the Mines, and other officials.

In the middle of the valley there is the well, which is now choked. A
gallery, the roof of which was supported by five pillars, passes
in a half-circle round one side of the well; and a shallow drain in
the pavement seems to have carried a stream of water along it. Here
the workmen could sit in the shade to ease the thirst which exercise
on the hot hills so soon creates; and on our return journey up the
pass we looked back more than once to this cool gallery and to the
plunge-bath with a kind of envy of the past.

The quarries are cut here and there on the hillside without any
regularity. The blocks of porphyry were prised out of the rock
wherever the work could most easily be carried on, and the action
of the years has so dulled the broken surfaces that they now look
almost like those of the natural mountain. The blocks were carried
down to the Nile, and in fact to Rome, in the rough, without even
a preliminary dressing; for the work in this distant place had to
be shortened as much as possible.

Looking, in the European museums, at the fine capitals, the
polished basins, the statues, and the many other objects cut out
of Imperial Porphyry, one has admired the work of the mason or the
genius of the artist. But here in the Hills of Smoke one thinks of
these antiquities with a feeling bordering on veneration. If the
workmanship tells of an art that is dead, how much louder does the
material cry out the praises of an energy that is also dead? Each
block of stone is the witness of a history of organisation and
activity almost beyond thought. This purple porphyry was not known
to the ancient Egyptians: a Roman prospector must have searched the
desert to find it. One would have thought that the aloofness of the
valley from which it is to be procured would have kept its existence
the secret of the hills; for on the one side a winding pathway,
thirty miles in length, separates the spot from the little-known
main road, and on the other side a barrier of steep hills shuts it
off from the Wady Bileh.

[Plate XVIII:

Illustration: Granite hills to the south of Wady Bileh. The Gebel
Dukhân range is to the north of this wady.—Page 104.

Illustration: Ruins of the Roman temple at Gebel Dukhân, showing
the hillside from which the porphyry was taken.—Page 107.]

Although Gebel Dukhân is so near the Red Sea, it was not possible
for the stone to be transported by ship to Suez. The barren coast
here was harbourless, except for the port of Myos Hormos, which was
too far away to be practicable; and the stone would have had to be
unloaded at Suez, and dragged across the desert to the neighbourhood
of the modern Port Said. Every block of porphyry had therefore to
be carried across the desert to Keneh, the old Kainepolis, on the
Nile, and thence shipped by river-barge to the sea. Here it had to
be transhipped to the great Mediterranean galleys, and thus conveyed
across the treacherous sea to the port of Rome.

Probably the blocks were dragged by oxen or men upon rough waggons,
for the roads are not bad, except at certain places. To ride from
Keneh to Wady Bileh, at the quiet five-miles-an-hour trot of the
camel, took us altogether twenty-two and a half hours; that is to
say, the total distance is about 112 miles or so. The winding path
from Wady Bileh up the valley to the quarries brings this total
to about 140 miles; and the caravans could not have covered this
in less than eight days. On the first night after leaving Keneh
the camp was probably pitched in the open. On the second night the
station of El Ghaiteh was reached, and here there were provisions,
water, and a small garrison. The third night was spent at Es
Sargieh, where water was to be obtained. On the fourth night the
houses of El Atrash sheltered the travellers, water and provisions
being here obtainable. On the fifth night Wady Gatâr was reached,
where again there was a well. The sixth night was passed at Wady
Bileh, from whence express messengers could pass over the hill to
the quarries. The seventh night was spent in the open, and on the
following day the settlement was reached.

The long road was rendered dangerous by the incursions of the desert
peoples, and many of the hills between the fortified stations are
crowned with ruined watch-towers. Roman troops must have patrolled
the road from end to end, and the upkeep of these garrisons must have
been a considerable expense. The numerous stone-cutters and quarrymen
had to be fed and provided for; and for this purpose an endless
train of supplies had to be brought from the Nile valley. Oxen or
donkeys for this purpose, and for the transporting of the porphyry,
had to be kept constantly on the move. At Keneh a service of barges
had to be organised, and at the seaport the galleys had to be in
readiness to brave the seas with their heavy loads.

It is of all this—of the activity, the energy, the bravery, the
power of organisation, the persistency, the determination—that
an object executed in Imperial Porphyry tells the story.

The quarries were worked until about the fifth century A.D., for the
Byzantine Emperors derived from their Roman predecessors an affection
for this fine purple stone. There is a Greek inscription on the
path leading up to one of the workings, which reads, “Katholeke
Ekklesia,” and which is perhaps the latest example of old-world
activity in the Eastern Desert. There is no other place in the world
where this porphyry is to be found, and when the quarries at last
ceased to be worked, some time previous to the seventh century,
the use of that stone had to cease also, nor has it ever again
been procurable.

One wonders whether there will come a time when some millionaire,
fresh from the museums of Italy, will express a wish to pave his
bathroom with the purple stone of the Emperors; and whether the
Hills of Smoke will again ring with the sound of the hammer and
chisel, in response to the demands of a new fashion.

It may be that some day the tourist will awake to the advantages
and attractions of the Eastern Desert as a motoring country, will
rush through the wadys, will visit the ancient centres of activity,
will see these quarries, and will desire the porphyry. With a
little preparation the road from Keneh to Gebel Dukhân could be
made practicable for automobiles; and when once the land ceases
to be but the territory of the explorer and the prospector, one
may expect its mineral products to be seen, to be talked of, and
finally to be exploited.

In the late afternoon we left the valley, and climbed slowly up the
Roman road to the summit of the pass, halting here to drink deeply
from our water-bottles. The descent down the dry watercourse was
accomplished in a long series of jumps from boulder to boulder, at
imminent peril of a sprained ankle. The grey rocks were smooth and
slippery, and between them there grew a yellow-flowered weed which,
when trodden upon, was as orange-peel. The rapid rush down the
hillside, the setting sun, and the bracing wind, caused our return
to camp to take its place amongst the most delightful memories of
the whole expedition. Once we halted, and borrowing the carbines of
the native police, we shot a match of half a dozen rounds apiece,
with a spur of stone as target. The noise echoed amongst the rocks;
and a thousand feet below we saw the ant-like figures of our
retainers anxiously hurrying into the open to ascertain the cause
of the disturbance.

As we neared the bottom of the hill the sun set, and once more this
wonderful valley was lit with the crimson afterglow, and once more
the mountains of Sinai stood out for a moment from the gathering
mists above the vivid line of the Red Sea. Darkness had fallen when
at last, footsore and weary, we reached the camp; and one was almost
too tired to enjoy the sponge-down in the half-basin of water which
is all that can be allowed in this waterless region, and the meal
of tinned food which followed. As one fell to sleep that night,
one’s dreams were all of strenuous labours: of straining oxen
and sweating men; of weary marches and unsuspected ambushes; of
the sand-banks of the Nile and the tempests of the sea. But ever
in the far distance one seemed to be conscious of thoughtless,
implacable men, dipping their bejewelled fingers into the basins
of purple porphyry as they reclined in the halls of Imperial Rome.

On the following morning our party divided, Mr Wells and the greater
part of the caravan going north-east to the petroleum wells of Gebel
Zeit on the sea-coast, and I to Um Etgal, the Mons Claudianus of
the ancients, where the white granite, also so much admired by the
Romans, was quarried from the hillside.

[Plate XIX:

Illustration: The ruins of the town of Gebel Dukhân. The upright
pillars of granite supported a roof.—Page 106.

Illustration: The Roman town of Mons Claudianus, looking south from
the causeway leading to the main quarry. The round piles of stone
in the foreground are built at intervals along the causeway.—Page
124.]

THE QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS.

In the previous chapter an account was given of a journey made to
the Imperial porphyry quarries of Gebel Dukhân in the month of
March 1907. These quarries are to be found about a score or so of
miles from the Red Sea at a point in the Eastern Desert opposite
the southern end of the Peninsula of Sinai. From Gebel Dukhân I
returned to the Nile by way of the white granite quarries of Um
Etgal, the ancient Mons Claudianus, and thence past the old gold
workings of Fatireh to Keneh.

My caravan was composed of a riding party consisting of myself,
my native assistant, my servant, and a guide; and the baggage-train
of a dozen camels and men, and a couple of guards. The guide was a
picturesque, ragged old man, whose face was wizen and wrinkled by
the glare of the desert. His camel was decked with swinging tassels
of black and yellow, and across his saddle there was slung a gun at
least seven feet long, while at his side there hung a broad-bladed
sword in an old red-leather case. In his belt there were two knives,
and in his hand he carried a stout bludgeon, something in the form of
a hockey-stick. This latter is the weapon most generally carried by
the Ababdeh and other desert peoples, and its antiquity is evidenced
by the fact that the earliest hieroglyph for “a soldier” in
the script of ancient Egypt represents a figure holding just such
a stick.

The old guide was followed by three lean, yellow dogs, who seemed to
be much bored by the journey and dejected by the sterility around. He
was a man of some dignity, and took considerable pride in riding
at the head of the little procession in order to show the way,
although, except at the cross-roads, the tracks were perfectly plain
and the ancient beacons were generally to be seen. Once or twice I
made an attempt to pass him so that I might have an uninterrupted
view of the scenery; for the sight of a ragged, huddled back and
the hindquarters of a betasseled camel is inclined to pall after
a while. But these efforts ended in a short, hard race, in which I
was generally the loser; nor had I the heart to order the old man
to the rear thereafter.

We set out from the camp at Wady Bileh, the nearest point to Gebel
Dukhân on the main road, soon after daybreak, and passed along the
wonderful valley leading back to the Roman station of Wady Gatâr,
which I have already described, our route branching off towards the
south just before reaching that place. The road then led along a
fine valley, up which a blustering north wind went whistling, and
it was only by donning an overcoat and by trotting at a smart pace
that one could pretend to feel comfortably warm. Soon after noon
I halted near some thorn-trees, in the shelter of which luncheon
was presently spread. A vulture circling overhead watched our
party anxiously, in the vain hope that somebody would drop dead,
but on seeing us mount again to continue the journey it sailed away
disgustedly over the windy hill-top.

It was still cold and stormy when, after trotting altogether for
five hours from Wady Bileh, we arrived at the well of Um Disi,
where the camp was pitched in order that the camels might drink
and graze. The well is the merest puddle in the sand amidst the
smooth boulders of a dry watercourse, hidden under the overhanging
cliffs of granite. It lies in the corner of a wide amphitheatre of
gravel and sand, completely shut in by the mountains. Bushes of
different kinds grow in great profusion over this amphitheatre,
and from the tent door, when the eye was tired of wandering upon
the many-coloured hills, one might stare in a lazy dream at a very
garden of vegetation, around which the grey wagtails flitted and
the dragon-flies slowly moved. It is an ideal place for a camp,
and one but wished that more than a night could have been spent
there; for one would have liked to have explored the surrounding
hills and valleys, and to have stalked the gazelle which had left
their footprints near the well.

The nights up here in this locality, which must be some 1500 or more
feet above the sea, were bitterly cold, in spite of the approaching
summer. There is perhaps no place where one more keenly feels a low
temperature than in the desert; and here at Um Disi, where the air
is that of the mountains, a colder night was passed than it has
ever been my lot to endure—with the exception, perhaps, of one
occasion some years ago when, with another student of archæology,
I spent the night upon the flint-covered hill-tops of the Western
Desert. Our baggage and bedding had then failed to reach us, and
we were obliged to sleep in our clothes and overcoats, dividing a
newspaper to act as a cover for the neck and ears. By midnight we
were so cold that we were forced to dance a kind of hornpipe in order
to set the circulation going again in the veins; and my friend was
light-hearted enough to accompany this war-dance with a breathless
rendering of the hymn, “We are but little children meek,”
which had been dinned into his head, he told me, while staying at
a mission school in another part of Egypt. Memory recalls the scene
of the dark figure shuffling and swaying in the clear starlight, the
biting wind whistling around the rocks in rhythmless accompaniment;
and yet it does not seem that so much discomfort was then felt as
was experienced in the flapping tent at Um Disi.

The journey was continued early next morning, the road leading out
from the amphitheatre through a gauge on the eastern side. There
was now some difficulty about the method of travelling, for only
the guide knew the way; and as he rode with us, there was danger
of our losing the slowly moving baggage camels, which always
followed behind, catching us up at our halts for luncheon and other
refreshment. I therefore took with me some bags of torn paper, and
at every turning of the path, or at the cross-tracks, I threw down
a few handfuls in the manner of a paper-chase; and thus, though the
path here wound from one valley to another in the most perplexing
manner, the caravan reached its destination almost as soon as we.

It was disappointing to find that our camelmen, born and bred in
the desert, were unwilling to take the responsibility of following
safely in our tracks. One would have thought that the footprints
of our camels would have been as easy for them to trace on an
unfrequented path as torn paper is to us. The guide, on the other
hand, showed a really wonderful knowledge of the intricate paths;
for it is not reasonable to suppose that he had travelled between
Gebel Dukhân and Um Etgal more than two or three times in his life,
this being off the main routes through the desert. He did not once
hesitate or look around, although when questioned he declared that
many years had passed since last he had been here.

In these valleys we met, for the first time for some days, one or
two Bedwin. A ragged figure, carrying a battle-axe and a mediæval
sword, sprang up from the rocks, where he was tending a flock of
goats, and hurried across to shake hands with our guide. The two
entered into earnest conversation in low tones; and the old guide,
after pointing with his lean finger to his bag of food, which
was every day diminishing in size, and then to the hungry dogs,
dismounted from his camel, tied up one of the dogs, and handed it
over to his wild friend. A few hours later another ragged figure,
this time a Bishari, carrying a long gun, ran forward to greet us,
and to him the guide delivered over his second dog, after a similar
discussion with regard to his food-bag. For over a mile from this
point, after the dog and his new master had diminished to mere specks
on the rocks, the wind brought down to us the melancholy howls of
the former and the unconcerned song of the latter to his goats.

[Plate XX:

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. The town.—Page 124.

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. Chambers on the west side of the
forecourt of the Temple. The threshold and base of a column of the
granite portico are seen on the right.—Page 126.]

Our way led up the wide Wady Ghrosar, which ends in a pass, from
the top of which a magnificent view is obtained. This point was
reached in a trot of about three and three-quarter hours from Bir
Um Disi. One looks down upon a great lake of sand, amidst which the
groups of dark granite hills rise like a thousand islands, while
dim ranges enclose the scene on all sides. From this huge basin a
hundred valleys seem to radiate, and it would be an easy matter to
head for the wrong peak and to lose oneself upon the undulating
sands. Descending a smooth slope, we rested for luncheon in the
shade of a group of rocks; and presently mounting our camels again,
we crossed the basin and entered a series of intricate valleys,
which became more and more narrow and enclosed as the day wore on,
giving us good reason to doubt whether our baggage camels would
manage to follow. At last, in the late afternoon, after a ride of
rather under four hours from the top of Wady Ghrosar, a turn in
the path brought the town of Mons Claudianus suddenly into view;
and in a moment the camels were forgotten, and the wonderfully
preserved remains had carried one back to the days of the Emperors
Trajan and Hadrian.

The hills of Um Etgal supplied Rome with a fine white granite
speckled with black, which was deservedly popular for building
purposes during the Imperial age. The stone was not employed by the
ancient Egyptians, and it was left to a Roman prospector to discover
its existence and to open quarries. The settlement which was founded
here was known generally as Mons Claudianus, but in honour of the
Emperor Trajan the well which supplied it with water was called Fons
Trajanus, and this name was sometimes applied to the town. The stone
was transported from here to the Nile on waggons drawn by oxen or
men, and was placed upon barges at Keneh. It was then floated down
the stream to the sea, where it was transhipped to the galleys which
bore it across the Mediterranean to the port of Rome. The distance
from here to the Nile must be about ninety-five miles, since it took
us nearly nineteen hours of five-miles-an-hour trotting to cover
the distance; and, as will be seen, the blocks which were dispatched
from the quarries were of enormous size. It must have been an easier
matter to transport the Imperial Porphyry from Gebel Dukhân to the
river; for the objects executed in that stone were not usually of
a size to require particularly large blocks. But the great pillars
which were cut from the white granite were often of dimensions which
one would have regarded as prohibitive to transportation. In order
to reduce the weight to the minimum the columns were dressed on the
spot to within an inch or so of their final surface, whereas the
porphyry blocks were light enough to be sent down in the rough. This
is the explanation of the fact that at Gebel Dukhân there was
but a small town, whereas here at Um Etgal the settlement was far
more elaborate and extensive. Skilled masons had to live at Mons
Claudianus as well as quarrymen, engineers as well as labourers;
and the architects themselves may have had to visit the quarries
on certain occasions. If one has admired the enterprise which is
displayed in the works at Gebel Dukhân, an even greater call on
one’s admiration will be made at Um Etgal; and those who would
fully realise the power of the Roman Empire should make their
slow way to these distant quarries, should realise the enormous
difficulties of their working, and should think for a moment that
all this activity was set in motion by the mere whim of an Emperor.

The town, enclosed by a buttressed and fortified wall, stands in
a valley between the rocky hills from which the white granite was
quarried. A broad road leads up to the main entrance. On the left
side of this stand various ruined houses, and on the right there is
a large enclosure in which the transport animals were stabled. Over
half this enclosure there was a roof, supported by numerous pillars;
but the other half stands open, and still contains line upon line of
perfectly preserved stalls, at which some 300 oxen or donkeys could
be stabled. Farther up the road, on the opposite side, just before
reaching the entrance to the town, there stands the bath-house. One
first enters a good-sized hall in which three small granite tanks
stand. Here the bathers no doubt washed themselves before entering
the baths proper. From this silent hall two doorways open. The first
of these leads into a series of three small rooms which were heated
by furnaces in the manner of a Turkish bath. These chambers seem to
have been heated to different degrees, for under the floor of the
innermost there is a large cavity or cellar for the hot air, whereas
in the other rooms there are only pottery flues, which pass down the
walls behind the plaster. In one chamber there is an arched recess,
which seems to have been made for ornamental purposes. The second
doorway from the hall leads into a fine vaulted room, at the far end
of which a plunge-bath, some nine feet long and four or five feet
deep, is constructed of bricks and cement. Steps lead down into it
from the floor level, and in the walls around there are ornamental
niches in which statuettes or vases may have stood. In this tank
the Roman officer was able to lie splashing after his hot-air bath,
and there is an appearance of luxury about the place which suggests
that he could here almost believe himself in his own country.

[Plate XXI:

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. East end of the Temple.—Page 126.

Illustration: Mons Claudianus, looking over the town to the Temple
on the hillside.—Page 126.]

The enclosed town consists of a crowded mass of small houses,
intersected by a main street from which several lanes branch to
right and left. The walls are all built of broken stones, and the
doorways are generally constructed of granite. Some of the roofing
is still intact, and is formed of thin slabs of granite supported
by rough pillars. One wanders from street to street, picking a way
here and there over fallen walls; now entering the dark chambers of
some almost perfectly preserved house, now pausing to look through
a street doorway into the open court beyond. Large quantities of
broken pottery and blue glazed ware lie about, but there did not
seem to be many other antiquities on the surface.

The temple lies outside the town on the hillside to the north. A
flight of ruined steps, some 25 feet in breadth between the
balustrades, leads up to a terrace, on which stands the broken
altar, inscribed as follows: “In the twelfth year of the Emperor
Nerva Trajan Cæsar Augustus Germanicus Dacicus; by Sulpicius
Simius, Prefect of Egypt, this altar was made.” At the north
end of the terrace there is a granite portico, of which the
two elegant columns are now overthrown. Through this one passes
into a large four-pillared hall, where there is another altar,
upon which is written: “Annius Rufus; Legate of the XVth Legion
‘Appolinaris,’ superintending the marble works of Mons Claudianus
by the favour of the Emperor Trajan.” From this hall the sanctuary
and other important rooms lead. The walls in the various parts
of the building now only appear as orderly piles of rough stones,
but when they were neatly covered with the salmon-coloured plaster,
which may be seen in the bath-house and elsewhere, they must have
been most imposing. Built into one of the outer walls of the temple
there is a block of stone decorated with the well-known Egyptian
symbol of the disk and serpents; and this seems to be the only
indication of Egyptian influence in the place.

To the north-east of the town a great causeway leads up to the
main quarries, and half-way along it lies a huge block of granite,
abandoned for some reason before it had been dragged down to the
depository below. Here at the foot of the causeway lie several
huge columns already trimmed, and many smaller blocks left in the
rough. Most of these are numbered or otherwise marked, and on one
enormous block, hewn into the form of a capital, there is written:
“The property of Cæsar Nerva Trajan.”

The well from which the inhabitants of Mons Claudianus drew their
water lies in a valley nearly a mile from the town. It is enclosed
within a courtyard, and near it stands a round tower some 25 feet in
height. From this tower to a point about a quarter of a mile from the
town there runs an aqueduct along which the water was evidently sent,
the drop of 25 feet giving it the necessary impetus. At the town end
of the aqueduct there is a building which contains a large tank and
a series of rooms something in the nature of a small barrack. Here,
no doubt, lived the persons who had charge of the water-supply,
and it was probably their duty to see that the tank was always
full. Outside the building there is a trough from which the animals
could drink. One imagines the quarrymen or their wives coming each
day to the tank to fill their amphoræ with water, and the stablemen
leading down the mules or donkeys to the trough. Here, as in the
animal lines at the town, one is struck with the disciplined system
shown in the arrangements, and it seems clear that the settlement
was under the immediate eyes of true Romans, uninfluenced by the
slovenliness of the Orient.

I first saw these ruins in the red light of sunset, and through the
streets of the town I made my way in the silence of nightfall. No
words can record the strangeness of wandering thus through
doorways unbarred since the days of Imperial Rome, and through
houses uninhabited for so many hundreds of years. It is difficult
to describe the sensations which a scene of this kind arouses. At
first the mind is filled with sheer amazement both at the freshness,
the newness of the buildings, and at their similarity to those in
use at the present day. One cannot bring oneself to believe that
so many centuries have passed since human eyes looked daily upon
them or hands touched them. But presently a door seems to open in
the brain, a screen slides back, and clearly one sees Time in its
true relation. A thousand years, two thousand years, have the value
of the merest drop of water in an ocean. One’s hands may reach
out and touch the hands which built these houses, fashioned these
doorways, and planned these streets. This town is not a relic of
an age of miracles, when the old gods walked the earth or sent
their thunderbolts from an unremote heaven; but stone by stone
it was constructed by men in every way identical with ourselves,
whose brains have only known the sights and sounds which we know,
altered in but a few details.

[Plate XXII:

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. Doorway leading from the hall of the
Bath-house into the room in which was the plunge-bath. Originally
the walls were plastered.—Page 125.

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. Pedestal of the altar in the
forecourt of the Temple. The altar itself is seen broken in the
foreground.—Page 126.]

The fact that those far-off days are so identical with those we
live in does not, however, speak to the mind of the changelessness
of things, of the constancy of human customs. That is a minor
thought. It tells rather of our misconception of the nature of Time;
it shows how difficult it is to judge the ages by the standard of
human experience. In looking at these almost unharmed relics of a
life which ceased before our remotest English history had begun,
one sees that their modern appearance is not so much due to the
persistence of custom as it is to the shortness of time since
the town was built. Two thousand years is not a period which we
have the right to call long: it is but an hour in the duration of
man’s existence upon earth. “A thousand ages in thy sight are
like an evening gone,” runs the old hymn; and one feels that the
ages since this town was built must indeed be but an evening to One
whose laws of Decay and Change have not found time in them to show
more than a few signs of their working. As one entered the temple in
the twilight, and aroused unaccustomed echoes in the silence of its
halls, the thought was that one had come rudely to awaken the Past;
and, as the degenerate son of a race that had outlived its miracles,
to bring the tidings that the gods were dead. But when the newness,
the freshness of parts of the buildings, had opened the doors of
the mind, the thought was only that the gods were still living and
mighty who could think so lightly of twenty long centuries.

On the following morning I busied myself in taking notes and
photographs amongst the ruins; and somewhat before noon the camp
was struck. The road, now leading westwards towards Keneh, passed
for the main part of the ride along a wide valley of great beauty;
and after trotting for about three and a half hours we passed a
small ancient quarry of fine, small-grained, grey granite, near
which a few huts were grouped. Towards sunset we crossed the brow
of a hill, and so descended into the Wady Fatîreh, where we camped
near the well of that name. Here there is a Roman station differing
very slightly from those already described. It lies about five and
a half hours’ trot from Mons Claudianus, and was thus the first
night’s halting-place for express caravans on the road from that
town to Keneh.

As darkness fell I was sitting in the fortress questioning the
guide as to the road, when we were both startled by the sound of
falling stones, and looking up we saw a large dog-like creature
disappearing over the wall. Examining the footprints afterwards,
one saw them to be the heavy marks of a hyæna; but no more was
heard of him. Hyænas are by no means rare in the desert, though
it is not usual to find them so far back from the Nile as this. In
sleeping out in the desert travellers warn one to be careful,
for a hyæna, they say, might snap at a foot protruding from the
blankets, just as a man might take a biscuit from the sideboard;
but I do not recollect hearing of anybody who has ever been attacked.

The ancient Egyptians used to eat hyænas, and the scenes in the
early tombs show them being fattened up in the farms. Men are seen
flinging the unfortunate creatures on their backs, their legs being
tied, while others force goose-flesh down their throats. Probably the
archaic hunter in the desert ate hyæna-flesh for want of other meat,
and the custom took hold amongst the sporting families of dynastic
times; for with proper feeding there is no reason to suppose that the
meat would be objectionable. The old guide told me, as we sat in the
darkness, that there are several trappers who make their living by
snaring hyænas, and there is no part of the animal which has not a
marketable value. The skin has its obvious uses; the skull is sold as
a charm, and brings luck to any house under the threshold of which
it is buried; the fat is roasted and eaten as a great delicacy;
and the flesh is also used for eating, and for medical purposes,
certain parts being stewed down and swallowed by women who desire
to produce a family in spite of Nature’s unwillingness.

[Plate XXIII:

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. The first heated room of the
Bath-house. The doorway on the left leads into the warmer room. The
perpendicular cut in the left wall near the corner is one of the
recesses in which the hot-air pipes were fixed. Page 125.

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. The same doorway—nearer view.]

In the neighbourhood of Fatîreh we noticed several rough workings in
the rocks, near which there were often a few ruined huts. These are
the remains of ancient gold mines, worked by the Egyptians and the
Romans. There are said to be many old mines in this neighbourhood,
and an attempt has been made in recent years to reopen some of
them, though without much success. In an inscription of Dynasty
XVIII. (B.C. 1580-1350) one reads of “the gold of the desert
behind Koptos,” which city was situated on the Nile a few miles
south of Keneh; and, although most of the Koptos metal was obtained
from the region of Wady Fowakhîeh, of which the reader will have
heard in a previous chapter, some of the gold may have been mined
in the Fatîreh neighbourhood at that date, as it certainly was
in Roman times. The subject is one of such interest that I may be
permitted to mention here something of the methods of working the
gold employed by the ancient.

A full account is given by Diodorus, who obtained his information
from Agatharcides, of the mines which are situated in the
Eastern Desert farther to the south; and, as the methods were no
doubt similar in both districts, the information enables one to
reconstruct the scenes which these hills of Fatîreh looked down
upon two thousand years ago.

The persons who worked the mines were mainly criminals and prisoners
of war; but with these there were many unjustly accused men of
good breeding, and those who had by some political action earned
the Pharaoh’s or the Emperor’s wrath. Frequently this class of
prisoner was banished to the mines, together with all the members of
his family, and these also were obliged to labour for the king’s
profit. No distinctions were made at the mines between the classes,
but all suffered together, and all were weighed down with fetters
by night and by day. There was little or no chance of escape, for
sentries were posted on every hill-top, and the soldiers were ready
to give chase through the waterless desert should a man elude the
watchman. These soldiers were all of foreign extraction, and the
chances were heavy against their understanding the speech of the
prisoners; and thus they were seldom able to be bribed or introduced
into a scheme of escape.

The work was carried on day after day without cessation, and always
the labourers were under the eye of a merciless overseer, who
showered blows upon them at the slightest provocation. In order to
keep down the expenses, no clothes were provided for the prisoners,
and often they possessed not a rag to hide their nakedness. Nor
were they allowed to give a moment’s time to the bathing or care
of their bodies. In good or in bad health they were forced to work;
and neither the weakness of extreme age, nor the fever of sickness,
nor the infirmities of women, were regarded as proper cause for
the idleness even of an hour. All alike were obliged to labour, and
were urged thereto by many blows. Thus the end of a man who had been
banished to these mines was always the same: fettered and unwashed,
covered with bruises and disfigured by pestilence, he dropped dead
in his chains under the lash of the relentless whip. The sufferings
of life were such that death was hailed with joy, and it was the
dying alone who possessed a single thought of happiness.

Those who have seen the old workings on the exposed face of the
rocks, and have known the coldness of the winter nights and the
intense heat of the summer days, will alone realise what tortures
these poor wretches must have suffered. One might well think that
the wind which went moaning down the valley as we rode along the path
to the Nile still carried the groans of the sufferers, and that the
whispering rocks still echoed the cries of utter despair. Looking at
the huts where these people lived and the mines where they laboured,
one could not regard the record of their woe, which Diodorus makes
known to us, as a tale of long ago. Two thousand years, one may
repeat, is not really a period which we should regard as long;
and while walls stand upright and mines gape open, the sound of
lamentation will not be hushed in these valleys.

The rock from which the gold was obtained, says Diodorus, was
very hard; but the miners softened it by lighting fires under it,
after which it could almost be broken with the hands. When it was
thus prepared, thousands of prisoners were set to breaking it with
iron tools, while the overseer directed their labours towards the
veins of gold. To the strongest of the men iron picks were given,
and with these, though wielded unskilfully and with great labour,
they were made to attack the hillside. The galleries, following
the veins, twisted and turned, so that at the depth of a few feet
there was no glimmer of daylight; and for this reason the miners
each carried a small lamp bound to their forehead. As the blocks
of quartz were broken by the picks they were carried to the surface
by the children of the captives, who formed constant procession up
and down the dark galleries. These fragments were then gathered up
by youths and placed in stone mortars, in which they were pounded
with iron pestles until the ore was broken into pieces of the size
of peas. The ore was then handed over to women and old men, who
placed it in hand-mills, and thus ground it to powder. This powder
was then placed upon a sloping surface, and a stream of water was
poured over it which carried away the particles of stone but left
the gold in position. This process of washing was repeated several
times, until all foreign matter was eliminated and the gold dust
became pure and bright. Other workmen then took the dust, and,
after measuring it carefully, they poured it into an earthenware
crucible; and having added a small quantity of lead, tin, salt, and
bran, they closed the vessel with a tight-fitting lid, and placed
it in a furnace for the space of five days. At the end of this time
the crucible was set aside to cool, and on removing the lid it was
found to contain pure gold ready to be dispatched to the Treasury.

To bear witness to the accuracy of this account one sometimes
finds mortars and hand-mills lying amidst the ruins of the old
mining settlements. At the mines of Um Garriat there are said to be
thousands of these mills, and here at Fatîreh not a few are to be
found. Sluices for washing the crushed ore have been observed in
some of the old workings; and of the smelting crucibles remnants
exist at Um Garriat and elsewhere.

Practically nothing is known of the methods employed by the Egyptians
in earlier days, but they cannot have differed very greatly from
those of the Roman period. There seems reason to suppose that less
cruelty existed in dynastic times than in the days of the callous
Romans; and in the following chapter an account will be given of
a temple, a well, and a town built by King Sety I. for the benefit
of the persons who were engaged in gold-mining.

The night spent at Fatîreh was again bitterly cold, and a violent
wind necessitated a tussle with tent-ropes and pegs: a form of
exercise as annoying in the daytime as any that exists, and in the
shivering night-time unspeakable. A couple of hours’ riding next
day brought us to the end of the mountainous country and into the
open desert. For the first time for several days the sun streamed
down from a cloudless sky, but the strong north wind continued to
blow in full force; and as we trotted over the level plains we were
half-blinded by the stinging sand. The peaked hills behind us rose
from a sea of tearing sand, and before us in the distance rose low,
undulating clay mounds, beyond which one could catch a glimpse of
the limestone cliffs so typical of the Nile valley. In the afternoon
we crossed these mounds and descended into a very maze of hillocks,
amidst which we camped. Amongst these mounds we met a couple of
Bedwin, the purpose of whose presence was entirely obscure. Our
guide exchanged the usual greetings with them, and then in a low
voice began to talk of the miserable dog which trotted dejectedly
behind his camel. Again he pointed to his almost empty bag of food,
and at last dismounted, fastened a rope to the creature’s neck, and
handed it to the Bedwin. The usual howls floated to us on the wind
as we rode onwards, but the high spirits of the guide at his freedom
from any further responsibility was a real pleasure to witness.

[Plate XXIV:

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. A large granite column lying to the
north-east of the town. The back wall of the town is seen behind
the column, above which the Temple buildings are seen at the foot
of the granite hills.—Page 127.

Illustration: Mons Claudianus. Large granite columns lying at the
foot of a quarry west of the town.—Page 127.]

Early in the following morning I visited the Roman station of
Greiyeh, which lies some seven hours’ trot from Fatîreh, and
about six hours, or rather more, from Keneh, and was thus the first
night’s halting-place out from the Nile, or the second from Mons
Claudianus. The station is, as usual, a rectangular enclosure, in
which several rooms are constructed. Particularly well preserved
are the animal lines, which lie to the west of the station. They
consist of a courtyard in which fourteen rows of stalls are built,
while down either side there has been a shed with a roof supported
by a row of pillars. Not far away is the ancient well, enclosed in
a small compound.

This is the last of the Roman stations, and having passed it,
the ancient world seemed to slip back out of one’s reach. The
camels were set at a hard trot over the now flat and burning sand,
and by noon the distant palms of Keneh were in sight floating above
the mirage. As the houses of the town grew more and more distinct
in the dazzling sunlight, the practical concerns of one’s work
came hurrying to mind; and in times and trains, baggage and bustle,
the quiet desert, with its ghosts of Rome, faded away as fades some
wonderful dream when the sleeper wakes.

VI.

THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD.

The small shrine in the Eastern Desert, which I have here called
the Temple of Wady Abâd, is known to Egyptologists as the Temple
of Redesiyeh, although it is thirty-seven miles or more from
the village on the Nile, five miles above Edfu, which bears that
name. Redesiyeh seems to have been the point from which Lepsius, the
German archæologist, and other early travellers set out to visit the
desert shrine; and hence the name of this wholly unimportant village
was given to the ruin, and nobody has bothered to find one more
suitable. By the natives the building is called _El Kaneis_, “the
Chapel”; and since it is situated in the well-known Wady Abâd, it
would seem most natural to call it the “Chapel, or Temple, of Wady
Abâd.” Modern prospectors and mining engineers have been puzzled
to know what Redesiyeh has to do with the place; and the fact that
an old German antiquarian half a century ago collected his camels at
that village being wholly without significance to them, they have
regarded the word Redesiyeh as a probable corruption of Rhodesia,
and have spoken, to the amazement and confusion of the uninitiate,
of the Temple of Rhodesia in the hills of the Upper Egyptian Desert.

The shrine was built by King Sety I. (B.C. 1300), the father of
Rameses the Great, for the benefit of the miners passing to and
from the various gold mines near the Red Sea; and the story one
hears from the modern engineers, which vaguely relates that the
temple was erected by King Ptolemy as a memorial to his son, who
died at this spot on his return from the mines, does not require
consideration. During the brilliant reign of Sety I. the gold mines
were energetically worked, and the produce of those upon the road
to which this shrine was built was intended especially for the
upkeep and ornamentation of the king’s great temple at Abydos,
about 180 miles by river north of the Wady Abâd. There are so many
old gold workings between the river and the Red Sea that one cannot
say definitely where Sety’s miners were bound for who stopped to
offer a prayer to the gods at this wayside shrine, but one may say
certainly that Edfu, the old Apollinopolis Magna, and El Kab, the
old Eileithyiaspolis, were the cities from which they set out. It
will, perhaps, be best to state that Edfu stands on the Nile about
half-way between Aswan and Luxor—_i.e._, about 520 miles above
Cairo—and that El Kab is situated some 10 miles down-stream from
Edfu. The Wady Abâd enters the desert exactly opposite Edfu;
the shrine stands about 35 miles east of that town; and the Red
Sea coast is about 100 miles farther east as the crow flies.

[Plate XXV:

Illustration: The Roman station of Abu Gehâd. Some of the rooms
as seen from the court, looking west.—Page 152.

Illustration: Front view of the Temple of Wady Abâd.—Page 155]

Towards the end of March 1908, when the hot south winds were driving
the tourists towards the sea, and the trains from Luxor to Cairo were
full to overflowing, the writer and his wife set out in the opposite
direction, travelling southwards in an empty train as far as the
little wayside station of Mahamîd, the nearest stopping-place to the
ruins of El Kab. The camels which were to carry us and our camp to
Sety’s temple in the desert were awaiting us upon the platform,
surrounded by an admiring throng of native loafers. The caravan,
according to orders which were ultimately carried out, was to consist
of ten baggage and four riding camels, and an assortment of camelmen
under the leadership of a Shêkh; but more than double that number
of camels lay grunting in the sunlight as the hot train panted into
the station. This was due to the fact that a rival and more wealthy
camel proprietor, who had not been invited to do business on this
occasion, had sent a few camels to the rendezvous on the chance of
their being required, and this move the chosen proprietor met by the
doubling of the number of his camels. The disappointed owner was
himself at the station, and eloquently dilated upon the danger of
trusting oneself to a Shêkh of inferior standing. In the infallible
‘Baedeker’ one reads that for this journey it is necessary
“to secure the protection of the Shêkh of the Ababdeh tribes”;
and though the edition in which these ominous words appear is a
few years out of date, one realised in what a dilemma a traveller
who did not know the country might have found himself. The Shêkh,
it appeared, had even telegraphed his warning to me at the last
moment; but this having been really the last of a short series of
cards which it seems that he had played, it did not require many
words to soothe matters into the normal condition of hullabaloo
which everywhere prevails in Egypt at the departure of a caravan.

The baggage at last being dispatched southwards, we set out
towards the ruins of El Kab, which could be seen shimmering in
the heat-haze a few miles away. It was our purpose to ride to
Edfu, thence into the desert, and thence back to Edfu and on to
Aswan. The first night was to be spent under the ruined walls of
the ancient city of Eileithyiaspolis, and it did not take long to
trot to the camping-ground by the river-side. Here, in explanation
of the route which we followed, I must be permitted to enter into
some archæological details in connection with El Kab and Edfu.

In archaic days, when the great Hawk-chieftains who glimmer,
like pale stars, at the dawn of history were consolidating their
power in Upper Egypt before conquering the whole Nile valley,
there stood a city on the west bank of the river, opposite El Kab,
which in later times was know as Hieraconpolis, “the city of the
Hawks.” This was the earliest capital of Upper Egypt, and here
it is probable that the great king Mena, “the Fighter,” the
first Pharaoh of a united Egypt, was born and bred. This king and
his father conquered the whole of Egypt, and for that conquest a
certain amount of wealth was necessary, even in those days when
might was as good as money. For this purpose, and for the reason
that the arts of civilisation were already in practice, the gold
mines of the Eastern Desert began to be worked. This industry led
to the establishment of a station on the east bank of the river
opposite the capital, where the miners might foregather, and where
the caravans and their escort of soldiers might be collected.

As larger deeds and wider actions became the order of the Pharaoh’s
day, so the mines were extended and the number of workmen increased;
and it was not long before the station at El Kab grew into a city
almost as large as the metropolis. In Dynasty XII. (B.C. 2000)
a wall was built around it, which stands to this day, in order to
protect it from incursions from the desert. Gradually great temples
were erected here, and the city, now known as Nekheb and later as
Eileithyiaspolis, was one of the busiest centres in the world.

The ruins of the old caravanserai are of wonderful interest. One
may pass through the narrow doorway of the fortified enclosure,
and in the silent area where once the soldiers and miners camped,
and where now a few goats graze, one feels completely shut off
from the world of the present day. The dark walls rise around one
almost to their full height, and one may still ascend and descend
the sloping ramps where the sentries paced in the olden days. Here
there are the ruins of the temple where the vulture-goddess was
worshipped; and yonder one sees the mounds of potsherds, bricks,
corn-grinders, and all the _débris_ of a forsaken town. In the
side of a hill which overlooks the great ramparts one observes the
long row of tombs in which the princes of the district were buried;
and here in the biographical inscriptions on the walls one reads
of many a feat of arms and many a brave adventure.

[Plate XXVI:

Illustration: The Temple of Wady Abâd. The east end of the
Portico. The square pillar was built in Græco-Roman times to
support the broken architrave.—Page 155.

Illustration: The Temple of Wady Abâd. The east wall of the
Portico. The king is seen smiting a group of negroes.—Page 156.]

The hills of the desert recede in a kind of bay here, and if one
walks eastwards from the town one presently sees that there is,
at the back of the bay, an outlet through the range, five miles or
so from the river and the enclosure. It was through this natural
gateway, which the ancient Egyptians called “the Mouth of the
Wilderness,” that the caravans passed in early days into the great
desert; and once through this doorway they were immediately shut off
from the green Nile valley and all its busy life. There is a great
isolated rock which stands in the bay; and in its shadow the miners
and soldiers were wont to offer their last prayers to the gods of
Egypt, often inscribing their names upon the smooth surface of the
stone. Here one reads of priests, scribes, caravan-conductors,
soldiers, superintendents of the gold mines, and all manner of
officials, who were making the desert journey, or who had come to
see its starting-point.

In Dynasty XVIII. Amonhotep III. (B.C. 1400) erected a graceful
little temple here, to which one may walk or ride out from El Kab
over the level, gravel-covered surface of the desert, and may stand
amazed at the freshness of the colouring of the paintings on its
wall. Another little shrine was built, close by, a century and a half
later; and in Ptolemaic times a third temple was constructed. Thus
one is surrounded by shrines as one sets out over the hills away
from this land of shrines: it is as though the gods were loath to
leave one, and in solemn company came out to speed the traveller
on his way.

The road which the gold miners trod passed through the hills, and
then turned off towards the south-east; and presently it met the road
which started from Edfu, or rather from Contra Apollinopolis Magna,
which, as has been said, is ten miles distant from El Kab. Edfu
was also a city of great antiquity, and was famous as the place
where at the dawn of Egyptian history the Hawk-tribes overthrew
the worshippers of Set, the god who afterwards degenerated into
Satan. The great temple which now stands there, and which is the
delight of thousands of visitors each winter, was built upon the
ruins of earlier temples where the hawk of Edfu had been worshipped
since the beginning of things. The record of a tax levied on
Edfu in the reign of Thothmes III. (B.C. 1500) shows that it was
mainly paid in solid gold, instead of in kind; and one thus sees
that the precious metal was coming into the country at that time
along the Wady Abâd route, as indeed it was along all the great
routes. Edfu was the main starting-point for the mines in the days
when Sety I. built his temple, if one may judge from the fact that
the hawk-god of that city is one of the chief deities worshipped in
the shrine, while the vulture-goddess of El Kab has only a secondary
place there; and in Roman times the Edfu road was perhaps the only
one in general use.

This was the route which was selected for our journey; and after
spending the night at El Kab, we rode next morning along the
east bank of the river to a point at the mouth of the Wady Abâd,
opposite the picturesque town of Edfu, where the pylons shoot up
to the blue sky and dominate the cluster of brown houses and green
trees. A morning swim in the river, and a trot of somewhat over two
hours, was sufficient exercise for the first day; and the afternoon
was spent in camp, while the camelmen collected the food for the
journey and led their beasts down to the river to drink.

On the following morning, soon after daybreak, we mounted our camels
and set out over the hard sand and gravel towards the sunrise. A
fresh, cool wind blew from the north, and the larks were already
singing their first songs, as we trotted up the wady. The brisk
morning air, the willing camels, the setting out into the freedom
of the desert: how shall one record the charm of it? Only those who
have travelled in the desert can understand the joy of returning
there: a joy which, strangely enough, has only one equal, and
that the pleasure of returning to water, to flowers, and to trees
after a spell of some days or weeks in the wilderness. Here there
are no cares, for there are no posts nor newspapers; here there
is no fretfulness, for one is taking almost continual exercise;
here there is no irritation, for man, the arch-irritant, is absent;
here there is no debility and fag, for one is drinking in renewed
strength from the strong conditions around. But ever enthusiasm,
that splendid jewel in the ring of life, shines and glitters before
one’s eyes; and all one’s actions assume a broader and a happier
complexion. The desert is the breathing-space of the world, and
therein one truly breathes and lives.

[Plate XXVII:

Illustration: The main entrance of the Roman station of Wady Abâd,
looking west from inside the enclosure.—Page 164.

Illustration: The piles of stone erected opposite the Temple of
Wady Abâd.—Page 164.]

A trot of about two hours brought us to the well known as Bir
Abâd. The well is but a small, stagnant pool of brackish water,
around which a few trees grow. There are six acacias, three or
four small palms, a curious dead-looking tree called _Heraz_ by
the natives, and a few desert shrubs. Some attempt has been made to
cultivate a small area, but this has not met with success, and the
native farmers have departed. The sand under the acacias offers a
welcome resting-place, and here in the shade we sat for a while,
listening to the quiet shuffle of the wind amongst the trees and
to the singing of the sand-martins. While playing idly with the
sand an objectionable insect was uncovered, which the natives
call a “ground-gazelle.” It is a fat, maggot-like creature,
about an inch in length, possessing a pair of nippers similar
to those of an earwig. It runs fast upon its six or eight legs,
but, whenever possible, it buries itself by wriggling backwards
into the sand. A more loathsome insect could not well be imagined;
and, since the species is said to be by no means uncommon, one will
not delve with the fingers so readily in the future as one lies in
the shadow of the trees. A ride of about half an hour’s duration
along the valley and past a Shêkh’s tomb, known as Abu Gehâd,
brought us to the ruined Roman fortified station named after this
tomb. It is much like other stations of this date, and consists
of an enclosure in which a few chambers are to be seen. One enters
from the west, and in the open area forming the courtyard there is
a cemented tank in which a supply of water was stored for the use
of travellers. The south wall of the enclosure to this day looks
formidable from the outside, still standing some twelve feet in
height, and being solidly built of broken stones. On this side of
the station there are traces of an outbuilding, which may have been
the animal lines. In the main enclosure a block of sandstone was
found bearing the cartouches of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen (B.C. 1350),
one of the successors of the “heretic king” Akhnaton, and by
its form it seems to have been part of a shrine which perhaps had
stood at this spot. The road from El Kab here joins the Edfu route,
and the Pharaoh may have marked the meeting of the ways by a little
wayside temple at which the gold miners might offer a prayer to
the gods of the wilderness.

In Roman days when this station was built it is probable that the
gold mines no longer formed the main objective of the caravans which
passed along this road. Emeralds, almost unknown to the ancient
Egyptians, were now deemed an ornamentation of worth and beauty; and
the emerald mines of Gebel Zabâra, which are most easily approached
along this route, were vigorously worked by the Romans. It was on
his way to these mines that Cailliaud in 1816 discovered the temple
of Sety I. There was also a road from Edfu to the Græco-Roman port
of Berenice on the Red Sea, which was much used at this period;
and stations similar to that of Abu Gehâd are to be met with at
fairly regular intervals for the whole distance to the coast.

Trotting on for another two hours and a quarter, we camped under the
rocks of the Gebel Timsah, a well-known landmark to travellers. A
head of rock projects into the level valley, and upon it the people
of the desert for untold generations have set up small heaps of
stones, the original idea of which must have been connected with
religious worship. The two tents were no sooner pitched than a
gale of wind, suddenly rising, tore one of them down, and almost
succeeded in overthrowing the other. A tempest of dust and sand
beat in at the doorway, and covered all things with a brown layer,
so that one knew not where to turn nor how to escape. Fortunately,
however, like all things violent, it did not last for long; and a
calm, starlit night followed.

The distance from Gebel Timsah to the temple which was our
destination may be covered in about an hour and a half of
trotting. We set out soon after sunrise; and presently a low ridge
was crossed, the path passing between two piles or beacons of
stones, set up perhaps in Roman days to mark the road; and from
this point a wide, flat valley could be seen, stretching between
the low hills, and much overgrown with bushes and brambles. Over
the plain we jogged in the cool morning air, directing the camels
to a high bluff of rock in the east, in which, the guide told us,
the temple of Sety was excavated. Soon a Roman fortress came into
sight, and later we were able to discern the portico of the temple
sheltering under the rocks. Slowly the features became more distinct,
and at last we dismounted at the foot of the cliffs and scrambled
up the slope to explore the picturesque shrine.

It is strange that of the many Egyptologists who have travelled
in Egypt, only two, Lepsius and Golénischeff, have visited this
spot. It may be that the statement of the old Baedeker, which says
that the wandering Ababdeh tribes “assume a hostile attitude” to
travellers, has confined them to the banks of the Nile; or perhaps
the reported antics of the much-maligned camel have induced them to
leave unvisited this pearl of the past. For that matter, however,
the place might be reached upon the back of the patient ass, there
being water at Bir Abâd, and, for the last few years, at the temple
itself. When one sees this building, one of the best preserved of
all the Egyptian temples, one is amazed at the lack of enterprise
which has caused it to be uncared for, unprotected, and unvisited
for all these years. A few mining engineers and prospectors alone
have seen the shrine; and, since they have disfigured its walls
with their names, one could wish that they too had stayed at home.

[Plate XXVIII:

Illustration: INSCRIPTIONS AND DRAWINGS IN AND NEAR THE TEMPLE OF
WADY ABÂD.

1, 6, 7. North face of cliff, east of Temple.—Page 158.
2. Façade of Temple, east side.
3. Two examples of five similar inscriptions, on cliff east of
Temple.
4. On face of cliff just west of Temple.
5. Face of cliff, west of Temple.—Page 163.
8. On face of cliff just east of Temple.—Page 162.
9-14. Façade of Temple, west side.
15, 16. South-east pillar of Portico.—_Drawings in red paint_.
17. East wall of Portico.—_Drawings in red paint_.]

The little temple consists of a rectangular hall excavated in the
rock, the roof being supposed to be supported by four square pillars,
though in reality these also are part of the living rock. At the
far end there are three shrines in which the statues of the gods
are carved. In front of this hall there is a built portico, the
roof of which rests upon four columns with lotus-bud capitals. One
enters from the north, up the slope of fallen stones and driven
sand, and so passes into the shade of the portico. Through a hole
in the roof, where a slab of stone has fallen in, one may look up
at the towering rocks which overhang the building. Then, through a
beautifully ornamented doorway, one passes into the dimness of the
rock-cut hall, where one may be conscious that the whole height of
the hill rests above one’s head. Both this hall and the portico
are richly decorated with coloured reliefs, and in the inner portions
of the temple one stands in wonder at the brightness of the colours
in the scenes which are seen on all sides. It has been said that
the brilliancy of the painting in the temple of Amonhotep III. at
El Kab is surprising; but here it is still fresher, and has even
more admirably held its own against the assaults of time. We see the
Pharaoh smiting down his negro and Asiatic enemies in the presence
of Amen Ra and Horus of Edfu; we watch him as he makes offerings
to the gods; and to the ceiling the eye is attracted by the great
vultures with spread wings which there hover above one, depicted in
radiant colours rendered more radiant by contrast with the browns
and the yellows of the scenery outside. In the niches at the end
of the hall the gods sit in serenity; and, though these figures
have been damaged almost beyond recognition by pious Musslemans,
there still clings around them their old majesty, and still one may
find something solemn in their attitude, so that one almost pays
heed to the warning inscribed on the doorway that a man must be
twice purified before entering the little sanctuary where they sit.

[Plate XXIX:

Illustration:

1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9. North face of cliff, east of Temple.—Page 157.
3. Smaller of two large fallen rocks, east of Temple.—Page 157.
6, 7, 10. Larger of two fallen rocks, east of Temple.—Page 157.]

It may be asked why Sety selected this spot for his temple, for,
except that it lies on the route to the mines, the reason for its
location is not at once apparent. The explanation, however, is not
far to seek. This great bluff of rock has a smooth cliff-like surface
on its north side, and for the earliest travellers, as for those
of the present day, it has cast a welcome shadow in which one might
take the midday siesta in comfort. Here, scratched or chiselled on
the rock, there are very many drawings which undoubtedly date from
archaic, and even prehistoric, times. Numerous representations
of curious boats are seen, and their character justifies one in
supposing them to be the sacred arks which formed in ancient times
such an essential part of Egyptian religious ceremonial. In most
of these vessels one sees the shrine which contained the god, and
in one drawing a figure with flail raised, before which an animal
is being sacrificed, is certainly the god Min himself, the patron
of the desert. A few animals and figures are also drawn, and when
human beings are represented in or near the arks their arms are
shown held aloft in the regular Egyptian attitude of worship.

Thus it seems that, from being a place to rest and to dream in,
the rock had already in archaic times become a sacred spot, at
which early man bowed himself down before the representations of
the ark of Min. From this period until Dynasty XVIII. it seems,
from the lack of inscriptions here, that the mines were not much
used. Amonhotep III., however, sent his Viceroy of the South out
here, whose name, Merimes, is written upon the rocks near the
temple; and his temple at El Kab, at the beginning of the route,
is a further indication of his interest in the gold workings. Just
as this king had built his temple near the sacred rock at “the
Mouth of the Wilderness,” so Sety I., following half a century
later, decided to erect his shrine at the foot of this more distant
sacred rock, the half distance having been already adventured by
the intermediate Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Since the place was just
about a day’s express ride from Edfu and El Kab, its situation
was convenient; and, moreover, there was no other head of rock in
the neighbourhood which offered so fine a position for a rock temple.

In the inscriptions near the mouth of the excavated portion of
the shrine, Sety caused to be recorded the story of the building
of the temple; and parts of this are of sufficient interest to be
quoted here:—

In the year 9 (B.C. 1304), the third month of the third season,
the twentieth day. Lo! his majesty inspected the hill-country as
far as the region of the mountains, for his heart desired to see
the mines from which the gold is brought. Now when his majesty had
gone out from the Nile valley, he made a halt on the road, in order
to take counsel with his heart; and he said, “How evil is the way
without water! It is so for a traveller whose mouth is parched. How
shall his throat be cooled, how shall he quench his thirst?—for
the lowland is far away, and the highland is vast. The thirsty man
cries out to himself against a fatal country. Make haste!—let
me take counsel of their needs. I will make for them a supply for
preserving them alive, so that they will thank God in my name in
after years.” Now, after his majesty had spoken these words in
his own heart, he coursed through the desert seeking a place to
make a water-station; and lo! the god led him in order to grant
the request which he desired. Then were commanded quarrymen to
dig a well upon the desert, that he might sustain the fainting,
and cool for him the burning heat of summer. Then this place was
built in the great name of Sety, and the water flowed into it in
very great plenty. Said his majesty, “Behold, the god has granted
my petition, and he has brought to me water upon the desert. Since
the days of the gods the way has been dangerous, but it has been
made pleasant in my glorious reign. Another good thought has come
into my heart, at command of the god, even the equipment of a town,
in whose midst shall be a settlement with a temple. I will build
a resting-place on this spot, in the great name of my fathers the
gods. May they grant that what I have wrought shall abide, and that
my memory shall prosper, circulating through the hill-country.”

Then his majesty commanded that the leader of the King’s workmen
be commissioned, and with him the quarrymen, that there should be
made, by excavation in the mountain, this temple. Now after the
stronghold was completed and adorned, and its paintings executed,
his majesty came to worship his fathers, all the gods; and he said,
“Praise to you, O great gods! May ye favour me forever, may ye
establish my name eternally. As I have been useful to you, as I
have been watchful for the things which ye desire, may ye speak
to those who are still to come, whether kings, princes, or people,
that they may establish for me my work in this place, on behalf of
my beautiful temple in Abydos.”

The last words tell us for what purpose this route to the gold
mines had been bettered. A second long inscription is devoted to
blessings on those who keep up this shrine and the mines with which
it was connected, and to curses on those who allow it to fall into
neglect. A third inscription is supposed to give the speech of the
travellers who have benefited by the king’s thoughtfulness:—

Never was the like of it (the temple and the well) made by
any king, save by the King Sety, the good shepherd, who preserves
his soldiers alive, the father and mother of all. Men say from
mouth to mouth, “O Amen, give to him eternity, double to him
everlastingness; for he has opened for us the road to march on,
when it was closed before us. We proceed and are safe, we arrive
and are preserved alive. The difficult way which is in our memory
has become a good way. He has caused the mining of the gold to
be easy. He hath dug for water in the desert far from men for the
supply of every traveller who traverses the highlands.”

Sety dedicated his temple to Amen Ra, whom he identified with Min,
the old god of the place, and to Harmachis, the sun-god, whom he
seems to have identified with the hawk, Horus of Edfu. He also here
worshipped Ptah, the Egyptian Vulcan, and his lion-headed consort
Sekhmet; Tum; Hathor, the Egyptian Venus; Nekheb, the vulture-goddess
of El Kab; Osiris and Isis; Mut, the mother goddess; and Khonsu,
the moon-god who was the son of Amen Ra and Mut, and with them formed
the royal trinity at Thebes. All these gods one sees upon the walls
of the temple, and before them Sety is shown offering incense, wine,
flowers, and food. Some inscriptions on the rocks near the temple,
written by high officials of this period who visited the mines,
make mention of two other deities: Ra, the sun-god, and a strange
goddess who rides a horse and brandishes a shield and spear.

When Sety died the temple was still not quite finished, and
for some reason or other which we shall probably never know, it
so remained. His temple at Abydos, too, was neglected, and the
revenues ceased to be collected. Thus, in spite of the curses
inscribed on the walls of the desert shrine, the king’s plans
for the continual working of the mines, in order to pay for the
maintenance of his great masterpiece, were not carried out. At
Abydos Rameses II., in an inscription written a few years later,
states that he found the temple of Sety there unfinished, and that
it had not been “completed according to the regulations for it of
the gold-house.” He, however, finished the building, and perhaps
re-established the gold workings along the Wady Abâd route, for
on one of the pillars of the hall of the desert shrine there is
an inscription written by an official which reads: “Bringing the
gold for the festival in the temple of Rameses II.”

Since that time until the present day the gods in the sanctuary
have looked out at a long stream of travellers, soldiers, miners,
and officials. Upon the rocks and on the walls of the temple there
are several hieroglyphical and Greek inscriptions which tell of
the coming of all manner of people. A chief of the custodians of El
Kab here records his name, and a scribe of the king’s troops is
immortalised near by. Many of the Greek inscriptions are ex-votos
dedicated to Pan, with whom the old Min had been identified; and
as the latter was the god of desert travel, so the sprightly Pan
becomes the sober patron of the roads. Miners from Syracuse and from
Crete tell of their advent; and one traveller describes himself
as an Indian, a voyager, perhaps, in one of those trading vessels
which brought to the port of Berenice the riches of the East, to be
conveyed across this great desert to the markets of Alexandria. A
man named Doriōn states that he had returned in safety from an
elephant hunt, probably in the south. Two inscriptions are written
by Jews, thanking God for their safe journeys; and it is interesting
to notice that one of them is called Theodotus, son of Doriōn, and
the other Ptolemy, son of Dionysius—all pagan names. A troop of
Greek soldiers have recorded their names in the temple, and state
that they kept a watch before “Pan of the Good Roads.”

[Plate XXX:

Illustration: ARCHAIC DRAWINGS OF SACRED BOATS, ANIMALS, ETC.,
ON ROCKS NEAR TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD.

1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14. North face of cliff, east of Temple.
—Page 157.
2, 3, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17. Larger of two fallen rocks, east of
Temple.—Page 157.
5. West face of cliff projection, east of Temple.—Page 157.
13. Smaller of two fallen rocks, east of Temple.—Page 157.]

These travellers, besides, or instead of, writing their names,
seem often to have piled a few stones at conspicuous points as a
memorial of their passage. At various places in the neighbourhood,
and especially at the foot of the hills opposite the temple, there
are many such piles of stones; and when well built they rise from
the rocks like altars, three feet or so in height, and perhaps two
feet in diameter. In one or two cases there are fragments of old
Egyptian pottery lying beside them, and there seems no question that
they are connected with religious worship. The same custom still
prevails amongst the desert people, though now its significance
is not remembered; and yet its meaning is not entirely forgotten,
for on a hill-top near the temple we found, near such a pile of
stones, three pairs of gazelle horns and a collection of Red Sea
shells pierced for stringing, a modern offering to the old gods.

In Græco-Roman times a large fortified station was constructed near
the temple, and this still stands in fairly good preservation. It is
built in the plain in front of the temple, not more than a hundred
yards from the foot of the cliffs. The enclosure is somewhat larger
than is usual in these stations, but the greater part of the area has
never been built upon. The enclosing wall still stands to a height
of ten feet or so in parts, but here and there it is almost entirely
ruined. It is built in three thicknesses, so that on the inside there
are two heights at which one might walk around the rampart without
showing above it. One enters through a well-built masonry doorway,
and on either side one may see the hole into which the beam was shot
to close the wooden door at nights. On one’s right there is a group
of small chambers; and here an isolated house, in one wall of which
a window is still intact, forms the best-preserved portion of the
ruin. On one’s left there is a large hall, in which there was a
tank, parts of which, now half-choked with sand, can be seen. The
next building on one’s left is also a hall of considerable
size—the common mess-room, probably, of the travellers. One
then passes into the open courtyard, which bears off to the left,
or north, and does not contain more than a trace or so of walls.

Although one sees so many of these Roman stations in the Eastern
Desert, their charm and interest never palls; and, more than any
other ancient buildings, they bring back the lost ages and recall
the forgotten activities of the old world. These ruins, too, are
always picturesque, and gather to themselves at dawn and at sunset
the hues, the lights, and the shadows of the fairest fancy. At dawn,
at noon, at sunset—all day long—this fortress in the Wady Abâd
is beautiful; and for those who love the desert there is here and
in its surroundings always some new thing to charm. The walls of
the enclosure, and beyond them the pillared portico of the temple
sheltering under the rugged brown cliffs, form as delightful a
picture as may be found in Egypt. As one sits in the blue shadow
one may watch the black-and-white stone-chats fluttering from rock
to rock, and overhead there circles a vulture, as vividly coloured
as those which form the ceiling decoration in the temple. The wide
flat plain, shut in by the distant hills on all sides, entices one
from the fortress on to its sparkling surface, though the tumbled
rocks near the temple soon call one back to their breezy humps and
shady nooks. The hundred surrounding hill-tops vie with one another
in the advertisement of their merits, and one attains a summit but to
covet a further prospect. Or, attracted by the two or three trees and
the few bushes which grow in the plain over against the fortress,
one walks to their welcoming shade; and there one may listen to
the song of the sand-martins and to the strange, long-drawn note
of the finches.

“A book of verses underneath the bough. . . .”

One knows now what the old philosopher desired to express; for
the wilderness is indeed Paradise, and here one may find the true
happiness.

The day slips past in a half-dream of pleasure, and to the student
of archæology, who finds so much for his pencil to record and
his mind to consider, the hours race by at an absurd speed. The
two days which we spent here passed like an afternoon’s dream,
and the memories which remain in the mind are almost too slight
to record. Writing here in the study one reconstructs the rugged
scene, and searches for the incidents which gave gentle colour to
it. There was a flight of cranes, which sailed overhead, moving
from south-east to north-west, on their way to spend the summer in
Europe. Why should one’s memory recall so charmedly the passage
of a hundred birds? There was a hyæna which, in the red dusk,
stood upon a hill-top to watch us, and presently disappeared. There
were three vultures which rose from the bones of a dead camel,
soared into the sky, and alighted again when we had passed. There
came a flock of goats and sheep at noonday to the well, with much
bleating and with the gentle patter of many hoofs. The shepherd in
his picturesque rags eyed us curiously as his charges drank, and,
still watching us, passed down the wady towards the west when they
had quenched their thirst. And so one’s memory wanders over the
two days, recalling the trivialities, and passing over the more
precise details of camp life and of work, until presently one sees
the tent struck and the baggage bumping down the valley once more
on the backs of the grunting camels. The return journey to Edfu
was soon accomplished, and the accumulated mail of five or six
days which was in waiting at the end of the ride quickly brought
one back to the business of life, and relegated the Wady Abâd to
the store-chamber of happy recollections.

[Plate XXXI:

Illustration: Greek inscription relating to an elephant hunt,
on a rock to the east of the Temple of Wady Abâd.—Page 163.

Illustration: Sketch-plan of the Temple of Wady Abâd.]

VII.

A NUBIAN HIGHWAY.

Opposite the town of Aswân, a short distance below the First
Cataract of the Nile, there rises an island known to travellers
by its Greek name of Elephantine. The river sweeps down from the
cataract to east and west; southwards one may watch it flowing around
a dozen dark clumps of granite rocks, which thrust themselves,
as it were, breathless above the water; and northwards almost
without hindrance it passes between the hills and palm-trees of the
mainland. Nowadays should one stand upon the mounds which mark the
site of the ancient city of Elephantine, and look east and north, one
would feel that modern civilisation had hidden for ever the scenes
of the past, and had prevented the imagination from re-picturing
the place as it was in the elder days. The huge Cataract Hotel
overshadows the ruined city, and stares down from its pinnacle
of granite on to the tumbled stones of ancient temples. On the
island itself, opposite this hotel, the elaborate and ultramodern
rest-house of the Ministry of Public Works rises amidst its terraced
gardens; and farther to the north stands the imposing Savoy Hotel,
surrounded by luxuriant trees and flowers unknown to the ancient
Egyptians. Eastwards the long, neat promenade of Aswân edges the
river, backed by the Grand Hotel, the Government offices, and other
large buildings; and at one end the noisy railway station tells the
insistent tale of the Present. During the winter one may watch the
busy launches and small craft plying to and fro, and may see the
quality and fashion of Europe amusing itself at either end of the
passage; while at night the brilliant lights blaze into the waters
of the Nile from a thousand electric lamps, and the sounds of the
latest valse drift out through open windows. The place is modern:
one sips one’s whisky-and-soda above the crushed-down remains
of Pharaonic splendours, plays tennis in a garden laid out above
the libraries of the Ptolemies, and reads ‘The Times’ where,
maybe, melancholy Juvenal wrote his Fifteenth Satire.

But should one turn now to the west and south a different impression
might be obtained. On the island still stands the imposing gateway of
the rich temple destroyed for the sake of its building-stone in the
days of Muhammed Ali; and near it, only recently, an archæologist
uncovered the intact burial vault of the sacred rams of the Nile-god
Khnum. The rocky hills of the western mainland tower above the
island, great drifts of golden sand carrying the eye from the summit
to the water’s edge; and here, cut into the rocks, are the tombs
of the ancient princes of Elephantine. In this direction there is
almost nothing that is more modern than the ruined monastery of
St Simeon, built at the head of a sandy valley in the early days
of Christianity, and destroyed by the fierce brother of Saladin
in 1173 A.D. With one’s back to the hotels, and one’s face to
these changeless hills, the history of the old city is able to be
traced with something of the feeling of reality to aid the thoughts.

One period of that history stands out clearly and distinctly amidst
the dim course of far-off events. From being a stronghold of a savage
tribe the south end of the island had become covered by the houses
and streets of a fine city, named _Abu_ or “Elephant-City”
(and hence Elephantine), no doubt after the elephant symbol
of its chieftain. The feudal tendencies of the Vth and VIth
Dynasties—about B.C. 2750 to 2475—had brought power and wealth
to the local princes in many parts of Egypt; and here the family
of the chieftains of the island had begun to rise to a degree of
some importance. This was largely due to the fact that to them was
intrusted the office of “Keeper of the Door of the South,” and
the protecting of the Egyptian frontier at the First Cataract from
invasion by the negro tribes beyond.

The city rose amidst its trees and rocks at the foot of the cataract,
at a point where in those days the river still ran swift, and where
the distant roar of waters continuously drummed upon the ears. On
the eastern mainland opposite the island stood the huts and hovels
of the great _’Swanu_, or market, which gave its name to the
latter town of Aswân; and here the negroes, coming from the upper
reaches of the river by the valley road which avoids the rocks of the
cataract, met and traded with the inhabitants of Elephantine. At
the far end of this road the barren islands of Philæ, Bigeh,
and others were regarded as neutral ground, and the rocks of the
mainland were not yet forbidden territory to the Egyptians for
some miles up-stream. But beyond this the country was little known,
and those who penetrated into it took their lives in their hands.

First there came the land of the Kau tribes; and then, farther to
the south, the Wawat on the east bank and the Sethu on the west
dwelt in barbaric independence. Still farther to the south lived the
warlike Mazoi, who might sometimes be seen at the market, ostrich
feathers in their hair and bows and clubs in their hands. The land
of Arthet lay to the south again; and lastly, not much below the
Second Cataract and the modern Wady Hâlfa, there lived the almost
unknown people of Aam.

Who dwelt to the south of this the Egyptians did not know. That
territory was “The Land of the Ghosts”: the perilous borders of
the world, and the misty ocean into which no man had penetrated,
were there to be encountered. To the inhabitants of the brilliant
little metropolis the peoples of the upper river appeared to be a
hazy folk; and the farther south their land the more mysterious were
their surroundings and the ghostlier their ways. The negroes who
came to the market no doubt told stories then, as they did in later
times, of the great stature and the marvellous longevity of those
distant races; and though but a couple of hundred miles of winding
river separated the Egyptian frontier from that of the land of Aam,
that distance sufficed to twist the thoughts of the market-gossiper
from the mortal to the immortal.

In archaic times an unknown Egyptian king had penetrated some
sixty miles up the river, and had left a record on one of the
rocks;[1] and King Sneferu of the IIIrd Dynasty had devastated a
part of the country. But from that time until the beginning of
the Vth Dynasty the land and its people, left unmolested, had
drifted once more into the pale regions of mystery. As the nobles
of Elephantine grew in wealth and power, however, their attention
began to be turned with some degree of fixidity towards the south;
and when the energetic King Sahura came to the throne, it was felt
that the time had arrived for the probing of the mystery.

The roads which led to the south along the eastern bank of the river,
and which were used by the negroes near the frontier when coming
to the market, were not practicable for caravans bound for distant
goals; and the Egyptians turned their eyes, therefore, to the western
hills, behind which the sorrowful lands of the Dead were somewhere
situated. Almost exactly opposite the city lay a sand-covered valley,
in which now stands the ruined monastery mentioned above. From
the island a boat carried one across to the little reedy bay, from
whence a trudge of half a mile or so over the soft sand brought one
on to the upper levels of the desert. Looking towards the north,
the road which led eventually to Lower Egypt was to be seen; to
the west the eye wandered over the undulating wilderness to the far
horizon, made awful by the presence of the Dead; and to the south
the sand-drifts and the rocky hillocks hid the untravelled paths
to Aam and the Land of the Ghosts. Keeping the river on the left
hand, it seemed to the Egyptians that they might here pass over
the upper desert as far as the gods permitted men to penetrate;
and a descent to the Nile at any convenient point would bring them,
like a bolt from heaven, upon the tribes there settled.

[Plate XXXII:

Illustration: The Inscribed Rock, from the north-west.—Pages
181-183.

Illustration: The Inscribed Rock, from the south-west.]

The army of Sahura—perhaps a thousand men with numerous
baggage-donkeys—set out along this road, and after a march of
a few days as nearly straight ahead as possible, struck the river
(which bends towards the west) at a point in the land of Arthet,
now known as Tomâs. A tribute was no doubt collected from the
rich fields which there border the Nile; an inscription recording
the name of one of the captains was cut upon a convenient face of
rock; and the army returned to Egypt to publish its heroism in the
streets of Elephantine. Another expedition in the reign of King
Asesa followed after a few years, the event being again recorded
on the rocks. Farther than Arthet, however, these armed forces did
not venture to go; nor was this Nubian highroad used with great
frequency during the following years.

About the year 2500 B.C. a prince of Elephantine named Herkhuf made
up his mind to penetrate farther towards the mysterious lands of
the south. It is forty-four centuries since he set out over the
desert, with the wind whistling past his ears and the powerful
sun warming his bones and his heart within him; yet the story of
his adventures may still be read, the path by which he travelled
may still be discerned, and the names of his captains may still be
seen on the rocks of the land of Arthet. Herkhuf, having obtained
the necessary order from the Pharaoh, set out with his father Ara,
“in order,” as he says, “to explore a road to the country
of Aam.” The road which he explored and opened up was probably a
continuation of the route from Elephantine to Arthet, passing not far
back from the river, and descending to the water between Abu Simbel
and Wady Hâlfa in the heart of the land of Aam. The expedition was
entirely successful, and Herkhuf states that he was “very greatly
praised for it.” Emboldened by the fame which his enterprise had
brought him, he made a second expedition to Aam, and was gone from
Egypt eight months. A third excursion was more adventurous. Herkhuf
set out upon the “Oasis-road,” which runs from a point north
of Aswân to Kurkur Oasis, and thence branches to Tomâs or Arthet
and to the Oasis of Khârgeh which lies westward, and which in those
days was inhabited by Libyan tribes. At the Kurkur junction Herkhuf
met with an army, under the leadership of the Prince of Aam, which
was on its way to chastise these Libyans; but how the wily Egyptian
contrived to use it instead as an escort to his own men back to Aam,
and how he returned to Egypt through the hostile territory of Sethu,
Arthet, and Wawat, with three hundred asses laden with the presents
of his host, are tales too long to narrate here.

One story only may be recorded in this chapter. During a fourth
expedition to Aam, Herkhuf had managed to obtain one of the dwarfs
or pigmies who inhabited a region of the Land of the Ghosts. He
at once informed the king, now the boy Pepy II.; and in reply he
received the following letter, which is, perhaps, the earliest
example in the world’s history of a private communication:—

“I have noted,” writes the King, “the matter of your
letter which you have sent to me, in order that I might know that
you have returned in safety from Aam, with the army which was with
you. . . . You say in your letter that you have brought a dancing
pigmy of the god from the Land of the Ghosts, like the pigmy which
the Treasurer Baurded brought from the Land of Pount in the time of
Asesa. You say to my majesty, ‘Never before has one like him been
brought by any one who has visited Aam.’ . . . Come northward,
therefore, to the court immediately, and bring this pigmy with you,
which you must bring living, prosperous, and healthy, from the Land
of the Ghosts, to dance for the King and to rejoice and gladden
the heart of the King. When he goes down with you into the vessel,
appoint trustworthy people to be beside him at either side of the
vessel: take care that he does not fall into the water. When he
sleeps at night, appoint trustworthy people who shall sleep beside
him in his cabin; and make an inspection ten times each night. My
majesty desires to see this pigmy more than the gifts of Sinai and
of Pount. If you arrive at court, the pigmy being with you, alive,
prosperous, and healthy, my majesty will do for you a greater
thing than that which was done for the Treasurer Baurded in the
time of Asesa, according to the heart’s desire of my majesty to
see this pigmy. Orders have been sent to the chief of the New Towns
to arrange that food shall be taken from every store-city and every
temple (on the road) without stinting.”

How easy it is to picture the excited boy awaiting the arrival
of this wonder from the south, or to watch in the imagination the
long caravan as it winds its way over the western hills from Aam to
Elephantine, where Herkhuf and his prize will take ship to Memphis.

Later in the reign of Pepy II. the tribes of Arthet and Wawat
revolted, and the Nubian highroad echoed with the songs of Egyptian
soldiers. The commander of the expedition, named Pepynakht, slew a
large number of the unfortunate negroes, took many prisoners, and
collected a great quantity of plunder. It was perhaps during this
disturbance that a certain prince of Elephantine, named Mekhu, was
murdered in Arthet. News of his death was brought to his son Sabna
by a ship’s captain who had himself escaped. Sabna immediately
collected a few soldiers and a hundred baggage-donkeys, bearing
presents of honey, oil, ointment, and fine linen, and set out upon
the same highroad towards Arthet. By the judicious use of his oil
and honey he was able to discover the body of his father; and,
loading it upon a donkey, he commenced the return journey. Before
he was clear of Arthet, however, he found it necessary to avert an
attack by presenting a sullen negro chieftain with an elephant’s
tusk three cubits in length, at the same time hinting that his
best tusk was six cubits in length. But how the expedition arrived
safely at Elephantine, and how Sabna buried his father there in
the western hills behind the modern Savoy Hotel, and how he was
rewarded by the king for his really plucky undertaking, cannot be
here related at length.

There was now no more mystery about the country on this side of
the Second Cataract, and by the perseverance of these princes of
Elephantine the way was made ready for the conquest of the Sudân,
which the Egyptians commenced in the XIIth Dynasty and completed in
the XVIIIth. We of the present day cannot, perhaps, appreciate how
much pluck and obstinacy these nobles required in the undertaking
of these expeditions. Not only were they penetrating into lands
which were inhabited by the most savage tribes, but they believed
these tribes to be endowed with superhuman powers. From childhood
they had heard stories of their magical power; while in pushing
their way into the distant land of Aam they assuredly expected to
encounter those ghosts who hovered at the edge of the world. Their
caravan routes over the western hills ran dangerously near the
terrible territory of the Dead; and, to their superstitious minds,
their daily marches and their nightly camps were beset by monsters
and by bogies compared to which the fierce Mazoi were as nought.

The reader who finds interest in the picture of Herkhuf exploring
the roads of Aam, and of Sabna searching for his father’s body
in hostile Arthet, will ask whether any definite traces of the
highroad still remain. One would have thought that after four
thousand four hundred years it would have utterly disappeared;
but this is not the case. Let the visitor to Aswân step out some
afternoon from the hall of his hotel, where the string band throbs
in his ears and the latest Parisian gowns shimmer before his eyes,
and let him take boat to the little western bay behind the ruins of
Elephantine. Here in the late afternoon the long blue shadows fall,
and he may walk in coolness over the sand towards the monastery
which stands on the higher ground before him. At the top of the
hills to his left he will presently see, some distance away, a
large isolated boulder near the tomb of some old Mussleman saint;
and making his way up the hillside towards this boulder, he will
suddenly come upon a paved causeway[2] which sweeps up over the sand
to the rocky summit. Rough flat blocks of sandstone form the paving,
and these are only here and there overwhelmed by the drifting sand,
though it is evident that the road has been entirely buried at the
point where it approaches the water.

Mounting to the hill-top, the causeway is seen to pass within
a few yards of the great boulder which one now finds to have
been surrounded by a rough wall, as though to form a kind of
sanctuary or chapel. On the sides of the rock there are several
inscriptions recording the coming of various officials of the
Empire—tax-collectors, superintendents of the Nubian gold mines,
and so on. It is evident from this that the road was used for many
a long year after Herkhuf and Sabna had done with it; though now
it possessed for the travellers no terrors, nor did it lead any
more to the Land of the Ghosts.

At the point where the causeway passes the boulder the hard surface
of the upper desert literally bristles with countless little heaps
of stones, each consisting of a small, upright slab of rock, held
in place by two or three others. Fragments of pottery indicate
that a bowl, perhaps containing water, had been placed beside each
pile. Here, then, are the memorials of the travellers who set out
for distant Arthet from the fair city on the island, which may from
here be seen floating in the blue waters of the Nile below. These
stones are the prayers of those who asked a prosperous journey from
the gods of their city: from the old ram-headed Khnum who lived in
the dark caverns below the Nile; from Satet, the horned goddess whose
bow and arrows were the terror of her enemies; and from Anuket with
the crown of lofty feathers. For a short distance one may follow
the paved road now, as it passes southwards and westwards amidst
the blackened rocks and golden sand-drifts of this lifeless land;
but presently it tops a deeply shadowed ridge of rock and sand, and
so descends into, and is lost amidst, the wide, undulating desert,
ablaze with the light of the setting sun.

There are not many persons who will find themselves able to
follow the road by camel, as I did, or to take ship up the Nile,
to Arthet, in order to see the terminus of the first part of the
highway. The road descends to the river behind the rich fields of
the straggling village of Tomâs, near Derr, the present capital of
Lower Nubia. The scenery here is beautiful in the extreme. A short
distance down-stream a bluff of rock, projecting to the water’s
edge, and half-covered with drift-sand, marks the probable boundary
between Arthet and Sethu. One might slide here from the top of the
bluff down the golden slopes to the verdant thornbushes which dip
towards the river, and from either side of the track one’s figure
would be seen sharply against the deep blue of the sky. Sliding,
one would see on the left the rocks and the sand of Sethu, and
distantly the superb array of the mountains of Wawat; while on the
right the green bay into which the road descended would lie spread
as a feast to the eye. Farther up-stream a wooded island lies in the
Nile, whither the inhabitants must often have fled at the approach
of the Egyptians from the desert.

On the low cliffs which form the backing of this bay many a captain
of an expedition or master of a caravan has written his name,
and sometimes a date has been added. “The Superintendent of all
the caravan-conductors of the Land of the South: Sabna”; “the
Captain of the Soldiers: Akab”; “the Captain of the ships of
Asesa: Khnumhotep”; “the sixth year: written by the Captain
of the soldiers . . .”; these are examples of the inscriptions
which were here cut into the surface of the rock, and which to the
archæologist are of the first importance. A caravan-conductor named
Ara, who is probably to be identified with the father of Herkhuf, has
left his name here; and more than one Sabna occurs. But perhaps the
most interesting of these records are three short inscriptions which
tell of an expedition to Arthet under the almost unknown Pharaoh
Hornefersa, who probably reigned about B.C. 2400. It is in one of
these inscriptions that the name of this country—Arthet—is given,
thereby making it possible definitely to locate the territory of
these people, and to identify this highway without any further
question with the “Elephantine road” referred to in the
inscriptions as leading from Elephantine to Arthet.

[Plate XXXIII:

Illustration: The Elephantine Road, looking along it towards
Aswân.—Page 182.

Illustration: View of the islands in the river, &c., from near the
Inscribed Rock at the head of the Elephantine Road.]

Above these rocks one steps on to the hard surface of the desert,
and the eye may travel over the broken ground to the north for many
a mile, and may follow the road by which Herkhuf carried home his
pigmy, and Sabna his father’s body, until the brown rocks meet
the blue sky. To the south-west the second portion of the highway,
leading on to Aam, may be followed; but the point at which it
descends again to the river has not been identified though one may
safely say that the terminus, lay between Abu Simbel and the Second
Cataract. Here the country has a different aspect. On the west bank
of the Nile the sand lies thickly, and humps itself into low hillocks
covered with scrub. Between these one may walk in the cool shade of
groves of sunt and tamarisk, where flocks of goats stand dreaming
on the pathway and birds sing overhead. On the east bank isolated
hills of sandstone rise suddenly from the plain, and are reflected
in the river as in a flawless mirror. The land of Aam is as beautiful
as that of Arthet, though altogether different in character.

The later history of the highway cannot be traced in much
detail. From the VIIth to the XIIth Dynasties the Egyptian
Government was seldom strong enough at home to attempt to look
after affairs abroad, and Lower Nubia relapsed into a state
of independence. Amonemhat, the founder of the XIIth Dynasty,
about 2000 B.C., was thus obliged to reconquer the country; but
his expedition seems to have travelled up the Nile and not across
the desert. A few reigns later a fortress was built at the modern
Anâybeh, in the land of Arthet, a few miles above the terminus of
the highway from Elephantine; and the road must now have been used
continuously as the express route from the city to the fortress. This
stronghold is so much ruined and sand-covered that it has escaped
observation up till now, although its position had been ascertained
from inscriptions. Mention is made of a fortress named Taray, and its
distance from a certain known place is given, which exactly locates
it at Anâybeh. At about the same date a large fortress was built
on the west bank at the Second Cataract, and at the extreme north
end of the highroad the walls of Elephantine were now strengthened.

Above the Second Cataract lay the land of Kush, and as civilisation
advanced southwards the territory of the Ghosts had perforce to
retreat before it. The Egyptians now knew that very human negroes
inhabited the country beyond Aam; but they could still ask themselves
in whispers what manner of bogies dwelt to the south of Kush. While
the immortals were falling back, however, the mortals from above the
Second Cataract were surely pushing forward. The people of Aam were
slowly being displaced by them, and in consequence were hustling the
tribes of Arthet. During the reign of Senusert III. (1887 B.C.) the
incursions of the negroes of Kush assumed the proportions of an
invasion, and the Egyptians were obliged to wage an expensive and
lengthy war upon them. When at last they were driven back beyond
the Second Cataract, the Pharaoh set up a boundary-stone there;
and the words which he ordered to be inscribed upon it show plainly
enough what a surprise it was to him to find that his enemies had
possessed none of those superhuman powers which his subjects had
attributed to them.

“Why,” he says, “they are not a mighty people after all;
they are poor and broken in heart. My majesty has seen them; it is
not an untruth. I captured their women, I carried off their subjects,
went forth to their wells, smote their bulls. I reaped their grain,
and set fire thereto. I swear as my father lives for me I speak in
truth, without a lie therein coming out of my mouth.”

The last sentence tells of the king’s fear lest tradition should
conquer proven fact, and his soldiers should endow the negroes of
Kush with those mysterious powers of which their close proximity
to the Land of the Ghosts and the end of the world gave them the use.

During the XVIIIth Dynasty (1580-1350 B.C.) the highroad was used
continuously both by the troops which were being launched against
the Sudân, and by the officials who came to collect the taxes or
to administer the laws. Great changes had taken place since the
old days. The Land of the Ghosts had disappeared almost entirely
from the geography, though still it might exist somewhere above
Khartûm. The people of Aam, now more correctly called Emaam,
had entirely absorbed Arthet, and Sethu had fallen to the share of
Wawat. Persons travelling by the highroad, and descending to the
river at Tomâs or near the Second Cataract, found themselves in the
sphere of influence of Emaam at either place. One obtains some idea
of the inhabitants of this once mysterious land from a painting in
the tomb of Huy, the viceroy of the south, at Thebes. Here one sees
a procession of negro princes who have come to do homage to the
Pharaoh’s representative. They have evidently travelled by the
highroad, for the Prince of Emaam rides in a heavy chariot drawn
by two bulls, while his retinue walk behind him. A prince of Wawat
is also shown; while the chieftains of Kush are there in numbers,
bringing with them the produce of their country. Their clothes are
more or less Egyptian in style, and their wealth in gold is such
as an Egyptian’s eyes might stare at. In this sober, prosperous
company one looks in vain for a sign of that savage ferocity which
made them the terror of Elephantine.

In the XIXth Dynasty (1350-1205 B.C.), when the armies of Rameses
the Great and his successors passed up to the wars in the Sudân,
the Elephantine road must have been one of the main routes of
communication. The name of Rameses the Great is writ large upon the
rocks of Tomâs, in contrast to the modest little records of those
infinitely greater men of the early days. Not so long afterwards
it was the people of the Sudân who were using the road to march
on Egypt, and soon the Egyptians were obliged to bow the knee to a
negro Pharaoh. Later, when they were once more the masters of their
own affairs, the tax-gatherers returned to Emaam, and the names of
some have been left on the road.

At this time Elephantine had become a city of considerable wealth and
importance. Splendid temples rose amidst the houses and the trees,
and fortified walls around the south end of the island frowned
down upon the swift river. Priests, soldiers, and nobles walked
the streets amongst the throng of the townspeople, or sailed to
and fro over the broken waters. At the foot of the western hills,
the bay from which the Nubian highway ran must have often been
the scene of the busy loading and unloading of pack-donkeys; and
at this time there may have been a masonry landing-stage at the
river’s edge to terminate worthily the paved causeway.

Then came the Greeks and the Romans, and one may picture perspiring
legionaries hastening along the highroad to join Petronius in his
chase of the one-eyed queen Candace and her flying Ethiopians. One
may see the agents of Shems-ed-Dulah, the brother of Saladin,
passing along to rout out Christianity from Nubia; and presently
come the barbaric Mamelukes, driven before the armies of Ibrahim
Pasha. The last great scene in the long history of this most ancient
highroad was enacted a score of years ago. The Dervishes,—the
modern inhabitants of the Land of the Ghosts,—marching on Egypt
from the Sudân, picked up the road at the Second Cataract, at
its early terminus, and headed towards Tomâs. An English force,
travelling southwards, met and utterly defeated them some seven
miles back from the river, behind the village of Tôshkeh, not
far from Abu Simbel. And if one journeys direct from the ancient
land of Arthet to the land of Aam, the bones of the dead and the
_débris_ of their camp will be found strewn to right and left over
the surface of the highway.

Travelling in Egypt one sees so many remains of the solemn religious
ceremonies of the ancient Egyptians, and reading at home one meets
with so many representations of the sacred rites, that it is a
real relief to come across some relic, such as this highroad,
of human energy and toil. In the courts of the temples one has
pictured the processions of the priests and the kneeling throng of
the people. One has heard in the imagination the rhythmic chants,
has smelt the heavy incense, and has seen the smoke of the sacrifice
rising to the roof. Glum Pharaohs have stalked across the picture,
raising their stiff hands to the dull gods; and rows of bedraggled
prisoners have been led to the sanctuary, roped in impossible
contortions. One has visited, or has read of, a thousand tombs; and
the slow funerals have passed before one in depressing array. But
here on this highroad over the western hills, where the north wind
blows free and the kites circle and call above one, where there comes
vigour into the limbs and ambition into the heart, these relics
of old adventures appeal with wonderful force. Here there are no
mysteries except the mystery of the land to the south, and there
are no prayers save the asking of a successful journey, and the
piling of four stones to the honour of the gods. One does not pace
through holy places whispering “How weird!” but stick in hand,
and whistling a tune down the wind, one follows in the footsteps
of the bold caravan-masters of the past; and one thanks them from
the bottom of one’s heart for having played a man’s part on
their page of the world’s history to serve for all time as an
example. When the amusements of the luxurious hotels have given out,
and the solemnity of the ancient ruins has begun to pall, the spirits
of Herkhuf and of Sabna, of the captains and the caravan-conductors,
are always to be found waiting on the breezy hill-tops behind the
island of Elephantine, at the head of the Nubian highway.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The various rock-inscriptions of Lower Nubia mentioned in this chapter were found during a tour which I made in that country in the autumn of 1906, and are recorded in my ‘Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia and their Condition in 1906-7,’ published for the Egyptian Government by the University Press, Oxford. The evidence for the locating of the various tribes is also given there.]

[Footnote 2: I can hardly suppose that I am the first to observe this road, and yet I can find no reference to it in any publication.]

Transcriber's note:

pg 8 Changed: arger marks to: larger

pg 101 Changed: migatory to: migratory

Added corresponding page numbers to the first page of each chapter

Spelling and formatting inconsistencies have been left unchanged

Italicized and bold text indicated with '_' and '=', respectively

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Travels in the upper Egyptian deserts" ***

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