III. FROM LUXOR TO THE SECOND

CATARACT

Routes from Luxor to Assouan.-(1) By Cook's Express Steamer, which leaves Luxor on Thursday and Sunday at 4 P.M., arriving at Assouan at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Tuesday respectively. Passengers returning by the same steamer can make the ship their headquarters without extra charge during the stay of the steamer at Assouan.

The only temples which can be visited by passengers are Esneh and Edfou (on the return journey only), while passengers by the tourist steamers have facilities of visiting also the ancient Quarries of Silsileh, the Temple of Kom-Ombo, and the Grottoes of El-Kab.

Though this service is remarkably cheap, it can only be recommended to those who are willing to forego intermediate sight-seeing, for the hurried visits of little more than an hour or so to each temple are decidedly unsatisfactory.

(2) By Tourist Steamer.-Messrs. Cook and Son and the Anglo-American Company. (For dates and fares see "Routes" pages.) Only passengers who make the whole trip from Cairo are taken, for there is no intermediate booking.

A few miles south of Luxor, on the west bank, are the uninteresting fragments of the Ptolemaic Temple of Erment, but there is nothing to attract the ordinary tourist till the beautiful Temple of Esneh, some twenty-five miles further south, is reached.

Temple of Esneh.-The colours of the paintings which cover the walls of the Hall of Columns are apparently as fresh and brilliant as when they were laid on. This is due to the preservative qualities of the desert sand, by which the whole temple was buried for centuries, till Mehemet Ali's workmen cleared away the sand from this part of it. The columns are very beautiful and are richly decorated. They are all of a different pattern. A very strong Greek influence is seen in the treatment of the mural decorations.

Temple of Edfou. Some thirty miles above Esneh, a few minutes' ride from the landing-place, is the most perfectly preserved temple in Egypt-Edfou. Its general features are very similar to those of Denderah, and it is planned on a scale almost rivalling in magnificence some of the Pharaonic temples

of Ancient Thebes, the two pylons being 112 feet high. The last hall serves as a shrine to Horus, the god to whom the temple is dedicated. The pylons are covered with battle-scenes.

One of the corridors is devoted to a complete series of sporting pictures, and the humorous realism shown in some of these is amusing. For instance, in a picture of a hippopotamus hunt, the clumsy harpooner has speared one of the attendants by mistake!

Mariette's labours have mainly contributed to the unearthing and preservation of this gem among Ptolemaic monuments. When he entered upon the work of excavation in 1864 it was buried almost to the cornices in mounds of rubbish, and a great part of the roof was covered with native huts and stables.

Silsileh Quarries.-Two or three hours after leaving Edfou the scenery becomes wilder. The river here flows through a stupendous gorge formed by the sandstone precipices of Silsileh. These were extensively quarried by the Egyptians from a very early period. Like the Quarries of Assouan and Tûra (near Helouan) they were used in Pharaonic times for building temples and other monuments.

Temple of Kom-Ombo.-Between Silsileh and Assouan the only temple visited by the ordinary tourist is Kom-Ombo (556 miles from Cairo), which

stands on a precipitous plateau overlooking the Nile. It is one of the latest temples restored, or rather cleared of sand, by M. de Morgan. Though small compared to the magnificent edifices of Luxor and Karnak, it is one of the most beautifully-proportioned temples in Upper Egypt.

The scenery in the fifty miles stretch between Silsileh and Assouan is bold and picturesque. Rock everywhere gives place to sand, and instead of fields of maize and wheat the chief vegetation are groves of palms, mimosa, and castor-oil shrub in the ravines and crevices of the precipices which border the river. "The limestone and sandstone ranges which hem in the Nile Valley from Cairo to Silsileh, give place to granite, porphyry, and basalt. The ruined convents and towers which crown the hills might almost cheat us into the belief that we were afloat on the Rhine or the Moselle, but for the tropical character of the scenery."

Assouan.-The modern town stands well above the river, and has an imposing appearance from the river, the quay being lined with Government buildings, hotels, and shops. Assouan itself has few remains of the extinct civilisation of Egypt, most of the antiquities being Saracenic or late Roman. It affords, however, comfortable headquarters for those wishing to explore the chief sights of the

neighbourhood-the islands of Philæ and Elephantine, Grenfell Tombs, the ancient Quarries, and the First Cataract.

As a health resort of the future, Assouan must be reckoned with. Though the furthest outpost of invalid colonisation in Egypt, distant nearly six hundred miles from the capital, it is fairly well provided with the requirements of invalids, including a good but expensive hotel, two resident doctors, chaplain, English vice-consul, chemist, and post and telegraph office, with deliveries and departures three times a week.

Philæ. The Island of Philæ is still the chief feature of interest at Assouan. Though a mere rock, barely a quarter of a mile long, it is thickly covered with ruins of Ptolemaic temples and monuments, and is, perhaps, the most beautiful as well as the smallest historic island in the world. The scenery about here is very striking and impressive-in fact, "The approach to Philæ" has been rendered almost as familiar to the arm-chair traveller, by means of innumerable sketches, as the Pyramids or the Sphinx.

Though the temples are Ptolemaic and of slight historic value, for picturesqueness of form and surroundings they are scarcely equalled by the ancient Theban temples. The most striking features of the Great Temple are the colonnade of thirty-two columns,