Ethiopia. Heavily laden vessels unload their precious freight above and below the rapids, which are carried round. by a portage of several miles, while the empty boats pass through the dangerous navigation.

This morning, before the dawn of day, we were stirring, and long ere the sun rose over the eastern hills we had breakfasted and were on our way towards the boundary of Nubia. After we had cleared the huts of the present guardians of this famous pass, we skirted the ancient walls of the former city. However formidable they may have been in the age of crossbows and javelins, they would be but a sorry defence in these days, even against the light artillery of a regiment of flying dragoons. They are built entirely of sun-dried bricks. Beyond these walls, to the south, we passed through a great necropolis, the receptacle of all the dead of each successive city since the days of embalming ceased. Numbers of very old headstones were engraved with the rude and simple Kufic character of the first Arabian conquerors. Leaving behind us both the living and the dead, we entered upon the desert. On our right were the jagged pinnacles of the disrupted mountain, scattered in and along the borders of the river. On our left the unbroken chain of rock stretched away towards the east. In early times, when the rich caravans of merchandise, or the less valuable train of the humble trader, passed over this unprotected waste, they were often plundered by the wild natives of the desert, who made bold and sudden descents upon them. In order to guard against these incursions, a high wall of unburned bricks. was carried along the whole eastern side of the route, much of which is now entire, and the whole line can yet be traced. No doubt this was an ample protection against any largetroop of wild horsemen, with no other weapons than their spears. In these latter days, when so little treasure or valuable merchandise passes over this road, there is nothing to allure the Bedouin, or to recompense him for braving the

A STRIKING CONTRAST.

175

danger of the Turkish carbine. The road is now as safe as that from Cairo to the Pyramids. Two hours of riding brought us to a small Nubian village above the Cataract, where the river resumes the even tenour of its way. Here we found a busy little shipping port and a public market, where the rich dates of the more southern palms are brought to be exchanged for the produce of Egypt, and a few simple articles of European manufacture. How different these from the gold-dust and ivory, the gums and the spices, which, from the time of the Pharaoh to that of the Venetian, were here bartered for the rich furs of the Wolga, the cunning fabrics of Byzantium and Tyre, and the well-tempered blades of Damascus.

Much has been said by all travellers about the extraordinary and marked difference in the appearance of the inhab. itants above and below the Cataracts. It is even so; the latter have so long been mingled with their Arab conquerors, that they have lost the distinctive cast of features of the ancient Egyptians, and their colour also is much lighter. But, the moment one crosses the border, one sees in the Nubian physiognomy the very counterpart of all the ancient statues, and the colour of the early race of Egypt as depicted in their tombs-a sort of reddish brown. The expression of countenance in the youthful Nubian is "mild and bland,” and the very same the artists of the Pharaohs delighted to copy, and of which we see so many examples strewed, not only throughout the whole valley of Egypt, but gracing almost every museum in Europe.

The moment one enters Nubia, one feels as if surrounded by the peasants of the ancient Thebaid, or the fishermen of Lake Moris, with now and then a noble son of the far South, in flowing robes and snowy turban, armed to the teeth, the very personification of a leader of cohorts in the army Sesostris. Young Memnons, too, are to be met at every turn, and lovely sisters of Isis are seen coursing along the

of

shore, scarcely leaving the print of their fairy feet upon its sands, their hair vying with the raven's wing, their eyes outsparkling the gazelle's, and their teeth like pearls of Ormus in beds of coral. Their brilliant skin, while rivalling in colour the ruddy wood of our southern islands, is as soft and smooth as that of the most delicate of Japhet's daughters, though, like nymphs and naiads, these children of the sun, in native beauty unadorned, are for ever seen disporting in the palm-grove and the river, heedless of the summer solstice or the sirocco's burning breath.

From those who say that to Egypt the FINE ARTS Owe their origin, I would beg to differ. After the mild features of the oft-repeated Memnon, and the sweet countenance of Isis or the Sphinx, all the rest is angles and distortions. The Theban or the Memphian sculptors had no eyes for curves. With mummies for their models, they worked by square and rule; and the granite and the basalt were left by their chisel as cold and inanimate as the dead Egyptian which they copied.

The poet should have said,

"When Music, heavenly maid, was young,

While yet in early Greece she sung,"

SCULPTURE obey'd her sacred lyre:

From the bright Promethean fire

Her chisel drew; Heaven's sparkles rife,
Warm'd the cold marble into life.

Phidias then, and Praxitele,

Hied them to the Parian dell;

The ponderous block obey'd their nod,

And Greece exclaim'd-a god! a god!

I must now desist; for, should I attempt to pursue the subject of the past day's adventures to the end, before my task was finished I should be interrupted by my husband rattling at my door with his usual salutation,

"See how brightly breaks the morn."

Therefore, sans adieu, au revoir demain.

THE ISLAND OF PHILE.

177

LETTER XVI.

The Island of Philæ.-Egyptian Temples.-Their exteriors.-Beauties of the Obelisk.-Temple of Phila.-The "Mirage."-Red Granite Quarries.-Who was that Ethiopian?-A Page from History.-Mysterious Antiquities.-Last Sight of Syene.

Assouan (Syene),

ANOTHER delightful day has been occupied in wandering among the interesting scenes along the immediate border of the Cataracts, and visiting its islands. But last night we parted in Nubia; let us meet there again.

Taking a boat at the little shipping port, we crossed the eastern channel, and landed on the far-famed island of Phila. According to our guide-book, this island is "situated in lat. 24°, 1', 26′′ north, is about one thousand feet in length, and four hundred feet in breadth at its widest part, being about nine hundred yards in circumference. It is of an oval form," and is composed of the red granite of Egypt, commonly called syenite.

It has an abrupt precipice on every side, with steps cut in the rock to ascend to its elevated platform, the surface of which is covered with a thin stratum of earth, no doubt carried there by direction of the priests of its temple for gar. den purposes. It commands a beautiful view of the rapids, islands, and indented shores towards the north, with groves of palms on every little spot of alluvial deposite. Towards the south the broad river is seen flowing placidly past its. cultivated banks, until, reaching the island, its flood is divided, an unequal portion laving either side of it; the eddies leaving a rich tribute of alluvion under the northern precipice.

But the great object of attraction at Philæ is its magnifi

cent temple, now partly in ruins. Were this a Greek temple, it would not be a very difficult task to give you such a description of it as would be tolerably distinct and easily understood by you. A technical description of a Grecian or Roman temple, with a few admeasurements of its area and height, renders the most magnificent and colossal works of antiquity tolerably familiar to persons of the least degree of observation. The reason is very obvious; our models are all Greek, and we study no other. But to expect you to derive any satisfaction from such description as I might give of an Egyptian temple, without a pictorial representation to refer you to, would probably be idle. Per. haps you have seen engravings from which you may have collected some ideas of the style so peculiar to Egypt. The few temples which I have yet seen resemble each other in their principal features, varying only in size and in a few details. Having been all constructed for the same religious ceremonies and civil purposes, the general distribution of the various parts is the same, just as we see in the great class of Norman Gothic cathedrals dedicated to the cere monial worship of the Roman church. At present I will attempt to give you a faint idea of the ground plan only of one of these temples. As for details, I must become much better acquainted with them myself than I am now, before I would even venture to take you across the threshold of their mazy labyrinth. After the week we intend to pass among the monuments of Thebes, perhaps then, inflated with Sophomore vanity, I may be tempted to display to you the "little learning" which I may there acquire, and, forgetting the injunction of the poet, to "drink deep or taste not," I may fall into the error of all young travellers, and venture beyond my depth; the which I will endeavour to avoid for your sake as well as my own.

Without ringing the changes upon the Greek nomenclature of the various great features of an Egyptian temple,