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holding with both hands a staff terminating above in the symbol of the primitive divinity. Near the priest is Isis Leænata, with the globe of the moon on her head; and on the opposite side of the bush, which resembles that on the walls of the Memnonium at Thebes, is Thoth, with the head of an ibis.

CCCXXIII. Passing into the small side chamber, south of the adytum, we find a bearded, unmitred deity, seated on a throne, with a votary before him bearing an offering of fruit; while another is presenting a flower growing in a vase to Osiris. Farther on is Aroeris Hierax, having before him an altar bearing a full blown lotus, and a priest who holds the kteis or delta in his left hand. On the opposite wall are Isis, Osiris, and Horus on thrones, with a strange rude figure, probably Jom, the Egyptian Hercules, standing before them with a club in his hand. In the adytum the sacred boat is again introduced, passing over a number of bird-headed jars ; at the extremity of the chamber is a stone bench, with a resting place for feet, where four figures in alto-relievo once stood; and on either side, are small niches, supposed by some to have contained coffins ; but more probably intended to receive the sacred vessels. Here, in the opinion of many writers, the gods of Egypt were lodged before the magnificent fanes of Luxor, Medinet Habou, and Karnak, were erected in their honour; but as Egypt had reached a high degree of wealth and power before she achieved the conquest of Nubia, it seems more reasonable to

suppose that the temples erected in her own territories were the more ancient. The battle scenes sculptured on the walls of the pronaos, probably represent events that took place during the wars, which terminated in the subjugation of this country; but as Nubia was frequently united with and again separated from Egypt, nothing can be inferred from this circumstance to fix the date of the excavation of the temple.

CCCXXIV. The town of Derr, to which we now descended, seemed by far the most agreeable place I had seen in the valley of the Nile; the houses being exceedingly well-built with clay, or sun-dried bricks, placed alternately in horizontal and oblique layers, giving the whole wall a pretty fanciful appearance. Herodotus observes that, to escape the mosquitoes, the ancient Egyptians were accustomed, at certain seasons of the year, to sleep on the tops of high towers; and the people of Derr may, perhaps, be actuated by the same motive in the erection of their dwellings, which, like the pigeon-houses of the Thebaid, are constructed in the form of square towers, with a large court in front, surrounded by high walls. The streets are wide and scrupulously clean. Even in the environs there are none of those heaps of rubbish and filth that disfigure the Egyptian villages; but, instead of these, neat walled gardens, filled with orange, date, and acacia trees. Within the town we observed, standing in the centre of spacious squares, two magnificent sycamores, with a neat platform con

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structed round their trunks, where the inhabitants spread their carpets and smoke in the shade. These trees, with their massive foliage, afford a fine shade all day, and the surrounding space being cleanly swept, I imagine that, when the labours of the day are over, the natives assemble here to enjoy their pipe, and hear the news, or the wonderful narratives of the story-teller. There was no appearance of poverty; neither beggars, ragged women, or naked squalid children. The boys in the streets wore neat caps, and their clothes, of unbleached white, looked remarkably clean and substantial. The women likewise, whom we saw sitting in their shady courts, were well dressed, and wore large necklaces of various coloured beads. Their hair was arranged in small straight ringlets, as among their neighbours the Nubians.

CCCXXV. The valley immediately south of Derr is fertile and beautiful, and covered, for the most part, with palm trees, which, being planted in straight lines, with the branches meeting above, form stately avenues extending from the river to the mountains. Fields of wheat and tobacco, and extensive cotton plantations, alternate with each other to the extremity of the Wady. Near the rocks dividing the territories of Derr from those of Ibrim, we found at the foot of the hills, a considerable village, around which the fields seemed to be cultivated like a pleasure garden. A sakia occurred at every hundred yards. Along the pathway we remarked numbers of young sycamore

trees, planted within a circular clay enclosure, four feet high, and as many in diameter; and at intervals, among the palms, luxuriant lemon and orange trees, now bare of fruit, enclosed by similar walls. In one of the date gardens the whole surface of the ground was covered with the purple flowers of the small kidney bean peculiar to Nubia.

CCCXXVI. Having passed the rocks in the boat, we again landed in the Wady Ibrim, where the fields seemed to be still more carefully cultivated. Our course lay over narrow neat pathways, shaded at intervals by the Kharwah, or castor-oil shrub, and the cotton tree, which here attains the height of twelve feet, and was now partly covered with fine large yellow flowers, and partly with the bursting fruit, hanging upon the branches like immense flakes of snow. Below, the paths were bordered with large solanums, bearing flowers like those of the potato, and apples yellow as gold; and the kerkadan, from the berries of which the Nubians prepare a sort of coffee. Among these, and yielding to none in beauty, grew the silk tree, with its singular fruit and flowers, purple and white, rising in large clusters among the light green lanuginous foliage. The water-wheels, here exceedingly numerous, are worked by one or two cows, urged forward with goads by children, in many cases not more than five or six years old, who being placed in a secure seat behind the animals, are carried round with the wheel. Every inch of the plain appeared to be cultivated so carefully, that not

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a weed was anywhere to be seen; and its general aspect, contrasted with the barren surrounding rocks, seemed doubly verdant and beautiful. Mooring late on a sandy point of the shore, the serene beauty of the night invited us to land; the evening star shining most brightly, and throwing a glittering wake over the river, like the moon.