Chapter XXXIII: The Elephantine Road, Looking Along It Towards 184 (2)

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.