Chapter XXXIII: The Elephantine Road, Looking Along It Towards 184 (4)

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_.]