STEAMING THROUGH THE LAND OF CUSH ervation of these ancient ruins. Something like one hun¬ dred thousand dollars was spent in fortifying the struc¬ ture during the building of the dam, and it is probable that twice this amount would have sufficed to take up the temples and carry them to the mainland, or even transport them to Cairo, where all the world might see them.

The island of Philae, which is on the edge of lower Nubia in the centre of the Nile just above the first cataract, is reached by ferry boat from Shellal or from Aswan and the dam. It is about fifteen hundred feet long and five hundred feet wide, and almost covered with temples built by the Ptolemies and others two or three centuries before Christ.

The chief deity of Philae was the goddess Isis, though Osiris, Hathor, and the gods of the cataracts were also worshipped there. Under the Roman emperors the tem¬ ples were enlarged, but when Egypt was converted to Christianity, the hermits and other fanatics made their way into Nubia and took possession of it. They turned some of the temples into Christian churches and their mutilations of the splendid carvings made in honour of the gods of Old Egypt can be plainly seen at low water.

The ruins are well worth a visit. Some of the structures have a forest of columns about them. The Kiosk, which is known as Pharaoh’s Bed, is one of the most beautiful of the Egyptian temples. The stones are all of great size. They probably came from the Aswan quarries, or it may be from the granite rocks that abound in the desert. That region is almost all granite. I rode over it for thirty miles on donkey back, making my way through the desert around and about granite boulders worn smooth by the sandstorms of thousands of years. The rocks are of all 147