148 JOURNEY- TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

shooting a few brace of fat partridges by the way, and scaring two large jackals from their lairs in the thick grass. The superb pylon of the temple rose above the earthy mounds of Apollinopolis like a double-truncated pyramid. It is in an entire state of preservation, with all its internal chambers, passages and stairways. The exterior is sculptured with colossal figures of the gods, thirty feet in height, and from the base of the portal to the scroll-like cornice of the pylon, is more than a hundred feet. Through the door we entered a large open court, surrounded by a colonnade. The grand portico of the temple, buried nearly to the tops of its pillars, faced us, and we could only judge, from the designs of the capitals and the girth of the shaft, the imposing effect which it must have produced on those who entered the court. The interior is totally filled with rubbish, and a whole village of Arab huts stands on the roof.

A strong wind carried us, before sunset, to the quarries of Djebel Silsileh, the " Mountain of the Chain," where the Nile is compressed between two rugged sandstone hills. The river is not more than three hundred yards broad, and the approach to this rocky gateway, after so many weeks of level alluvial plain, is very striking. Here are the sandstone quarries whence the huge blocks were cut, to build the temples and shape the colossi of Thebes. They lie on the eastern bank, close to the river, and the ways down which the stones were slid to the vessels that received them, are still to be seen. The stone is of a pale reddish-brown color, and a very fine and clear grain.

It appears to have been divided into squares of the proper size, and cut from above downward. The shape of many of the enormous blocks may be easily traced. In one place the rock