TEMPLE AND CATARACT OF SAMNEH. 479 them into the Great Nubian Desert. The Nile was not to he seen, yet deep in the centre of this landscape, I caught a glimpse of some thorny bushes, which our further descent showed to he near the village and cataract of Samneh. The bed of the river was filled with masses of black rock, .and the cataract, just below the village, roared magnificently all through the night. The wind blew again, and so violently, that I awoke with my ears, mouth and nostrils filled with sand.

The morning was cold, with a violent wind, but I strengthened my camels with an abundant feed of bean-vines and dour ra, and set off early. I walked ahead to the temple of Samneh, which stands on a rocky eminence above the cataract. The hill is surrounded with the remains of a massive brick wall, and there are traces of a road leading to the summit.

The temple is quite small, and of simple though graceful design, containing only one chamber, at the end of which a headless statue lies on its back. Prom the little portico in front, there is a fine view of the gorge through which the river breaks.

A broad stratum of porphyry crosses his bed, broken only in the centre by a gap or flood-gate, not twenty yards across. Through this the whole force of his current is poured, and at the time of my visit, when the water was low, he seemed but a pigmy flood. In fact, for a mile or two below this cataract, there is scarcely any point in all his tortuous and difficult course where one might not throw a stone across. After leaving the temple, our road led over the desolate stony hills, high above the river's bed. "We looked down into the deep and. narrow defile through which he flows, and which his waters scarcely brightened or cheered, for there was no vegetation on his banks except now and then a bunch of halfeh grass or a