THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN Continuing his journey northwards, Hoskins visited the antiquities on the Island of Arko and the quarries of Tombos, and he stopped at Sulb, and made a plan of the temple there. The views of the ruins which he made are of some importance, for they serve to give a general idea of the state of preservation of the remains of the temple in the first half of the last century. Hoskins believed that the ruins which lay round about the temple marked the site of the city of Phthouris which is mentioned in Ptolemy's " Itinerary." A short ride brought Hoskins to Gebel Dosha, which is the boundary mark between Dar Mahass and Dar Sukkot, and with the aid of Champollion's list of kings he correctly identified the cartouches of Usertsen III., the first true Egyptian conqueror of Nubia, and of Thothmes III.

Judging by his own narrative, Hoskins cannot have visited all the remains which exist between Gebel Dosha and Amara, for he only mentions the ruins of what he calls the " Temple of Sukkot," with its solitary pillar, ' and the remains of a Christian church on the Island of Sai. It is curious that he did not examine the ruins of the huge modern fortress which stand on the eastern side of the north end of the island, for their existence must have been well known to the local authorities. He thought so little of the ruins of the Christian church, the pillars of which certainly came from an Egyptian temple, that he set no value on the drawing of them which " Mr. B." had made, and he mislaid it ! We may note, too, that he did not examine the Christian remains on the small islands south of Sai. At Amara he visited the ruins of the little temple and made a plan of it, and thought that it marked the site of Berethis, which is mentioned in Ptolemy's " Itinerary."

After leaving the village of Kasr Towaga, Hoskins entered the Batn, or Wadi al-Hagar, which, he says, " is desolate and fright-"ful, beyond any I have ever seen. After a short space its " appearance became still more terrible, resembling a sea agitated " and driven into the most awful shapes by wild winds " (p. 264).

In due course he arrived at Semna, the temple of which he describes in some detail. He saw there a portion of a headless statue of Osiris, of a late period ; Mr. Crowfoot and myself found ' It was still standing when Mr. J. W. Crowfoot and I visited the site in February, 1905. 60