ASWAN formed the great highway of their country, was the starting point of their religion, civiHzation, commerce, and conquests. To them the Nile on earth was merely a continuation of the everlasting Nile of heaven, and their theologians set the throne of Osiris, the king of the gods of the Other World, at the spot near Philae, where it left heaven and began its course on earth. As the flood stretched away on the vast plains to the north of Thebes it produced a curiously dwarfing effect upon buildings of every kind. The temples and obelisks of Karnak and Luxor lost much of their majesty, and the famous Colossi of Amen-A,\A.\, o.LU.. i.Nu iiih NEW QUAY AND THE HOUSES ON THE RIVER FRONT.

hetep III., which have stood in the waters of successive inundations for nearly thirty-five centuries, only served to emphasize the vastness of the flood about them.

We arrived at Aswan late in the evening, and having found a guide who possessed a lantern, I set out to report myself to Captain O. Pedley. There was no moon, and it was no easy task to find a way up the steep bank, on which lay sleepers, rails, ropes, chains, and bags, and boxes of foodstuffs in apparently inextricable confusion. Having reached the road near the railway station, I learned that Captain Pedley's house was in the 67