ASWAN were, considering the size of the town at that time, large and spacious, and the legal tribunals were well-housed. In former days courts of justice were held under the magnificent tree, which, I rejoice to say, still stands, near the site of the old post-office, and summary chastisement was often administered to transgressors both cheaply and effectively. Many of the natives would even now prefer the rough-and-ready justice of the Kadi to the machinery of the modern law-court in Egypt. Access to the river was gained from the road on the high quay by means of long flights of stone steps, and low platforms which stretched out from the bank into the water, and it was a sign of the times that not only the professional water-carriers, but even the women made use of these. In 1887 Colonel Plunkett, R.E., built a wooden platform from the bank at the foot of the Rest Camp into the river for the use of the women who came down to fill their large jars in the morning and evening, but none of them would use it, and declared openly that they preferred to wade through the mud to the river, as their grandmothers had done.

Their descendants are not so conservative, and scruple not to make use of the contrivances which the " infidels " have devised for their convenience. Aswan was cleaner, larger, and better lighted in 1897 than it was eight years previously, and at the present time it is better suited for the habitation of Europeans than almost any other town in Upper Egypt ; but it has undoubtedly lost for ever the picturesque and half- barbaric look which it possessed twenty years ago, and which was its chief characteristic and charm.

The north and south ends of the First Cataract, that is to say, Aswan and Shellal, are joined by a short railway, built by Isma'il Pasha, who at an enormous cost cut the road-bed through the rocks which separate the south end of the town from the desert on the east. Soon after I had made my way to the shed which has for niany years been dignified by the name of " railway station," a long train, made up of a score or so of long trucks filled with stores and railway material, backed into the siding, and soldiers, workmen, and natives of all kinds promptly climbed up the sides and found seats wherever they could. The din and confusion were horrible, and everybody 69