THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN of scrub on the river, were the remains of the tombs which Cailliaud called the " Pyramids of As-Sur." The place was a veritable city of the dead, and with the exception of the necropolis of Nuri, there is no other place like it in Egypt or the Sudan. Its surroundings were wild and picturesque. Low rows of bare hills, with circular pointed peaks worn by the winds, stretched away to the north and east, and the plain between them was full of thorn bushes and halfa grass, which near the channels made by the summer rains was still green. To the south there were more low hills, and on the west, seen dimly, was a long confused mass of a greenish-black colour which, when approached, resolved itself into the palms and other trees growing on the river bank. Beyond this the western desert stretched away to an apparently infinite distance, and the few hills which were dotted upon it seemed only to emphasize the flatness of the barren wilderness surrounding them. The site of this necropolis of Meroitic queens and kings was well chosen, for, saving the rustling of the halfa grass at the foot of the hill, not a sound of any sort or kind was to be heard.

On comparing the views and the plan of the group of pyramids at this place made by Cailliaud about 1820 with the buildings before me, I saw at once that the pyramids had suffered greatly since his day, and that many of them, which had been perfect when he visited them, had since fallen into ruin. The views published by Hoskins, who examined the pyramids twelve years later, show that little change had taken place in their condition since Cailliaud was there, and thus it is tolerably clear that the greater part of the damage which had been done to the chapels and to the pyramids to which they belonged, had been effected between 1832 and i8g8. Now it was quite impossible for any European to visit these pyramids between 1884 and the spring of 1898, for the simple reason that the whole of the Island of Meroe was in the possession of the Dervishes, and therefore no excavations could have been made there during that period. A month or two after the battle of the Atbara, on April 8th, 1898, a few of the British officers rode over to look at the pyramids, but they made no excavations and disturbed nothing ; had they done so, the marks of their work would have been visible in January, 1899.

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