PREPARATIONS AT ASSOUAN. 2 I I pavements of white marble, its market, and lively, though narrow and unpaved, streets, as are all streets in all Egyptian towns, its well-stocked bazaars, and its outskirts, especially the mountain above the town where are the grottoes cut out of the limestone rock, and the tombs and catacombs. Most notable is the tomb of the Arab chief Antar who lived in the XHIth dynasty, and the door of whose last resting-place on earth is guarded by colossal sculptured likenesses of himself, while within the catacomb is an elegantly ornamented vaulted ceiling, and a large room containing sculptured figures representing some festive or ceremonial observance. Sundry small chambers bear the marks of having once served as lodgings for the peasants of the locality, who have left the walls blackened with smoke, though it may be remembered that the tombs on the mountain at Assiout were once the abode, or rather the refuge, of many of the early Christians, who retired thither either to be out of the way of molestation or to live in seclusion.

It does not come within the scope of these pages to describe the various towns and villages in the valley of the Nile or on the Nile route from Assiout to the first cataract at Assouan. There are some considerable towns not very far from the banks of the river, and many villages, some of them picturesque, and where they are inhabited by Copts moderately clean and tidy, while several of them lie amidst fertile and verdant land, and are made pleasant by groves of date and other trees. The great attractions of Thebes, of Luxor and Philae, need only be barely referred to here, for they come within the scheme of every voyager who visits Cairo with the object of going at all events as far as the first cataract by the Nile steamers provided for tourists, or by the dayabeeah or river boat hired by the dragoman for a private pleasure party.

Assouan itself, the frontier town of Egypt proper, on the right bank of the Nile, and on the site of the ancient Syene, with its arid and bare surroundings and its adjacent quarries, has already been referred to; and here the organized movement ot the expedition may be said to have commenced 580 miles from Cairo.