ibis are preserved in earthenware pots.

The Tomb of Tih and the Tomb of Phtah-hotep are the two best examples for the tourist to examine, of the ancient Empire tombs previously described.

In the neighbourhood of Cairo several other interesting spots may be visited. The Tombs of the Memlooks, about a mile from Cairo, are beautiful examples of Saracenic mausoleums. The Petrified Forest is about five miles further from the city-a desert space covered with fragments of sycamore and palm, apparently turned to stone.

ROUTE 221.

CAIRO TO THE FIRST AND SECOND CATARACTS OF THE NILE.

HE steamers of the Khédive mail line leave for the First Cataract once a fortnight during November and December, and once a week from January March.

The price of passage from Cairo to the First Cataract and return is about £43 sterling, or say 215 dols.; from the First to the Second Cataract and return, £34, or say 170 dols.

Thomas Cook and Son, who are agents for the Khédive steamers, quote prices for the journey FROM LONDON to the FIRST CATARACT and back, first class, £87, 10s.; second, £80, 10s. To the SECOND CATARACT, first class, £120, 10s.; second class, £103, 10s.: the route being from London, by railway, via Mont

Cenis to Brindisi and Alexandria. If steamer is taken at Genoa or Marseilles for Alexandria, the cost would be about £5 less first class. "These prices include 15 days' European Hotel Coupons, and 10 days' Coupons for Egyptian Hotels; landing expenses at Alexandria; all expenses for donkeys and guide on the banks of the Nile; backsheesh to steamboat officers and crew, and all provisions on the steamers, except wine and other drinks."

Luggage.-Twohundred pounds are allowed on the Nile steamers free; MEDICAL ATTENDANCE and medicines are provided without charge.

The starting place at Cairo is from above the new iron bridge "Kasr-el-Nil." The steamer generally leaves at 3 P.M. The trip to the First Cataract and back is intended to occupy 20 days, Assouan, the limit of the the fourteenth day; the return journey, being reached early on journey commencing on the sixteenth day, Cairo being reached, on the return, on the twentieth day.

The following information is given in the pamphlet of the Messrs Cook :-Having secured a passage, passengers have but to go on board at the appointed time with their luggage. Small change in copper-about 10 francs a head-ought to be procured in Cairo, and linen enough packed up to last for three weeks, no washing being done on board or by the way. For a small gratuity the sailors will wash small things, such as socks and handkerchiefs, but no ironing is done.

During the months of November and December steamers leave Cairo (Boulák) regularly every fortnight, and from January to March every week. Any family party, or friends travelling together, can order a special steamer

if they are willing to pay for at least fourteen full passages, or more, according to the size of the steamer disposable; in this case the time allowed (20 days) may be prolonged, and stoppages ordered at pleasure, on condition that overtime be paid in proportion to the total cost, and at the rate of one-twentieth from the amount paid per day, payable on return, for every day over and above the 20 days allowed.

The cabins contain one or two beds, never more; in some boats there are all single cabins, with the exception of the stern and fore cabins, which are very roomy and always contain two or three beds. Any party applying in good time, and not minding the expense of a third berth, if the stern cabin contains three beds, can engage it beforehand, and thus secure greater comfort and privacy. Arrangements can also be made to have meals served separately in this cabin.

The rate of sailing is about eight miles per hour against stream, and from twelve to thirteen down the river.

After leaving the place of embarkation at the Kasr-el-Nil, the steamer soon passes Old Cairo, and Roda and the Nilometer. Not far from Old Cairo, the mosque of Attar - en - Nebbee, which is said to perpetuate the name of Athor, the Egyptian Venus, is seen. The Pyramids of Ghizeh, Sakkárah, and Dashóor are passed on the western shore. On the east, Joora Másara is passed, with the immense quarries from which were taken the stone casings for the Pyramids. Looking back, the citadel of Cairo and its mosque are seen.

Helwan (E.). Here are some sulphur springs.

Bedreshayn is a Railway Station. Memphis, the Serapeum, the Pyramids of Sakkárah, and Dashoor can be visited while the steamer halts. The steamers arrive in the evening, and donkeys are sent from Cairo to enable passengers to visit Memphis and Sakkárah early in the morning.

Atfeeyah (E.) is near the site of ancient Aphroditopolis. Zowyeh (W., 55 miles) is near the site of ancient Iseum. Isment (W.) is where the marble for the Mosque Mahomet Ali was obtained. Bibbeh (W.) Railway Station. Here is a Coptic convent.

Feshun (92 miles). Station.

Railway

Malateeah (W.), and other villages. The Gebel Sheykh Embárak is seen for some time before reaching it. It is a large tablemountain, with broken surfaceone of the cliffs resembles a ruined castle.

Maghágha (W., 106 miles) Railway Station. Here are some sugar factories belonging to the Government. Beyond is Hagar es-Saláno, or Rock of Welfare, which derives its name from the belief of the Nile boatmen, that they cannot call a Nile voyage

prosperous until they have passed this rock on their return.

Near Aboo Girgeh is Béhnesa, the site of ancient Oxyrhinchus, the city of Fish Worshippers. Semaloot, with its minaret rising conspicuously, is seen on the west shore. The lofty precipices of Gebel-el-Tayr are soon seen on the eastern shore. The mountain is better known from its Coptic convent of Sitteh Mariam-el-Adra (our Lady Mary the Virgin). It is of great antiquity, and is in reality like the Coptic Dayrs, a village of priests and families, surrounding a church, and walled in for protection from the Bedouins. Téhneh (E.) and Taha (W.) are passed, and then we reach Minieh (156 miles), the capital of a province, the prettiest town on the Nile. There are several Mosques and a Palace. Here are the Khédive's sugar factories, some of the chimneys 200 feet high, and his rum distillery, where, "despite the Mahomedan law," he produces several thousand gallons annually.

Beni-Hassan (171 miles). Hence to Manfaloot, especial care must be taken to guard against the thieving propensities of the inhabitants.

The Rock Tombs of BeniHassan, half an hour's ride from the river, are celebrated for the light they shed on the manners and customs of ancient Egypt. They are excavated in the rocks above the Nile Valley, the northern tombs being the most interesting. The interior has a low wooden ceiling, supported by an avenue of Doric columns.

The inside walls of these tombs are covered with well preserved coloured pictures, representing the daily life of Egypt four thousand years ago. Themost northern tomb is thatof Améni-Amenemha, the next that of Noom-hotep. "The famous grottoes of Beni

Hassan," says Hopley, "are a terrace of tombs high on the Arabian ridge, overlooking a two miles' breadth of fertile land. In these, hall after hall painted in graphic wall picturings, you may wander at will and study the familiar every-day life of men who walked the land before the days of Joseph. In these mansions of the dead, mimic men and women are wrestling, fishing, ploughing and reaping, trapping birds, giving dinner-parties, being flogged, treading the wine-press, dancing, playing the harp, weav ing linen, playing at catch ball, being shaved by the barber, and playing at draughts. Yes, the old, old story of human life is there, told as in a picture book. Though seen through a gap of four thousand years the eye moistens over it still."

In the southern tombs the architecture more closely resembles that of temples.

The Speos Artemidos lies in a valley towards the east. It is an excavation in the rock dedicated to Pasht, the Egyptian Diana, but never completed.

On the eastern shore are seen the ruins of Antinopolis, built by Hadrian inmemory of his favourite Antinous. Some fragments of a theatre and hippodrome remain. Here many Christians perished under the persecution of Diocletian. At Roda Railway Station is a Palace and a large sugar factory. Beyond Jephsean, on the west, we reach the rocks of Djebel or Gebel Aboufayah, which extend 10 miles along the eastern shore. Among the clefts of these rocks were the caverns of the celebrated ascetics of Upper Egypt.

Passing El Hareib (E.), with its ancient repositories of dog and cat mummies, Koosayah, site of ancient Chusis, the City of the Sacred Cow, symbolizing the

Egyptian Venus, the Dayr-elBukkara (E.), and various ruins, MANFALOOT is reached.

A sudden bend of the river brings into full view its domes and minarets, palm trees, and mass of buildings. Picturesque terraces and gardens line the water-side. It is the capital of a province, the residence of a governor, and contains a public bath and bazaar, and numerous mosques.

Beni Ali (W.) is the startingpoint of the desert track to the oasis of Dákhleh. Near Wady Booa (E.) are some painted grottoes, a Roman fortress, and a convent of Maria Boktee, dating from the time of Diocletian. Mungabat or Mankabát is passed, and Asyoot is reached (population, 25,000), the Coptic Siôout and successor of the ancient Lycopolis, City of Wolves, where those animals were worshipped. It is the capital of Upper Egypt, and residence of a governor, and has fine mosques, bazaars, baths, &c. The city lies a mile from the river, and El Hamra is its port. A fine road leads from it to Asyroot. Amongst the places next passed are the following: El Wasta (E.) on the site of Contra Lycopolis-Guttéea (W.), El Mudmur, Selin (E.), Abooteeg (W.), Sidfeh (W.), Kooskam (W.), El Bedareh (E.), Rainneh (E.), Gow (E.), and Gowl-el-Gharbeeyal (W.), where, in 1865, an insurrection was put down. The village of Gow was carried away by the waters of the Nile in 1823.

Passing Mishte (W.), Shabeka (W.), and other uninteresting places, Taktah, with the mounds of ancient Hesopis, is seen. At Souhag a large canal conducts the Nile water to the interior.

Ekhmeem (E.), a well-built town, contains several mosques, a Coptic monastery, and a Franciscan hospice. Mensheeyah has

an extensive cemetery, and being above the level of inundation, the dead are brought from some distance. The Nile is now skirted by the Gebel Tookh hills.

Girgeh (E.), named from its monastery of St George, is a dirty, uninteresting place.

Beyond is Bellianeh, the point from which to visit the ruins of ABYDOS, which are six miles across the plain. Its most ancient name was Thinis or This, famous as the birthplace of Menes, the reputed burial-place of Osiris, and it was second only to Thebes amongst the cities of Upper Egypt.

The four principal objects of interest are the Temple of Sethi, the New Tablet of Abydos, the Temple of Rameses, and the Necropolis.

The Temple of Sethi, called by Strabo the Memnonium, and so celebrated for its magnificent decoration, was built by Sethi I., father of Rameses II. There is "nothing in Egyptian art equal to the paintings, excepting those in the tomb of the same king Sethi at Thebes."

Of the Temple of Rameses II. (sometimes called the Temple of Osiris), built by that monarch, little remains but a portion of the outer walls. From here the mutilated Tablet of Abydos, now in the British Museum, was taken.

The Necropolis, from which four-fifths of the stela in the Boulák Museum, and many other objects, were taken, is so altered as to present little of interest to the visitor. The tombs are chiefly of the sixth dynasty (3700 B.C.), the twelfth dynasty (3000 B.C.), and the thirteenth dynasty (2800 B.C.).

At Farshoot (368 miles) is another sugar refinery.

From Girgeh to Keneh the scenery is very fine. Palms, dates, and acacias are abundant; and

Indian corn, sugar-cane, and various leguminous herbs flourish. Kasres Syád, the ancient Chenoboscion.

Keneh (395 miles) on the east bank is the ancient Coenopolis. It has long been noted for its dates and its dancing girls, also for its manufacture of porous jugs and filtering bottles.

Opposite Keneh, on the west bank, stands the Temple of Denderah. This ruin dates from the period when Egyptian architecture had declined, and shows an admixture of Greek and Roman styles. Like all Egyptian temples, it stands in a vast enclosure, which completely shuts out the sounds of the outer world.

Ten miles from Keneh, Kobt or Koft, the ancient Coptos, is reached. It has some Egyptian remains. "It was long the headquarters of Egyptian Christianity, and probably gave its name to the modern Copts."

Esh Shúrafa (E.), Koos (E.), anciently Apollinopolis Parva.

Negádeh (W., 428 miles), with its convents dating from the days of the Empress Helena, is a picturesque town, situated at one of the finest points of view on the river, Medamôt (E.) with ruins of a Ptolemaic temple, and fragments of older edifices, are passed, and the ruins of KARNAK appear in sight.

At the village of LUXOR is the anchoring place of the steamer while tourists explore Thebes. (A comfortable hotel, called the Luxor Hotel, was opened here in 1878.) An English medical man resides at the hotel during the winter. The temple of Luxor is close at hand, and under its portico is the office of Mustapha Aga, the consul for England and America.

ANCIENT THEBES occupied the plain on each side of the Nile, but on the east bank the chief portion

of the city was situated, the western side being principally occupied by temples, palaces, and tombs. The city was never walled, and Homer's "hundred gates" is suggested to have meant the portals of the palaces and temples. The origin of Thebes is involved in obscurity. It was after the decline of This, or Abydos, that it became the capital of Upper Egypt. Two or three kings had reigned here before Abraham entered the Delta. The first king in Theban history is Osirtasen I. "He was," says Bartlett, "the builder of the older and smaller part of the Temple of Karnak, which served as the nucleus around which his successors grouped other and more colossal additions. This early Theban monarchy was, in fact, a religious community, in which the palace was a temple, the people worshippers at the gate, and the monarch the chief priest. The dynasty of Osirtasen was terminated by the conquest of Upper Egypt by the Memphian kings who built the Pyramids."

Thebes, like the other cities of Egypt, was for a time subject to the Shepherd Kings, till Åmosis of Thebes expelled that alien race, and Upper Egypt began to rise to its highest degree of power and glory.

The principal monuments of Thebes are, on the western bank of the Nile, the Temple of Koorneh, the Temple of the Dayr-elBahree, the Rameseum (commonly called the Memnonium), the Temple of the Dayr-el-Medeeneh, the Temple of Medeenet-Haboo, the Necropolises of Drah Abo'lnegga and El Assasseef, and farther on the Tombs of the Kings, in the valley of Bab-el-Moolok.

On the eastern bank are the TEMPLES OF LUXOR and KARNAK. The Temple of Koorneh is