smiling plain which spreads out to the northeast was once the site of a teeming city. Surely there is nothing in the Luxor of to-day to recall Thebes of the Hundred Gates. It is a small town, remarkable for nothing but the number and excellence of its hotels. Such of its bazaars as we have visited are of little or no account, consisting of a mere open market place for the vending of produce. The shops along the water front are numerous, but have been spoiled by the sowaheen, and the attempts at extortion far surpass the practices at Assiut.

Of ancient Thebes, once the proud capital of Egypt, the resort of poets and philosophers, the home of mighty princes, the chief abode of priestcraft, nothing now remains save the ruins of temples so magnificent as to dwarf all other similar monuments in the land. And even these seem to have lain for ages only half suspected-buried deep under

such an accumulation of débris that the huts of the peasantry actually stood on the very tops of the columns, just as was the case at Dendera.

There is a story that a Luxor peasant, who had somehow come into the possession of a little money, undertook to hide it according to custom in a hole in the floor of his hut. He scraped out the earth and dropped his coins in, but was amazed to hear them fall to a considerable distance and clatter on a stone floor far below. Attempting to recover the money, he fell through himself—and was later rescued with much toil from what proved to be the paved court of a buried and forgotten shrine. Excavation has since removed almost every trace of this superimposed hamlet, and has bared the temples in all their magnificence to the light.

This day has, indeed, been one to mark with a very white stone. It has afforded us our first view of the stupendous temple of Karnak, which divided with the temple of Luxor the honor of being the chief shrine in ancient Egypt-indeed, the chief shrine of the world. And although we gave up our morning to it alone, what we had of it was but the most cursory view, -like what Baedeker calls an "orientation drive," to be filled out and supplemented later on repeated visits devoted to considering its wealth of detail.

We rode over to Karnak, which lies about two miles to the northward, some in carriages, and some on asses. The vast majority of us elected the latter, for we are destined to several days in the saddle and it seemed well to become posted as to the merits of the available local steeds. Already we have made friends with our muleteers-or rather they have made friends with us in the hope of constant patronage, not only now, but also later on our return from Assuan. My man says that his name is Abd' Allah, and his donkey-a poor beast who does his patient best, but who has a bad case of what our farmers would call "the heaves "— rejoices in a variety of names which change with the passing hours. He started out this morning as Rameses and returned to-night after manifold permutations as "J. P. Morgan," in compliment to a famous gentleman who has been here within a day or two, and whose little steamer we met only yesterday on its way back to Cairo. To-morrow, no doubt, the poor brute will appear as "Marka Twain," for that is the name of more than half the donkeys of Egypt. Nor is any disrespect intended to the memory of the gentle humorist, for the average native appears to love his beast as the immortal Sancho loved his Dapple, and the bestowal of celebrated names upon him is deemed a compliment alike to man and steed.

The Professor has acquired a gigantic mount in which he takes profound delight—a tall donkey possessed of numerous gaits and attended by the black pearl of donkey-boys, hight Joseph. The latter's coat is appropriately patched in many a shade of faded blue. He is, to outward seeming, about eleven years old, but inwardly I suspect he is already the proud parent of a family as large as the Professor's— larger, maybe. It is the way of the world hereabouts. As for Katrina's beast, it boasted the familiar name of Minnehaha to-day, was occasionally referred to as "Lily," and is, curiously enough, of the sterner sex. Thus mounted we rode away.

It required something like half an hour to ride to Karnak, although the distance is not great. After leaving the confines of the town the road made straight across the plain, roughly parallel with the river, toward some distant pylons whose many towers reared their forms in rosy majesty from the midst of waving palms. Passing along, we doubtless rode through the very heart of ancient Thebes, and for part of the way at least along the grand avenue of sphinxes which once led from the one temple to the other. But of its vestiges we found nothing, although a few sadly mutilated sphinxes do still exist at the Karnak end of the road, in the immediate vicinity of the first temple of the Theban triad. When the site

was in its glory, avenues of sphinxes led up to each of the several shrines, and at least one of these - the avenue of approach to the great main temple of Ammon—is intact and splendid still.

Now, the great gods of Thebes were threeAmmon-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu, the time-measuring moon; and it was Khonsu's shrine that first revealed itself to us, behind an imposing portal sixty feet or more in height, with a gorgeously decorated cornice. As a matter of age, this imposing gate proved too youthful for words, being the work of the Third Ptolemy (Euergetes) in the third century B.C. As a work of art, however, it was as splendid as anything of the sort we had yet encountered, and admirably preserved, as indeed all the Ptolemaic structures are.

The little temple behind, which is a considerably older work, we found both beautiful and interesting. It cannot be compared, of course, with the great temple of Ammon for grandeur; but its low halls furnished us our first intimate acquaintance with papyrus capitals, both of the closed bud and open calyx type- the latter, to my mind, one of the most successful architectural forms ever designed. It is almost unfortunate that the bud capitals so generally outnumber the broader open-flowered style — the latter being commonly employed for the loftier naves of the great temples, while the bud capitals serve for