have a marked "entasis" or swelling designed to counteract the optical error, which the later Greeks developed so successfully. These columns somewhat overdo it, however, by comparison with those of the Parthenon, in which the entasis does not betray itself to the eye. Attention is likewise called to the interesting way in which the structure at Abydos was laid out, the architect simply transferring his drawing to the level stone floor of the temple when the pavement was completed. We saw several circles laid off in red paint on the stones of the floor as indications of the proper points for setting the columns when they should be ready. But we no longer marveled at the employment of column drums, rather than monoliths, having seen so many of these in other sites. It is true, however, that the first columns were always monolithic, and the drum column only came into vogue when building operations became so numerous and so pressing that the monoliths could no longer be prepared with sufficient speed.

We lunched in the grateful shade of the hypostyle, and I doubt not that the shades of all the monarchs of old, mindful of those loaves and barrels so long denied them by a forgetful generation, looked hungrily down on our improvised board with its abundance of meats and drinks.

To the remaining ruins of the neighborhood we

paid little attention in proportion to their lesser celebrity and greater ruin. The peppery little colonel, however, did manage to penetrate to the Coptic convent in the rear of the ancient cemetery, and as usual he informs us that we all missed the only thing that is really worth while. The colonel is always making discoveries that the rest of us miss. For example, there was the great incubator at Luxor - several thousand years old and still running. The colonel never tires of telling us how he inspected it. It was a long adobe affair made up of a corridor and a series of rooms in which the eggs were laid out in great trays to hatch under the persuasive influence of the heat from a fire of straw. An aged attendant went about from room to room, testing the temperature with the back of his hand, and when he found the temperature too low he put more straw on the fire. Moreover, he tested the eggs that had lain in the heat for three days or so by holding them to the light. If they did not reveal satisfactory signs of germination they were at once rejected and were sold to the public as "strictly fresh"-I suppose. At any rate, the fresh eggs of Egypt are often a trifle musty to the taste-born so, I'm told.

I have since discovered, however, that the colonel's Luxor incubator is by no means unique, for there are said to be several such in Egypt. Eggs brought to

the doors by the peasantry are exchanged for hatched chickens in the ratio of one chick to two eggs. And that in turn reminds me that several times we have seen open inclosures marked with the name of local banks, apparently devoted to the reception of cartloads of grain as a sort of security for loans or similar accommodation. One such we passed on our way back to the steamer this afternoon after a delightful ride across the smiling plain. Once again we were favored by the north wind, which not only cooled the air, but blew the dust of our cavalcade to the side of the road into the open fields.

March 16. We paused to-day at Assiut for a season, chiefly for mail and to send on passengers who must hurry back to Cairo by rail. It gave us one more chance for a ramble through the town and a final chaffering in the bazaars-but that was by far the least eventful part of the day. The real excitement has been afforded by our getting firmly stuck in the mud -hopelessly and unmistakably stuck for once. It gave us an entirely new idea of the resourcefulness of Nile pilots, those swarthy and beturbaned creatures of whom we have seen so little, but whose skill has been constantly with us.

The delays of the forenoon were trivial. My earliest vision this morning was from the stateroom window