to see how it was done - pulling down the empty skin buckets by main strength against the weight of the mud-ball counterpoise, and allowing the weight to raise the filled skins by its still superior ponderosity. The machine was creaking away patiently when we came up from dinner and continued so to do far into the night.

March 6. We visited Dendera to-day. K. and I rode off early before the rest, partly because of the greater coolness, but more because we wished to avoid the confusion and the dust. It is disconcerting to be riding contentedly along musing on the prospect- and then to have some wildly enthusiastic and more experienced horsemen come dashing up behind, with the effect of startling your own beast into a mad gallop for which you are totally unprepared. Therefore we bolted our breakfast and got well across the plain before the last of the passengers had even gotten to the table.

It was glorious in the early morning, that fertile plain, cut into numerous basins by dikes and diversified here and there by little clumps of trees. A refreshing breeze blew from the northward and the sun smiled with level rays across the river. Our two donkey-boys kept to themselves in their long blue gowns, content to indicate the way and let our don

keys amble along without undue urging. Far ahead towered the gigantic propylon, or fore-gate, of the shrine, glowing ruddily in the morning light. Behind bulked the main temple — the first of its type that we have yet seen. And close behind it, crowding on its walls, came the desert dunes, forced back after their age-long encroachment by the hand of the exca

vators.

We were vouchsafed a satisfactory interval to prowl about before the advent of Raschid and his valiant Seventy. A few beggars and venders of “antiques," presumably manufactured in the neighborhood, hovered about, but were not obnoxious. The custodian of the temple prepared to open to us, and on the display of our monument tickets did so. For the time we had the vast fane of Hathor to ourselves, and I would here testify that this privilege is worth the extra effort of an early rising. Valuable as the dragoman's interpretations doubtless are in pointing out details, there is an advantage in wandering absolutely alone through those dark aisles under the lofty stone roof and among the mighty pillars, quite regardless of the meaning of their hieroglyphs, and mindful only of the magnificent repose of it all a repose that speaks of worship, let us say, not of other gods, but of God under other names.

The temple of Dendera is of a type common in

Upper Egypt, although it lacks the fore-courts which the canonical style calls for. For some reason these common preludes to the great pronaos, or covered vestibule of the temple proper, were not provided in this case-possibly because of a lack of means. On the whole, it seems to me the temple gains by their absence, as the open approach from the great entrance pylon permits an unobstructed view of the façade.

Like all the marvelously preserved old shrines in the upper valley, this one dates from a comparatively late day in the history of Egypt - that is to say, from the time of the last Ptolemies, or the first century B.C. Indeed, the Roman occupation had much to do with restoring the temple itself, and the Emperor Domitian is credited with the construction of the entire northern pylon. If he did it, however, he at least built it in the Egyptian manner - a lofty gate with sloping sides, although not a pylon such as we expect to see in the older temples of Luxor and beyond.

In appearance the whole temple is immensely dignified, despite the decoration of its frontal columns with huge heads of Hathor as capitals. I cannot bring myself to admire the Hathor column as an architectural member. But the great entrance hall is full of them,-twenty-four in all,-massive boles of stone like stout trees, and each adorned with the

broad, flat face of the goddess high above. The front of the temple, by the way, is not left entirely open, for the spaces between the pillars are walled to half their height with solid stone capped by a heavy cornice, and only the central space is pierced by a great door. The idea, no doubt, was to admit sufficient light, while at the same time keeping off the gaze of vulgar eyes. The Egyptian did not relish having his religious rites overseen by the crowd; and his temples were commonly walled about like fortresses, the actual ceremonies taking place far within the depths of a Holy of Holies, protected from the outer world by a multitude of partitions.

The walls and columns we found decorated with deeply incised reliefs representing the kings, duly besprinkled and incensed by Horus and Thoth, but these kings were Roman emperors rather than Egyptian monarchs of an elder day. The massive ceilings were also decorated with curious designs—one, I remember especially, being a representation of the goddess Nut (or shall we call it Newt?), the deity of the sky, swallowing the sun at nightfall and bringing it forth again from her lap at the dawning of another day. All these details and many more, which unfortunately went in at one ear and out the other, were explained by Raschid when he and his host had clattered up to the gates. I take note of the zeal of the