rapids," which Taiyah promised us we should later have the pleasure of shooting. For the present we avoided the swifter current by pulling into a sort of half-finished canal at one side of the river affording a peaceful approach to the great locks.

Now the usual way of going to Philæ, and the one by which our steamer friends are to go to-morrow, is to ride around from Assuan on the eastern bank, by means of a little railroad to a hamlet called Shellal, and there take boats for the temples. Our own course, being by water, brought us to the opposite end of the dam, the western, across the river from Shellal, but close by the buildings of the engineers in charge of the works, and not far from the rest-house provided by the ubiquitous Cook. Thither we made our way over a steep and difficult path, under the broil of a noontide sun. The felucca we moored at the edge of the first lock. It could aid us no farther.

That was a hot walk-up along the top of the masonry that lined the locks and across the platforms that served for cornices on the huge gates, then over a shelving hillside of loose stone and chips from the granite of the dam. The earth returned the sun's rays with compound interest. The breeze was dead. Happily, however, it was not for long. The rest-house lay near by, with the grateful shade of a broad veranda and the prospect of food.

It was from the veranda that we got our finest view over the dam and the broad basin behind it that it is now slowly filling with the accumulating waters of the early summer season. The dam, as I remarked just now, is surpassingly ugly to look upon. The basin, by contrast, is delightful. If you can imagine a towering wall of granite and concrete over six thousand feet long and in places something like one hundred and thirty feet in height, pierced by nearly two hundred narrow sluices and provided with a broad concrete "apron" below, you will have a fair mental picture of the bald impediment which the engineers have thrust into the throat of the First Cataract to enable the water to be regulated for the general good of Egypt. It is a most useful thing - to agriculture. It is a stupendous monument of engineering skill. But for mere looks and for damage to the priceless relics of antiquity that lie behind it, it must be admitted to be a deplorable thing.

Seen from behind, with the water well up towards its crest, the dam was not so ugly. The spreading lake which it accumulates had already covered the wilderness of rocks, and the surface of it was broken here and there by smiling islands. The tops of feathery palms emerged from the water, for the reservoir has not by any means killed the submerged trees. No more striking contrast could well be imagined

than that which greeted our eyes as we passed from the half-dry bed of the cataract to the basin-side of the dam. And with this pleasant prospect before us we ate our lunch, sipped our white wine, smoked our pipes and postponed as long as we dared the dash through the afternoon heat to Philæ.

I am not one of those who deplore the building of the dam as a thing unjustifiable, although there are many who take that attitude with indignation truly Byronic. It is, of course, a thousand pities that modern progress must eventually wipe out so priceless a gem as the temples of Philæ. But the hand of fate is inexorable, and the economic progress of Egypt must and shall be preserved though the temples fall. Meantime the threat of farther inundation, due to heightening the dam by another five metres, has its due effect on the archæologists, who are apparently redoubling their efforts. As it is already, I am told that hosts of ancient bodies have been floated from their last resting-places in old cemeteries and prehistoric battlefields by the rising flood, and that these age-old corpses straightway become as noisome as Lazarus -although they have lain buried for three thousand years! Moreover, a certain world-famous doctor whom I saw at Luxor the other day told me that in the old remains were found many examples of surgical work, such as the setting of broken bones, which

would be creditable to the professional skill of our own times.

By two o'clock we were ordered down the bank and into the boat in which we were to row to Philæ. It was a smaller craft than the other, but it also had its awning and a useless sail. The men as before had to row, but fortunately they were new men, save only the chantey-leader who had so enlivened the toilsome passage below the dam, and who now bore his part at the oar as enthusiastically as if he had not already pulled six weary miles. His voice knew no failing, and his "Dolly walked in the garden" quite as blithely as before. Taiyah, being a "son of the Sun," remained jaunty and unwilted.

It was long before we could see the particular island which the temples occupy because of certain intervening hillocks emerging from the water. These were of considerable size and in some cases were inhabited. But after a laborious passage among these loftier eminences we saw the island shrine - not appearing as an island at all, but as a huge stone temple rising directly from the midst of the waters. It lay a mile or so away across the placid bosom of the river, a tawny structure flanked by colonnades, the columns of which were submerged to about half their height. The ancient pylon reared its mighty bulk nobly from the waste of waters, and behind it in a

compact mass of masonry lay the shrine. Of the contour of the island beneath we got no hint, and the old girdle walls were wholly invisible, although the waters were as yet not nearly at their usual level even for the season, and it was still possible, as we shortly discovered, to explore the main portion of the temple dry-shod.

The boat rowed us up to the western portal-a species of side entrance-and we disembarked by means of a friendly plank. Fortunately the main part of the building lay well above the level of the forecourt, which was flooded, and its floor was still dry, although the air of the entire place was damp and cellary.

Despite the impossibility of exploring the courts below, it was still easy to note a departure from the canonical plan in the manner of their erection; for their sides, instead of being inclosed by mere walls with colonnades, were lined by subordinate buildings. That to the west, which seemed the better preserved, was denominated a "birth-house" on a large and magnificent scale. The structure to the east is credited with being an apartment reserved for the uses of the priesthood. The front of the court was filled with an enormous pylon, with the customary truncated towers. The rear was occupied by the main buildings of the temple in which we stood.