Since that time until the present day the gods in the sanctuary have looked out at a long stream of travellers, soldiers, miners, and officials. Upon the rocks and on the walls of the temple there are several hieroglyphical and Greek inscriptions which tell of the coming of all manner of people. A chief of the custodians of El Kab here records his name, and a scribe of the king’s troops is immortalised near by. Many of the Greek inscriptions are ex-votos dedicated to Pan, with whom the old Min had been identified; and as the latter was the god of desert travel, so the sprightly Pan becomes the sober patron of the roads. Miners from Syracuse and from Crete tell of their advent; and one traveller describes himself as an Indian, a voyager, perhaps, in one of those trading vessels which brought to the port of Berenice the riches of the East, to be conveyed across this great desert to the markets of Alexandria. A man named Doriōn states that he had returned in safety from an elephant hunt, probably in the south. Two inscriptions are written by Jews, thanking God for their safe journeys; and it is interesting to notice that one of them is called Theodotus, son of Doriōn, and the other Ptolemy, son of Dionysius—all pagan names. A troop of Greek soldiers have recorded their names in the temple, and state that they kept a watch before “Pan of the Good Roads.”

ARCHAIC DRAWINGS OF SACRED BOATS, ANIMALS, ETC., ON ROCKS NEAR TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD.

[(Large-size)]

Pl. xxx.

These travellers, besides, or instead of, writing their names, seem often to have piled a few stones at conspicuous points as a memorial of their passage. At various places in the neighbourhood, and especially at the foot of the hills opposite the temple, there are many such piles of stones; and when well built they rise from the rocks like altars, three feet or so in height, and perhaps two feet in diameter. In one or two cases there are fragments of old Egyptian pottery lying beside them, and there seems no question that they are connected with religious worship. The same custom still prevails amongst the desert people, though now its significance is not remembered; and yet its meaning is not entirely forgotten, for on a hill-top near the temple we found, near such a pile of stones, three pairs of gazelle horns and a collection of Red Sea shells pierced for stringing, a modern offering to the old gods.

In Græco-Roman times a large fortified station was constructed near the temple, and this still stands in fairly good preservation. It is built in the plain in front of the temple, not more than a hundred yards from the foot of the cliffs. The enclosure is somewhat larger than is usual in these stations, but the greater part of the area has never been built upon. The enclosing wall still stands to a height of ten feet or so in parts, but here and there it is almost entirely ruined. It is built in three thicknesses, so that on the inside there are two heights at which one might walk around the rampart without showing above it. One enters through a well-built masonry doorway, and on either side one may see the hole into which the beam was shot to close the wooden door at nights. On one’s right there is a group of small chambers; and here an isolated house, in one wall of which a window is still intact, forms the best-preserved portion of the ruin. On one’s left there is a large hall, in which there was a tank, parts of which, now half-choked with sand, can be seen. The next building on one’s left is also a hall of considerable size—the common mess-room, probably, of the travellers. One then passes into the open courtyard, which bears off to the left, or north, and does not contain more than a trace or so of walls.

Although one sees so many of these Roman stations in the Eastern Desert, their charm and interest never palls; and, more than any other ancient buildings, they bring back the lost ages and recall the forgotten activities of the old world. These ruins, too, are always picturesque, and gather to themselves at dawn and at sunset the hues, the lights, and the shadows of the fairest fancy. At dawn, at noon, at sunset—all day long—this fortress in the Wady Abâd is beautiful; and for those who love the desert there is here and in its surroundings always some new thing to charm. The walls of the enclosure, and beyond them the pillared portico of the temple sheltering under the rugged brown cliffs, form as delightful a picture as may be found in Egypt. As one sits in the blue shadow one may watch the black-and-white stone-chats fluttering from rock to rock, and overhead there circles a vulture, as vividly coloured as those which form the ceiling decoration in the temple. The wide flat plain, shut in by the distant hills on all sides, entices one from the fortress on to its sparkling surface, though the tumbled rocks near the temple soon call one back to their breezy humps and shady nooks. The hundred surrounding hill-tops vie with one another in the advertisement of their merits, and one attains a summit but to covet a further prospect. Or, attracted by the two or three trees and the few bushes which grow in the plain over against the fortress, one walks to their welcoming shade; and there one may listen to the song of the sand-martins and to the strange, long-drawn note of the finches.

“A book of verses underneath the bough. . . .”