On reaching the desert we turned off northwards towards these hills, skirting the edge of the cultivated land until we should pick up the ancient road which leaves the Nile valley some twenty miles north of Luxor. After luncheon and a rest in the shade of the rustling tamarisks the ride was continued, and we did not again dismount until, in the mid-afternoon, the Coptic monastery which is situated behind the town of Qus, and which marks the beginning of the road to the Red Sea, was reached; and here the camp was pitched. The quiet five-hours’ ride of about twenty miles had sufficed to produce healthy appetites in the party, and, when the sun went down and the air turned cold, we were glad to attack an early dinner in the warmth of the mess-tent—one of the camel-boxes serving as a table, and the four saddles taking the place of chairs.

The next morning we set out soon after sunrise, and rode eastwards into the desert, which here stretched out before us in a blaze of sunlight. The road passed over the open gravel and sand in a series of parallel tracks beaten hard by the pads of generations of camels. Gebel el Gorn, “the Hill of the Horn,” was passed before noon; and, mounting a ridge, we saw the wide plain across which we were to travel, intersected by a dry river-bed marked for its whole length by low bushes. Unable to find shade, and these bushes being still some distance ahead, we lunched in the open sunlight at a spot where the wind, sweeping over the ridge, brought us all the coolness which we could desire.

1-3.Marks on a rock near Quft.
4-6.On a rock near Qus. Old kingdom drawings
7.On a stone at Lagêta.—Page [32].
8, 9.Inside Kasr el Benât.—Page [33].
10-12.On rocks opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page [34].
13, 14.Sinaitic inscription opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page [34].
15-20.Opposite Kasr el Benât.—Page [34].
21-24.Marks on rocks of Abu Kueh.—Page [34].
25-32.Middle kingdom inscriptions, and marks at Abu Kueh.—Page [34].
Pl. iv.

[(Large-size)]

Pl. iv.

We were now on the great mediæval highway from Qus to Kossair, by which the Arabian and Indian trade with Egypt was once conducted. The quarries of Hammamât lie on the main road to the sea. Nowadays the road starts from Keneh; in ancient times it started from Koptos, now called Quft, about ten miles south of Keneh; and in mediæval days it started from Qus, about ten miles south of Quft again. The roads from these different places join at the little oasis of Lagêta, which lies some four-and-twenty miles back from the Nile valley.

Riding into Lagêta in mid-afternoon the scene was one of great charm. The flat desert stretched around us in a haze of heat. In the far distance ahead the mountains of Hammamât could be seen, blue, misty, and indistinct. The little oasis, with its isolated groups of tamarisks, its four or five tall palms, its few acacias, and its one little crop of corn, formed a welcome patch of green amidst the barren wilderness; and the eyes, aching from the glare around, turned with gratitude towards the soft shadows of the trees. A large, and probably ancient, well of brackish water forms the nucleus around which the few poor huts cluster; and two or three shadufs, or water-hoists, are to be seen here and there. A ruined, many-domed building which may have been a caravanserai, or perhaps a Coptic monastery, stands picturesquely under a spreading acacia; and near it we found the fragment of a Greek inscription in which, like a light emerging momentarily from the darkness of the past, the name of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius was to be seen. The few villagers idly watched us as we dismounted and walked through the settlement, too bathed in the languor of their monotonous life to bother to do more than greet with mild interest those of our camelmen whom they knew; and while we sat under the tamarisks to drink our tea, the only living thing which took any stock of us and our doings was a small green willow-wren in search of a crumb of food.

The camp was pitched to the east of the oasis, and at dawn we continued our way. The temperature was not more than 38° Fahrenheit when the sun rose, and we were constrained to break into a hard trot in order to keep warm. Two desert martins circled about us as we went, now passing under the camels’ necks, and now whirling overhead; while more than once we put up a few cream-coloured coursers, who went off with a whirr into the space around. After a couple of hours’ riding over the open, hard-surfaced desert, we topped a low ridge and came into view of a ruined Roman station, called in ancient times the Hydreuma, and now known as Kasr el Benât, “the Castle of the Maidens.” The building stands in a level plain around which the low hills rise, and to the east the distant Hammamât mountains form a dark background. From the outside one sees a well-made rectangular wall, and entering the doorway on the north side one passes into an enclosure surrounded by a series of small chambers, the roofs of which have now fallen in. In these little rooms the weary Roman officers and the caravan masters rested themselves as they passed to and fro between the quarries and the Nile; and in this courtyard, when haply the nights were warm, they sang their songs to the stars and dreamed their dreams of Rome. The building is so little ruined that one may picture it as it then was without any difficulty; and such is the kindness of Time that one peoples the place with great men and good, intent on their work and happy in their exile, rather than with that riff-raff which so often found its way to these outlying posts.

Across the plain, opposite the entrance to the Hydreuma, there is a large isolated rock with cliff-like sides, upon which one finds all manner of inscriptions and rough drawings. Here there are two Sinaitic inscriptions of rare value and several curious signs in an unknown script, while Ababdeh marks and Arabic letters are conspicuous.