The next part of the day is the hardest of all, for we scramble up a mountain-side to gain a splendid view of gorges and valleys on one side and the flat plain spreading to the Nile on the other. The view is indescribable; from lemon-yellow to orange and saffron are the hills, with blue-grey shadows in their folds. Right opposite is one absolutely perpendicular, with immense rounded columns looking like giant organ pipes rising on its face. A fresh wind is blowing, and when we mount our donkeys, which have come round to meet us another way, and ride along a path a few feet wide, with no fence of any kind and a drop of some hundreds of feet on one side, we are devoutly thankful that the German girl and the stout lady went round the other and longer way by the valley!
Over the summit the donkeys are set free to get down the steep descent as best they may, and they are as sure-footed as goats, but we who follow find considerable difficulty as the loose stone and sand fall away in miniature avalanches from beneath our slipping feet and we get very hot. We are sheltered here from that fresh wind which is such a joy in Egypt, the sun is at its height, and we have done a good morning's work already after an early start. There, far below, looking like a doll's house, is the rest-house where we lunch, and beside it two of the men of the Mounted Police Camel Corps in khaki on their long-legged beasts.
Whew! That last bit was tough! I am glad to get a long drink and equally glad to go on after it to an excellent cold lunch which has been brought to meet us. Hard-boiled eggs, salad, cold meat and fruit! We try them all and then rest on the verandah looking at the towering orange cliffs which hem us in. They seem to hang right over that little temple near, to which we shall presently pay a visit. That is the temple of Der El Bahari and was built by Hatshepset, the greatest of Egyptian queens. Hatshepset was the daughter of one king and the wife of another, and after her husband's death she ruled for about sixteen years. She made expeditions to the Red Sea and acted in every way like a man. In the drawings of her on the temple wall she is represented as a man and is dressed in man's clothes. When her son-in-law, Thothmes iii., who had married her daughter, succeeded her, he scratched out her name wherever he found it and chiselled out the pictures of her. He had evidently had a bad time while she lived, but he must have been a small-minded and spiteful man to take that petty revenge after her death!
A SOLEMN GIRL-CHILD.
On the way home across the dhurra fields I see you stop riding suddenly and stare intently down at something on the ground. I think at first it is a scorpion you have found on the patch of light-coloured sand, but it is only an immense black beetle, with a strong horny skin and a horn or trumpet-shaped excrescence on the front part of its head. He belongs to the scarabæus, or dung-beetles, and big fellows they are; this one would just about cover the palm of your hand. The Egyptians called one of their gods Khepera, or the beetle, and believed him to be the creator of all things, so they used to make images of these beetles and put them in their temples; you saw a huge one, you remember, on a pedestal at Karnak, and any time you are in London you can see them at the British Museum. There were also tiny images of them made in stone and amethyst and porcelain, and almost anything else, and these were frequently buried in the tombs with the mummies. Sometimes they had the name of the person with whom they were buried inscribed on the back in hieroglyphic writing, or the name of a god. These scarabs, as they are called, are bought and worn in rings and ornaments by visitors. The natives quickly found out that there was a demand for them, and as they could not always find old genuine ones they set to work to make them! Hundreds of new ones are palmed off as old in this way on unsuspecting tourists.
"Scarab!"
A solemn girl-child clad in a rust-coloured garment has come up on seeing our donkeys halt and holds out a brilliant blue scarab for sale in a hot little hand. She nods violently, repeating, "Scarab! Verry old." "Found in tombs," says our donkey-boy gravely, willing to help her to take us in. He picks it up and pretends to examine it carefully, "Genuine anteekar," he pronounces. Laughing, we hand the "genuine antique" back to its owner, knowing that it is probably "genuine Birmingham," and then we canter after the rest of the party.