I am uncertain whether Gyrshe, or the more northern Dandour, represents the ancient Tutzis. The spot upon which the temple just described stands, is called by the natives Djorn Hosseyn (جُرن حسين).
From Gyrshe, northward, the shore is very narrow; we rode over the rocky mountain, which is close to the river, and, at the end of six hours from Dakke, alighted at Merye (مريه), where we slept. There are only a few families in the western Merye; but the western Gyrshe is well inhabited.
March 28th. After a ride of one hour and a half, along the narrow shore, we came to Wady Gharby Dandour, or the western Dandour (غربي دندور), where I was surprised to meet with another ruin of a temple, as the shore is so narrow, that no city of any consequence could have been situated here. The shore, from the foot of the rocky hills to the banks of the river, is only thirty paces in breadth.
Before this temple stands a small propylon, or gateway, with a high projecting cornice, resembling that at Tintyra.
Behind the propylon is the pronaos, with two columns in front, similar to those of the temple of Dakke. The pronaos is seven paces in length. Next follows the cella, and beyond that, the adytum; there are a few sculptures on the walls of the adytum; on those of the pronaos I observed lotus plants in flower, as at Dakke, with persons making offerings to them. On the exterior wall of the temple are figures in the style of those at Tintyra; I particularly remarked a fine figure of Horus, with a finger on his lip. This temple is, in general, extremely well built, and the sculptures are of the best times; though I conceive it to be posterior in date to the temple at Philæ, from a visible decline both in the architecture and sculpture. In front of the propylon, towards the river, is a stone inclosure, thirty-five paces in length, by fifteen in breadth; the stones with which it is constructed are in their rough state on the outside, but smoothly cut on the interior. The wall fronting the river is fifteen feet in height, and describes a slight curve. The floor of this inclosure, now covered with stones and ruins, is considerably below the level on which the propylon and the temple are built. Had it been a place for sacred processions, or for sepulture? I have seen nothing like it in any Egyptian temple; the stones and rubbish in its area, render it probable that it had originally a roof. In the rock, just behind the temple, a grotto is excavated.
In two hours, we came to Merowau (مرواو); the shore is no where more than fifty yards in breadth; but is well cultivated. Merowau belongs to Wady Gharby Dandour. Four hours and a half, Abou Hor. In the rock, a little to the south of this place, a reservoir has been cut, with an outlet, through which the water descends into a lower and smaller basin; it is difficult to conceive for what purpose they were intended, being so near the river. There are many jetties or piers in the river, which prove how anxious the ancient inhabitants had been to preserve and increase the portion of cultivable soil in this part. Here are some rocky islands. In the sides of the western hills adjoining Merowau and Abou Hor, are several small quarries, and the foundations of ancient stone buildings. Like their ancestors, the Nubians of the present day build their huts of stone, upon the declivity of the hills, wherever the shore is very narrow, that they may not encroach upon the cultivable ground. Where the plain is broad their dwellings stand in the midst of it, and are formed of mud only. Date trees, and the various species of acacia, grow all along the shore; the latter produces, in the spring, a bitter fruit, in shape like that of the Karoub, or locust tree; this the Arabs gather and sell at Assouan to the merchants of Egypt, who use it in tanning leather; it is called Garad (قَرَظ). Large quantities of it, of a superior quality, grow in the neighbourhood of Siout, and have rendered the tanneries of that place highly celebrated.
After a slow ride of six hours we reached Kalabshe, the largest village on the west bank of the river between Assouan and Derr. At the foot of the hill, in the midst of the village, and reaching down to the river, is the ruin of a very large temple. The front of the portico consists of a large propylon of great beauty and simplicity, with a gate in the centre, by which the portico is entered; there had been a colonnade along the side wall of the latter, but one column only now remains, three feet three inches in diameter; the fragments of the others are lying in the area. On each side of the portico, and communicating with it, is a narrow, dark passage, with a door opening into the area which surrounds the temple, opposite a large gateway formed in the wall of the outer or general inclosure. The front of the pronaos is decorated with four beautiful columns, and two pilasters; the columns are united by a wall rising to half their height, similar to what is seen at Meharraka, Dakke, Dandour, Kardassy, and Debot, a mode of construction belonging apparently to the times in which the temples at Tintyra and Philæ were built. The roof of the pronaos has fallen in, and now covers the floor; of the columns which supported it, two only remain. There are no sculptures of any kind, either on the propylon, or in the pronaos, except on the back wall of the latter, or rather on the front wall of the cella, where the two-headed Briareus, under the hand of the victor, and protected by Osiris, is the most conspicuous.
The cella is fifteen paces in length, by nine in breadth, and projects several feet into the pronaos, thus forming, as it were, an insulated chamber in the midst of the temple, a mode of construction which I observed at Dakke, and afterwards at Philæ: two low columns stand within the cella. In the adytum are the remains of columns, lying on the ground, the only instance of the kind I have seen in any Egyptian temple: in its walls are some low dark recesses, and windows or loop-holes like those in the temple at Tintyra: its roof is formed of single blocks of stone reaching the whole breadth, and upwards of three feet in thickness. There is a chamber behind the adytum, as at Dakke, and communicating with it by two doors; the roof has fallen in, but it may be seen that this chamber was lower than the adytum, and had a chamber over it. In the walls of this chamber are several cells, or recesses, each of which forms two small apartments, one behind the other, divided by a narrow entrance, and just sufficiently large to hold one person; they are closed in front by a stone, which may be removed at pleasure; and were, perhaps, prisons for refractory priests, or places of probation for those who aspired to the priesthood; the persons who were placed in them may be literally said to have been shut up in the wall, as there is not the slightest appearance of any recess being there, when the stones which close the outer entrance are in their places. I observed a hollow stone in the interior of one of them, but I am not certain whether it was a sarcophagus or not.