It was late when we arrived so that there was only time to take a stroll through the bazaars which contained nothing of special importance.
Assouan is a town of about four thousand inhabitants, and occupies the site of the ancient Sy-ene. At certain seasons it presents many curious features as the trade from Nubia centres there and the product of the Soudan and Central Africa which has been sent by camels around the cataract is reloaded here. Ostrich feathers, ivory, gum arabic, lion and leopard skins and the like are the chief articles from those countries, and may sometimes be seen at Assouan in considerable quantities.
In front of Assouan and in the middle of the river is Elephantine’ Island, so named probably, because no elephant was ever seen there. We went there in a small boat rather rickety and leaky in its character, and which stuck in the mud at twenty feet or more from the land. The island has been famous through many hundred years, and once contained a city of considerable importance. We visited the ruins of this city and also of a temple which was destroyed about fifty years ago to furnish stone for the construction of some modern buildings in Assouan.
The island has a fertile appearance and is kept in a luxuriant condition by several sakkiehs which are worked not by men as on the lower Nile but by oxen. A pair of oxen turn a wheel by which a quantity of buckets are made to lift water from the
river. We visited one of these sakkiehs, but the driver did not greet us kindly as his team took fright at our coming and nearly wrecked the machine before he could stop and pacify them.
The inhabitants of the island are all Nubians, and as we landed they flocked down to meet us. They offered for sale old coins, agates, spears, arrows, and Nubian dresses, but they did not drive a lively trade. The Nubian dress is not an extensive affair; one of the passengers bought one and put it in his coat pocket, and several were offered to me that weighed only a few ounces each. They were the costumes of ladies, not of men, and consisted of a fringe of strips of leather like shoe strings attached to a strap. This strap was fastened around the loins, and the strings hanging down constituted the dress.