CHAPTER XLVIII—CAMEL RIDING.—ADVENTURES AMONG THE NUBIANS.
How they made the Royal Coffins—Splitting Blocks of Stones with Wooden Wedges—An Ingenious Device—A Ride on a Camel—A Beast indulging in Familiarities—Lunching on Trowsers—Mounting in the Saddle—Curious Sensation—An Interesting Brute—A Camel Solo—Sitting in a Dish—Camel Riding in a Gymnastic Point of View—Secondary Effects—Nubian Ferry-Boats—P. T. and his Paint-Pot—Labors of an Enthusiastic American—Mr. Tucker on his Travels—“A Human Donkey”—Visiting the Cataract—Paying Toll to a Sheik—The Professor and his Camel—Crocodiles of the Nile—Starting back to Cairo.
WE arranged to go around the cataract and visit the Island of Philæ the day after our arrival at Assouan. On our way we took in the granite quarries, where for thousands of years blocks of stone were taken out for various building purposes and for making those enormous sarcophagi used in so many Egyptian tombs. The stone is of the red character known as syenite and admits of a high polish. In one of the quarries there is an obelisk not quite detached, which would have been ninety-five feet high and eleven feet broad at the base. Why it was abandoned and under what king it was begun are not known.
The quarries are interesting from the fact that they show the ancient method of removing stone. Holes were cut to receive wooden wedges, which were driven firmly in and then wet with | water until their swelling broke away the stone by the equal and powerful pressure it exerted. The same plan is still in use in, some parts of India; the quarries at Jerusalem whence was, taken the stone for building Solomon’s temple show similar marks of the wedge.
We were offered the choice of camels or donkeys for the ride to Philæ and back, and for the novelty of the thing I selected a camel.
