The character of the landscape changes considerably here. The nummulite limestone hills, with their pretty crag and cliff drawing, give place to the sandstone rocks. Ancient quarries with inscriptions abound, and had we not been making for the far-famed quarries of Silsileh, we might have felt inclined to stop and examine some.
We reached our destination in the early afternoon, and moored on the west bank of the river. Gebel Silsileh (the Mountain of the Chain) is so called on account of a tradition that ancient kings here blocked the river with a chain stretched across it from the cliffs on either side. The Nile contracts to within a couple of hundred yards, and the rocks rise, in most places, sheer out of the water. That a more natural barrier than this chain once blocked the river is evident, and also that it held up the waters in Lower Nubia sufficiently to force a second arm of the river to flow along the low-lying land between the first cataract, and on the western side of Assuan. A great disruption of the barrier is said to have taken place towards the end of the Hyksos period, when until then it was probably a rushing cataract. But in prehistoric times, when the course of the Nile was completely blocked at this gorge, the river must have flowed through other channels for a hundred miles or more.
We fixed on a tomb recess, cut out of a rock facing north, as our living-room, and put off deciding where we should sleep till we found which place might be the coolest after the sun had gone down. Selim improvised a kitchen in a disused tomb nearer the edge of the river. These arrangements being completed, we visited the numerous objects of interest on our side of the Nile.
The rock chapel, known as the Speos of Haremheb, lies furthest north, and it contains some very beautiful late eighteenth dynasty work. A relief of the young king taking the divine milk at the breast of a goddess can be compared in beauty with the similar subject in the Seti temple at Abydos. The workmanship appearing coarser here is owing to the sandstone not having the marble-like surface of the nummulite limestone in the latter temple. The relief of King Haremheb returning in triumph from Cush (generally supposed to be the district between the first two cataracts, which we now know as Nubia) is also very beautiful, and reminds one strongly of some of the Der el-Bahri work. The Speos itself is very interesting, being a form of shrine of a plan different to any I had so far seen. It is a long narrow chamber parallel with the rock-face, and entered by five doorways which are separated from each other by four square pillars hewn out of the rock. In the centre of the back wall is an entrance to an inner chamber also covered with reliefs, except the end which faces the doorway where damaged statues of the Pharaoh and of six gods occupy each a recess.
For the best part of half a mile we scrambled over the rocks and through disused quarries, examining a number of little shrines, tomb recesses and stele, all of which are more or less ornamented with reliefs while some show traces of colour.
Three imposing chapels hewn out of the solid rock are at the south end of the quarries. These are votive shrines to Seti I., Rameses II., and to the son of the latter, Merenptah—proscenium-shaped alcoves supported by columns of the clustered papyrus type, and surmounted with bold cornices. A rank growth of scrub on the strip of land between the shrines and the river relieved the amber hues of the sandstone, and some touches of pure colour in the shrines themselves helped to make this a promising subject for a picture.
Our camp was about midway between the Speos and these votive shrines. Selim was preparing our dinner when we returned, and during these odd moments we enjoyed a swim in the Nile. As usual we cut our evenings short by retiring early to bed, and we began our days with the first glimmer of light.
We spent four delightful days here, Weigall collecting Egyptological facts, and I increasing my number of drawings. We should have stayed here longer; but how this sojourn, as well as the remainder of our expedition, came to an end, will form the subject of another chapter.