Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

170 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.

camels; all with gay worsted tassels on their heads and
rugs flung over their high wooden saddles, by way of
housings. The gentlemen of the Fostat had ridden away
hours ago, cross-legged and serene; and we had witnessed
their demeanor with mingled admiration and envy. Now,
modestly conscious of our own daring, we prepared to do
likewise. It was a solemn moment when, having chosen
our beasts, we prepared to encounter the unknown perils
of the desert. What wonder if the happy couple exchanged
an affecting farewell at parting?

We mounted and rode away; two imps of darkness fol-
lowing at the heels of our camels and Salame performing
the part of body-guard. Thus attended, we found our-
selvelves pitched, swung and rolled along at a pace that
carried us rapidly up the slope, past a suburb full of cafes
and grinning dancing-girls and out into the desert. Our
way for the first half-mile or so lay among tombs. A
great Mohammedan necropolis, part ancient, part modern,
lies behind Assuan and covers more ground than the town
itself. Some scores of tiny mosques, each topped by its
little cupola and all more or less dilapidated, stand hero
amid a wilderness of scattered tombstones. Some are
isolated; some grouped picturesquely together. Each
covers, or is supposed to cover, the grave of a Moslem
santon; but some are mere commemorative chapels dedi-
cated to saints and martyrs elsewhere buried. Of simple
headstones defaced, shattered, overturned, propped back
to back on cairns of loose stones, or piled in broken and
dishonored heaps, there must be many hundreds. They
are for the most part rounded at the top like ancient
Egyptian stelaa and bear elaborately carved inscriptions,
some of which are in the Oufic character and more than a
thousand years old. Seen when the sun is bending west-
ward and the shadows are lengthening, there is something
curiously melancholy and picturesque about this city of the
dead in the dead desert.

Leaving the tombs, we now strike off toward the left,
bound for the obelisk in the quarry, which is the stock
sight of the place. The horizon beyond Assuan is bounded
on all sides by rocky heights, bold and picturesque in
form, yet scarcely lofty enough to deserve the name of
mountains. The sandy bottom under our camel's feet is
strewn with small pebbles and tolerably firm. Clustered