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

THE SECOND CATARACT. 285

up here and there from the desert, on both sides, like the
pieces on a chess-board. They are for the most part conical;
but they are not extinct craters, such as are the volcanic
cones of Korosko and Dakkeh. Seeing how they
all rose to about the same height and were alike capped
with that mysterious coucJie of shining black stones, the
writer could not help fancying that, like the isolated Rocher
de Corneille and Rocher de St. Michael at Puy, they might
be but fragments of a rocky crust, rent and swept away at
some infinitely remote period of the world's history, and
that the level of their present summits might represent
perhaps the ancient level of the plain.

As regards form, they are weird enough for the wildest
geological theories. All taper more or less toward the top.
One is four-sided, like a pyramid; another, in shape a
truncated cone, looks as if crowned with a pagoda summer-
house; a third seems to be surmounted by a mosque and
cupola; a fourth is scooped out in tiers of arches; a fifth is
crowned, apparently, with a cairn of piled stones; and so
on, with variations as endless as they are fantastic. A
geologist might perhaps account for these caprices by show-
ing how fire and earthquake and deluge had here succeeded

rock a few paces north of the smaller temple at Abou Simbel. This
stela, which is one of the most striking and elaborate there, repre-
sents an Egyptian gateway surmounted by the winged globe, and
shows Rameses II enthroned and receiving the homage of a certain
prince whose name, as translated by Kosellini, is Rameses-Neniscti-
Habai. The inscription, which is in sixteen columns and perfectly
preserved, records the titles and praises of the king, and states how
"he had made a monumental abode for Horus, his father, Lord of
Ha'm, excavating in the bowels of the Rock of Ila'm to make him a
habitation of many ages." We know nothing of the Hock of Ha'm
(rendered Sciam by Kosellini), but it should no doubt be sought some-
where between Abou Simbel and Wady.Halfeh. " Qual sito pre-
cisamente dinotisi in questo nome di Sciam, io non saprei nel presente
stato delle cose determinare; credo peraltro secondo varie loughi
delle iscrizioni che lo ricordano, cbe fosse situato Bull' una o l'altra
sponda del Nilo, nel paese compreso tra Wadi-halfa e Ibsainbul, o
poco oltre. E qui dovrebbe trovarsi il nominato speco di Horns, fino
al presente occulto a noi."—Kosellini Letterpress to " Monumenti
Storici," vol. iii, part ii, p. 184. It would hence appear that the Rock
of Ha'm is mentioned in other inscriptions.

The distance between Abou Simbel and Wady Halfeh is only forty
miles, and the likely places along the banks are but few. Would
not the discovery of this lost temple be an enterprise worthier the
ambition of tourists, than the extermination of such few crocodiles
as yet linger north of the second contract?