DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0037
21
CHAPTER III.
STATE OF THE COUNTRY ABOVE THE CATARACTS.
X WO days after we reached Es Souan, we set out on a visit to
Elfi Bey, who was above the Cataracts, and who had sent his Haz-
nadar, or Treasurer, to examine who AVe were, observe our force;
and, if friends, to invite us to his camp at Schiment Elwah. It
was a four hours ride, and we found him encamped in the same
spot which the advanced bodies of the French reached in the
first year of their invasion. For the first four miles the road,
which had every appearance of being frequented from the earliest
antiquity, was chiefly in a South-westerly direction, along a wide
valley among low rocks of granite, and which was intersected in its
length by a broad and solid wall of bricks baked in the sun, which
in many places was in very good preservation. This is the " Cas-
tra latere Arabia?," mentioned by Pliny. We continued along
it, after it had taken a sharp turn to the East, when the mountains
around us became higher and more formidable. On entering a
plain which runs nearly North and South, the wall takes a South-
erly direction towards the river and the island of Philae, which,
with its temples and the high mountains on each side and behind,
bounded a very grand view. We crossed this plain eastwards, and
entered upon a chain of granite mountains steep and craggy for
about seven miles, sometimes crossing the beds of torrents, where
the winter rains could produce a few solitary weeds, which formed
the only vegetation we saw till we reached a rapid and rugged
descent towards the bank of the river, near the Beys' camp.
These
CHAPTER III.
STATE OF THE COUNTRY ABOVE THE CATARACTS.
X WO days after we reached Es Souan, we set out on a visit to
Elfi Bey, who was above the Cataracts, and who had sent his Haz-
nadar, or Treasurer, to examine who AVe were, observe our force;
and, if friends, to invite us to his camp at Schiment Elwah. It
was a four hours ride, and we found him encamped in the same
spot which the advanced bodies of the French reached in the
first year of their invasion. For the first four miles the road,
which had every appearance of being frequented from the earliest
antiquity, was chiefly in a South-westerly direction, along a wide
valley among low rocks of granite, and which was intersected in its
length by a broad and solid wall of bricks baked in the sun, which
in many places was in very good preservation. This is the " Cas-
tra latere Arabia?," mentioned by Pliny. We continued along
it, after it had taken a sharp turn to the East, when the mountains
around us became higher and more formidable. On entering a
plain which runs nearly North and South, the wall takes a South-
erly direction towards the river and the island of Philae, which,
with its temples and the high mountains on each side and behind,
bounded a very grand view. We crossed this plain eastwards, and
entered upon a chain of granite mountains steep and craggy for
about seven miles, sometimes crossing the beds of torrents, where
the winter rains could produce a few solitary weeds, which formed
the only vegetation we saw till we reached a rapid and rugged
descent towards the bank of the river, near the Beys' camp.
These