Ward, John: Pyramids and progress: sketches from Egypt (London, 1900)

PYRAMIDS AND PROGRESS.

More temple
ruins and then Ko-
rosko. There is a
steep mountain here,
and it is the custom,
for travellers to as-
cend it to see the
sunrise. It is ra-
ther hard work, but
had to be done. Up-
ai four, and, toiling

up à steep, shingly path, after an hour's climbing the rugged summit is reached.
We are now in a vast wilderness of great, bleak, rugged, rocky masses, and
when the sun suddenly blazes up from behind the eastern cliffs the whole
region seems red-hot from a recent volcanic catastrophe. Black, brown, purple,
and yellow rocks are all around. The rocks here are red sandstone, but
covered with volcanic outbursts. There seems no limit to the mountain ranges-
eastward.

To the west extends the desert, with the glistening Nile winding through-
it, bordered with its narrow strip of green verdure and fringe of date palms,
then suddenly disappearing altogether round a great corner of rock, and seeming
to lose itself m the limitless Libyan Desert. There is a great bend in the Nile
at this point. It forms three parts of a circle, and Korosko was the starting-
point of the caravan, which struck across the chord of the arc to Abu Hamed.
Since the Dervish invasion the caravans have ceased altogether. The celebrated
Murat Wells are half-way
across, and was held by a
strong outpost of Egyptian
soldiers. From the top of
the mountain we could see
the narrow defile, with the
path threading it marked out
by a white line—the bones
of camels and other animals
that had died beside the
caravan track during a long
period of ages.

On a neighbouring height
was a square blockhouse, a

KOROSKO: THE LOOK-OUT TOWER.