trees of an untrodden forest; here we joined half a dozen boats with eight or ten men in each, and they all gathered round a fire, sipped coffee, smoked, and lay down quietly to sleep; there we met the dashing, roaring boys of the West, ripe for fun, frolic, or fight. The race of men "half horse, half alligator, and t'other half steamboat," had not yet passed away, and, whenever two boats met, these restless rovers must "do something;" play cards, pitch pennies, fight cocks, set fire to a house, or have a row of some description. Indeed, it always involved a long train of interesting reflections, to compare the stillness and quiet of a journey on this oldest of rivers with the moving castles and the splashing of paddle-wheels on the great rivers of the New World.

At daylight I had mounted the bank, and was groping among the ruins of the temple. The portico fronting the river is a noble ruin, nearly a hundred feet in length, with three rows of columns, five in each row, thirty feet high, The principal figure

and ten feet in diameter at the base.

on the walls is Osiris, with a crocodile head, and the sacred tau in his hand. The Ombites were distinguished for their worship of the crocodile, and this noble temple was dedicated to that bestial god: among the ruins are still to be seen the wall on which the sacred animal was led in religious procession, and the tank in which he was bathed.

Towards noon we were approaching Hadjar Silsily, or the Rock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the river, bounded on each side by ranges of sandstone mountains. On the eastern side are ancient quarries of great extent, with the same appearance of freshness as at Assouan. Nothing is known of the history of these quarries; but they seem to have furnished material enough for all the cities on the Nile, as well as the temples and monuments that adorned them. Whole mountains have been cut away; and while the solitary traveller walks among these deserted work

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shops, and looks at the smooth sides of the mountains, and the fragments of unfinished work around him, he feels a respect for the people who have passed away greater than when standing among the ruins of their mighty temples; for here he has only the evidences of their gigantic industry, without being reminded of the gross and disgusting purposes to which that industry was prostituted. The roads worn in the stone by the ancient carriage-wheels are still to be seen, and somewhere among these extensive quarries travellers have found an unfinished sphinx. I remember one place where there was an irregular range of unfinished doors, which might well have been taken for the work of beginners, practising under the eyes of their masters. Paul took a philosophic and familiar view of them, and said that it seemed as if, while the men were at work, the boys playing around had taken up the tools, and amused themselves by cutting these doors.

On the opposite side, too, are quarries, and several ranges of tombs, looking out on the river, excavated in the solid rock, with pillars in front, and images of deities in the recesses for the altars. I remember a beautiful chamber overhanging the river like a balcony. It had been part of a temple, or perhaps a tomb. We thought of stopping there to dine, but our boat had gone ahead, and our want of provisions was somewhat of an impediment.

At about four o'clock we saw at a distance the minaret of Edfou. There was no wind, the men were gently pulling at the oars, and I took one myself, much to the uneasiness of the rais, who thought I was dissatisfied. Sloth forms so prominent a feature in the composition of the Orientals, and quiet is so material an item in their ideas of enjoyment, that they cannot conceive why a man should walk when he can stand, why he should stand when he can sit, or, in short, why he should do anything when he can sit still and do nothing.

It was dark before we arrived at Edfou. I mean it was that period of time when, by Nature's laws, it should be dark; that is, the day had ended, the sun had set with that rich and burning lustre which attends his departing glories nowhere but in Egypt, and the moon was shedding her pale light over the valley of the Nile. But it was a moon that lighted up all nature with a paler, purer, and more lovely light; a moon that would have told secrets; a moon—a moon-in short, a moon whose light enabled one to walk over fields without stumbling, and this was, at the moment, the principal consideration with me.

Edfou lies about a mile from the bank of the river, and, taking Paul and one of the Arabs with me, I set off to view the temple by moonlight. The town, as usual, contained mud houses, many of them in ruins, a mosque, a bath, bazars, the usual apology for a palace, and more than the usual quantity of ferocious dogs; and at one corner of this miserable place stands one of the magnificent temples of the Nile. The propylon, its lofty proportions enlarged by the light of the moon, was the most grand and imposing portal I saw in Egypt. From a base of nearly one hundred feet in length and thirty in breadth, it rises on each side the gate, in the form of a truncated pyramid, to the height of a hundred feet, gradually narrowing, till at the top it measures seventy-five feet in length and eighteen in breadth. Judge, then, what was the temple to which this formed merely the entrance; and this was far from being one of the large temples of Egypt. It measured, however, four hundred and forty feet in length and two hundred and twenty in breadth, about equal to the whole space occupied by St. Paul's churchyard. Its dromos, pronaos, columns, and capitals all correspond, and enclosing it is a high wall, still in a state of perfect preservation. I walked round it twice, and, by means of the wall erected to exclude the unhallowed gaze of the stranger, I looked down upon the interior of the tem